What is acceptable self-promotion here on DBA.SE

Question

This is already dealt with in the network-wide bit of the FAQ:

May I promote products or websites I am affiliated with here?

Be careful, because the community frowns on overt self-promotion and tends to vote it down and flag it as spam. Post good, relevant answers, and if some (but not all) happen to be about your product or website, so be it. However, you must disclose your affiliation in your answers.

If a huge percentage of your posts include a mention of your product or website, you're probably here for the wrong reasons. Our advertising rates are quite reasonable; contact our ad sales team for details. We also offer free community promotion ads for open source projects and non-profit organizations.

I'm not suggesting we try and override SE policy, but I'm asking what specific guidelines or 'best practice' refinements we should have for our unique community.

Answer 1

Given that most of the higher rep users here will be those who have time to spend answering questions, and who are well versed in database systems at a fundamental level, will also be consultants, I don't think it's fair that we say "oh, never link to your blog". I think it's entirely permissible that people here link to their blogs where they've already solved the problem.

HOWEVER, this is a Stack Exchange site, and as so, we all try to follow the same rules. Here's the biggest one in my own phrasing:

Every answer given should be able to stand on its own, even if that means the answer needs to be edited before being accepted. Answers which are not able to stand on their own, need to be edited or removed (or at the very least, downvoted to indicate that they are of poor quality).

What that means is:

Check my blog post to see how I solved that.

Is UNACCEPTABLE.

However, this would be perfectly cromulent: (if decidedly silly, because I didn't want to pick on any answer set, and instead wanted to be silly)

Check my blog post for the full breakdown on that problem, but here's what you need to know to solve this problem now. First, gather two large eggs from a chicken. Second, throw them at a passing car. Third, write "Google.com" in multicolored chalk on the auditorium roof.

Notice how we do link to the blog, but then we go on to give the concise bits of the answer? That's what's required if you're going to link to your own (or someone else's) blog.

If you feel that an off-the-shelf script or product is the best answer to the question, then by all means, explain why that particular tool is the best answer. This guideline holds true whether you're affiliated with the tool or not (as a salesperson, code author, support engineer, etc.) However, your answer needs to clearly articulate why the tool is the best answer, and if there's a price to the tool, that needs to be clearly explained as well. As with any answer, the more technical evidence that's present, the more likely it is that your answer will be upvoted and accepted. The less technical evidence, the more likely you'll be downvoted.

Answer 2

My backup strategy involves hot-copying my database files onto a USB drive attached to our server every so often

There are a number of things wrong with your approach. My blog post "Hope for the best. Plan for the worst" goes into depth on best-practices in this area, but in summary:

• use RMAN and the BACKUP command, don't copy the files using cp (especially not 'hot')
• you need to get your backups off-site
• you need to store some backups long term
• you need to test your recovery procedures in a realistic way
• you probably really need someone with real experience on-site to assess what you put in place^*

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^{* That person could be me if you are in the London/M4 area}

Answer 3

I recall a discussion on meta some time ago about self promotion. You will get quite a few 'MVP' types of one sort or another - the Brent Ozars of this world - answering questions on SE sites. I have no web presence as such but I have cut and pasted things I wrote (typically snippets of code) into answers. If I had a web site there are a few bits and bobs of downloadable content I could put on it that would be relevant to questions I've seen on SO, SF or here.

My view is that fan out to blogs or other web pressence is perfectly acceptable if the material is relevant. Blogspam isn't appropriate here, but a link to something you wrote that is relevant to the question is. There is also no reason not to say something like 'Here's a white paper I wrote on xxx that talks about yyy'.

You can also put a link to your web site on your profile.

I don't think there is anything materially different about the DBA site that would affect this.

Answer 4

Made up example post:

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My SQL Server queries are very slow on my Heap Tables, however due to large quantities of updates a clustered index is not preferable.

An excellent solution to slow SQL Server queries is SQL Ferret. SQL Ferret will root out and consume your problems like a small rodent. SQL Ferret Optimizes databases by:

• Rebuilding indexes and automatically creating new indexes as needed
• Deweaseling your server farm
• Defragmenting your hard drive

Our tests show SQL Server instances running SQL Ferret have 50% reduced query costs on heap tables.
*I happen to work for and with SQL Ferret