I think that some basic rules should apply in every situation:

1. Does the answer/comment legitimately provide a solution to the question where the response happens to include a product the user is affiliated with? The developer of a tool is going to know the most about it and be able to say whether it is relevant or not. Whether it's a paid product or not should be irrelevant(1).
2. However, the key here is "legitimately provide a solution". Where the answer is clearly just promotional and not helpful at all then it should be marked as spam. In all likelihood, the answer will have been voted down as well.
3. Affiliation should be disclosed.

(1) E.g. is there a distinction between a completely commercial product and an open source product that has commercial options? Is this something you want to be considering? Probably not - it shouldn't be relevant so long as the tool solves the problem.

If what John Gardeniers says above is correct then it should be obvious in most cases of spam because the accounts change, they have low scores etc. In those cases I think the account should be suspended and answers deleted.

In the case where the account has other answers, questions, a reasonable score, linked to another active account elsewhere then a warning should be given rather than immediately suspending.

But I do think there needs to be some consistency. Since Jeff is referring to my account in this instance, I can use some examples from it.

• My answer here is a legitimate response to the question. This is specifically asking about hosted monitoring tools which my product is.
• This is different from my answer here which is much more promotional in nature. It has been downvoted accordingly and I shall delete it shortly.
• Further, I did not disclose my involvement in this however I should note that this answer was added several years ago and the rules may not have been in place then.
• I believe my answer here has been deleted unfairly. This question is specifically about alternatives to my product (Server Density and one of our competitors, Scout) (because it didn't publicly support Windows at the time) so I answered to note we now had a beta version (and subsequently updated the answer when support when public). Whilst this is self promotion, the question is specifically about my product.

So this indicates that there is a distinction between product questions (whether it's asking what is the best tool for x or whether it's specifically a question about product y) and more general questions e.g. (what is using up all my memory...use my tool x to find out). The former should be given much more leeway (still subject to the requirements for relevancy).

I think that some basic rules should apply in every situation:

1. Does the answer/comment legitimately provide a solution to the question where the response happens to include a product the user is affiliated with? The developer of a tool is going to know the most about it and be able to say whether it is relevant or not. Whether it's a paid product or not should be irrelevant(1).
2. However, the key here is "legitimately provide a solution". Where the answer is clearly just promotional and not helpful at all then it should be marked as spam. In all likelihood, the answer will have been voted down as well.
3. Affiliation should be disclosed.

(1) E.g. is there a distinction between a completely commercial product and an open source product that has commercial options? Is this something you want to be considering? Probably not - it shouldn't be relevant so long as the tool solves the problem.

If what John Gardeniers says above is correct then it should be obvious in most cases of spam because the accounts change, they have low scores etc. In those cases I think the account should be suspended and answers deleted.

In the case where the account has other answers, questions, a reasonable score, linked to another active account elsewhere then a warning should be given rather than immediately suspending.

But I do think there needs to be some consistency. Since Jeff is referring to my account in this instance, I can use some examples from it.

• My answer here is a legitimate response to the question. This is specifically asking about hosted monitoring tools which my product is.
• This is different from my answer here which is much more promotional in nature. It has been downvoted accordingly and I shall delete it shortly.
• Further, I did not disclose my involvement in this however I should note that this answer was added several years ago and the rules may not have been in place then.
• I believe my answer here has been deleted unfairly. This question is specifically about alternatives to my product (Server Density and one of our competitors, Scout) (because it didn't publicly support Windows at the time) so I answered to note we now had a beta version (and subsequently updated the answer when support when public). Whilst this is self promotion, the question is specifically about my product.

So this indicates that there is a distinction between product questions (whether it's asking what is the best tool for x or whether it's specifically a question about product y) and more general questions e.g. (what is using up all my memory...use my tool x to find out). The former should be given much more leeway (still subject to the requirements for relevancy).

I think that some basic rules should apply in every situation:

1. Does the answer/comment legitimately provide a solution to the question where the response happens to include a product the user is affiliated with? The developer of a tool is going to know the most about it and be able to say whether it is relevant or not. Whether it's a paid product or not should be irrelevant(1).
2. However, the key here is "legitimately provide a solution". Where the answer is clearly just promotional and not helpful at all then it should be marked as spam. In all likelihood, the answer will have been voted down as well.
3. Affiliation should be disclosed.

(1) E.g. is there a distinction between a completely commercial product and an open source product that has commercial options? Is this something you want to be considering? Probably not - it shouldn't be relevant so long as the tool solves the problem.

If what John Gardeniers says above is correct then it should be obvious in most cases of spam because the accounts change, they have low scores etc. In those cases I think the account should be suspended and answers deleted.

In the case where the account has other answers, questions, a reasonable score, linked to another active account elsewhere then a warning should be given rather than immediately suspending.

But I do think there needs to be some consistency. Since Jeff is referring to my account in this instance, I can use some examples from it.

• My answer here is a legitimate response to the question. This is specifically asking about hosted monitoring tools which my product is.
• This is different from my answer here which is much more promotional in nature. It has been downvoted accordingly and I shall delete it shortly.
• Further, I did not disclose my involvement in this however I should note that this answer was added several years ago and the rules may not have been in place then.
• I believe my answer here has been deleted unfairly. This question is specifically about alternatives to my product (Server Density and one of our competitors, Scout) (because it didn't publicly support Windows at the time) so I answered to note we now had a beta version (and subsequently updated the answer when support when public). Whilst this is self promotion, the question is specifically about my product.

So this indicates that there is a distinction between product questions (whether it's asking what is the best tool for x or whether it's specifically a question about product y) and more general questions e.g. (what is using up all my memory...use my tool x to find out). The former should be given much more leeway (still subject to the requirements for relevancy).

I think that some basic rules should apply in every situation:

1. Does the answer/comment legitimately provide a solution to the question where the response happens to include a product the user is affiliated with? The developer of a tool is going to know the most about it and be able to say whether it is relevant or not. Whether it's a paid product or not should be irrelevant(1).
2. However, the key here is "legitimately provide a solution". Where the answer is clearly just promotional and not helpful at all then it should be marked as spam. In all likelihood, the answer will have been voted down as well.
3. Affiliation should be disclosed.

(1) E.g. is there a distinction between a completely commercial product and an open source product that has commercial options? Is this something you want to be considering? Probably not - it shouldn't be relevant so long as the tool solves the problem.

If what John Gardeniers says above is correct then it should be obvious in most cases of spam because the accounts change, they have low scores etc. In those cases I think the account should be suspended and answers deleted.

In the case where the account has other answers, questions, a reasonable score, linked to another active account elsewhere then a warning should be given rather than immediately suspending.

But I do think there needs to be some consistency. Since Jeff is referring to my account in this instance, I can use some examples from it.

• My answer here is a legitimate response to the question. This is specifically asking about hosted monitoring tools which my product is.
• This is different from my answer here which is much more promotional in nature. It has been downvoted accordingly and I shall delete it shortly.
• Further, I did not disclose my involvement in this however I should note that this answer was added several years ago and the rules may not have been in place then.
• I believe my answer here has been deleted unfairly. This question is specifically about alternatives to my product (Server Density and one of our competitors, Scout) (because it didn't publicly support Windows at the time) so I answered to note we now had a beta version (and subsequently updated the answer when support when public). Whilst this is self promotion, the question is specifically about my product.

So this indicates that there is a distinction between product questions (whether it's asking what is the best tool for x or whether it's specifically a question about product y) and more general questions e.g. (what is using up all my memory...use my tool x to find out). The former should be given much more leeway (still subject to the requirements for relevancy).