Update Planet Drupal guidelines to explicitly exclude advertising posts [#2496777]

Problem/Motivation

Paid advertising has begun to appear on Planet Drupal.

Two recent examples that appeared in the aggregator:

The Planet Drupal guidelines list spam as a basis for removal from the feed, but don't explicitly define what spam is.

The two listed posts are both from the Drupal Association. Presumably the DA is not exempt from the guidelines that apply to other Drupal Planet aggregation sources. If everyone used their feed as a way of disseminating paid advertising, the appropriateness and utility of the aggregator content would go downhill fast.

Proposed resolution

Update the Planet Guidelines to add the following under the "Content that doesn't fit Planet Drupal" heading:

Any post that consists primarily or exclusively of paid advertisement, sponsored content, or "advertorial" copy.

Remaining tasks

User interface changes

API changes

Comments

Comment #1

nedjo

he/him/his

English

commented 28 May 2015 at 23:28

I thought I'd raise this for discussion here before going ahead and updating the Planet Drupal guidelines.

Comment #2

webchick

she/they

English

Vancouver 🇨🇦

commented 29 May 2015 at 01:10

Issue tags:

+drupal.org Content Working Group

Tagging for the Drupal.org Content Working Group, who maintains the Planet guidelines.

Comment #3

dddave commented 29 May 2015 at 07:58

re #1 "before going ahead and updating the Planet Drupal guidelines"... well, that is certainly appreciated. ^^

I've seen these posts appear also and was about to raise an issue but was fairly busy this week. I do understand the Associations need to raise money and understand that they are looking left and right for monetization opportunities but these "Guest" posts simply feel cheesy (at best). Moreover seeing the Planet as simply another channel to make a buck is degrading to the community who built and maintains it. I know that there is an allegded "value for the overall community" in these posts and for the hosting post I kinda see it but the Blink merger post is just a reiteration of the content we already got on the Planet via different sources.

I like the proposed wording and have no problem if it strangles this particular revenue channel for the DA.

Comment #4

catch

he/him

English

commented 9 June 2015 at 21:41

Both posts in the issue summary already don't meet the guidelines IMO:

Content that doesn't fit Planet Drupal:

Press releases. These can be posted into the News and Announcements forum.
Job announcements and hiring announcements. It's fine to mention a career change in the context of another post, but remember that Drupal Planet isn't LinkedIn. Job postings can be posted into the Jobs page.
General web development and programming posts that only mention Drupal in passing.
"I Love Drupal!" posts that don’t provide valuable, actionable content to readers.

Blink Reaction / ProPeople merge is 100% "Press releases".

Linode/Freedom host is 100% "General web development and programming posts that only mention Drupal in passing".

So if they were on Planet feeds for those individual companies then repeat offense should be enough to remove the feed from Planet.

Them being on the Association feed is going to make it harder to remove inappropriate content from Planet in the future "Look, they did it!".