Michael Farrell wrote:
Well, my initial question was: does publicizing a freeware tool break site rules?
And your answer boils down to: yes, it should.
Your initial question was "If so, don't you think the rule ought to be changed to allow the existence of freeware tools to be publicized?". It is possible that I misinterpreted your question. I thought you meant "to inform people of the existence of the tool", but if you really meant "to promote the existence of the tool", then I guess that would colour what I had said in this thread, wouldn't it?
I must admit that I had not thought through how I was going to do this in languages I can't understand. My solution, after you raised the point, was to have volunteers post on my behalf, but I am now going to have to think of something else.
When you posted that plan to use volunteers to post on your behalf, I was going to comment on it, but I deleted my comment because it went along the lines "doing dishonest things through honest means" and all that, and I didn't want yet another of my posts removed by a moderator.
Because that's what I think of the idea. It's compliance with the letter of the rules while sidestepping the spirit. Look at it like this: the rules say "you can only post if you can discuss", so your plan is to rig a system where people discuss on your behalf. Essentially, it is a sophisticated form of sockpuppetry.
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Now, having said all that, I still think you can get away with it
despite what the moderators have said here, if you do it smartly. One way to do it smartly would be to put a notice on your web site encouraging users to mention the tool on forums and to initiate discussions about it. Because then you're not asking specific people to do something specific -- you're simply doing what all developers do, namely ask users to contribute to the product in a non-monetary way. The main thing is that you should not be seen to (or more bluntly: you should not) orchestrate that which would normally be informal, uncoordinated viral marketing.
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Having said all this, I still think my notice board idea is a great idea and should be followed up.
[Edited at 2008-10-10 14:28]
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