A number of brand new accounts have popped up shilling their paid for applications.
Is this within the rules? Is the community happy with this? Could mods clarify this in the rules?
Either allowing advertising, or banning it entirely.
my point is - there is a difference between an open source homegrown project that might be useful, vs closed source paid for projects from brand new accounts
some replies are misunderstanding, somehow.
I am against
brand new accounts who:
- first post is a brand new project
- project is closed source
- project will cost money
- is asking for free testing
- the post is literally an advertisement
I think new accounts that show up to shil their app should be banned. They’re not actively participating in the community, it’s just spam. There’s been a huge uptick recently.
I think new accounts that show up to shil their app should be banned.
What if the new account user, who is working on a product that integrates with what the vast majority of selfhosters run, just found Lemmy? Lemmy selfhosted doesn’t exactly share the same popularity as say Reddit. It doesn’t just roll off the tongue. I had to vigorously try to find Lemmy before I got here.
If all they have to contribute is self promotion I think they should be banned.
They should hang out a while first and not have only posts promoting their software, and not only have comments in those threads.
The lemmy attitude is very anti commercialization, and they don’t know any better. That doesn’t mean we should allow it.
They should hang out a while first and not have only posts promoting their software, and not only have comments in those threads.
I tend to agree.
The lemmy attitude is very anti commercialization
The lemmy attitude is like chaff in the wind.
That sounds like you’re describing someone who is only making a lemmy account because they see potential customers they want to advertise to.
That’s the exact reason I don’t want someone to make a lemmy account.
You can start with timed bans, so they get the point
are they charging? is it open source?
They aren’t charging you. The OP/DEV in question is willing to give their product away. A product that integrates with your opensource *arr stack. All he wanted to know is, 'Would you be interested in beta testing it?"
I mean, there was recently a new user here who intro’d himself as a Windows selfhoster. He was pretty much welcomed with open arms, with a few snarky remarks, but welcomed. How much more closed source could you get than Microsoft Windows? What’s is the actual difference here?
This is the selfhosted community. Not the Free, Open Source community.
I think you can infer the rules from the name here. The stuff you post must be related to software you can host on your own hardware. It need not be free, nor open source.
Now your point about spam from brand new accounts that are literally just ads on the other hand is valid.
I don’t want this community, or any community on Lemmy for that matter, to become a lucrative platform for advertisers. If someone wants to promote their own product that they made, they should have some credibility as a real person beforehand. Not a brand-new account trying to sell a subscription to an app that’s essentially still in open beta.
Partial agreement. My personal stance - it’s a bit like porn. Hard to define but I know it when I see it.
- first post (ever, anywhere on Lemmy) is an adverting pitch for their brand new project - FAIL
- zero effort LLM generated blurb, with no human steering - FAIL
- the post is literally an advertisement and adds nothing else - FAIL
- the poster does a post and run - FAIL
- the post is bot-shaped - FAIL
- poster does not / cannot engage with community - FAIL
The whole thing about paid vs free etc…of course, I prefer FOSS and AGPL, but I don’t begrudge anyone trying to recoup costs or keep their source code to themselves. Someone else’s software licence shouldn’t be a purity test IMESHO
As for the whole AI / non-AI thing…too much of that comes off as performative. I think we can all spot slop, just like we can all spot email spam. In 2026, I assume you used AI to help…and you can assume (if I am interested in your project) I will use AI to spelunk your code base (initially) for borks, then dive particulars.
if they are obviously bot or dedicated marketing accounts, then no I dont think they should be here.
However, I’m not 100% opposed to closed source/paid software being discussed here, but it should clearly marked as such, with a flair that people can filter out if they so choose.
If someone posts asking about whether there are any alternatives to a paid closed source program, that’s a totally valid conversation, and if it turns out there is no FOSS alternative, then we have to talk about paid closed alternatives, find the one that offers the best value and vet for trustworthiness.
The rules say nothing about selling a paid service, but maybe “no spam” should be updated with some clarity on self promotion, so perhaps you can self promote your FOSS service with the appropriate flair, but if you are selling a paid closed service it shouldn’t be allowed?
discussing a product is not the same as someone literally advertising their paid for product.
are you ok with advertising on this community?
if they are obviously bot or dedicated marketing accounts, then no I dont think they should be here.
I would like the rules to make clear what is acceptable.
self promotion of a FOSS project is acceptable in my opinion, as long as it is clearly titled as self promotion and isn’t done in a spamming way (such as carpet bombing multiple communities with bot posts). I’d also say that donation-seeking in those posts should be kept to the creators own web pages, not in the posts themselves too.
there is a pretty easy line to draw for what is blatant advertising and what is genuine discussion of a paid service. that’s not that hard to moderate, especially when accounts are new, and carpet bombing the same posts to multiple communities, that is clearly spam.
While I’m fine with people wanting to self-host stuff with closed software (this includes Windows and Plex, btw), I personally am not interested in having ads of any kind in the community.
To me self hosting is about controlling your data. While I wouldn’t use proprietary software myself for this, I just want to make it clear that I’m fine with people asking for help it advice about it. Just not ads, of any kind.
Ban advertising!
Should not be allowed.
No advertisement is ever appropriate, period. Advertisements should be banned. I don’t mind a ‘look what I made’ post, but when the post designed to convince me to give you money, I see an immediate conflict of interest that suggests advertisement rather than information. It’s hard to draw that line without knowing intention, so I don’t think those posts should be disallowed, but if your post asks me to click a link to a product so I can give you my money, I’m downvoting.
Ban 'em
I think people should have to lurk and contribute a little before just advertising.
I don’t think we should promote closed-source apps on here at all, at least not in it’s own post. For exampke, many people here talk about Symfonium when mentioning their music client that they use to listen to their selfhosted music, and that app is not FOSS at all.
If an app is mostly open with some proprietary bits, then we can discuss. I’m perfectly fine with fully OSS apps that aren’t free, as the devs do deserve to be paid. As gnu.org states, Free means “Freedom” not “Free beer.” While I typically only use “free beer” type FOSS apps, I do occasionally donate to ones I love/use often, but we know that devs struggle to keep their projects afloat.
I think they should be allowed. However, I wouldn’t even date to touch them with a stick from afar in VR.
Plex was the last proprietary thing I ever selfhosted and it’s been a perfect reminder.
If it’s software that is self hosted and might be useful, I’m okay with it. We have the vote up/down to sort the wheat from the chaff. And worse case the comments can rip it apart and offer alteratives.
If it’s foss or whatever abso-fucking-lutely. I love reading about new things. I first learned of Orca Slicer in a post about Bambu Slicer on 3d printing community. I’m also all for supporting solo devs. I feel that closed source is a cromulent option that has been abused by corporations. But hey, like this is just, like my opinion dude!
The initial post might be spam, but it’s the discussion where the meat and potatoes live. Now, reposts of the same product (unless it’s to show off major new features like once a year) I do draw the line at.
Full transparency, I’m not super active in this community, but I love reading the stuff here.
It shouldn’t be.
Why? Nothing about self-hosted is FOSS-only. There’s a big overlap, to be sure, but this knee-jerk reaction to paid and closed-source apps doesn’t help anyone.
Why? Nothing about self-hosted is FOSS-only. There’s a big overlap, to be sure, but this knee-jerk reaction to paid and closed-source apps doesn’t help anyone.
Oh thank you! A reasonable, sane, voice.
ban them
do not allow for-profit advertising, and do not allow spam
spam is already against rule 2
