Shill Accounts, Spam, Banning from the Site

[arn]

There's been a few instances of both site owners and developers creating "shill" accounts to try to covertly promote their sites/apps.

This is considered the worst offense here and will get your app or site banned from the entire site.

Developers
Developers may certainly promote their own apps. We encourage it as long as they do so reasonably and participate in the forums. But they must clearly identify themselves. A simple signature is sufficient.

If we find developers who are deceptively posing as regular users posting self-promoting reviews, then we will ban that developer's apps from being mentioned again in the forums or the main site.

Site owners
Some have accused me of trying to suppress the competition, but that is not the case.

We don't let site owners promote their own sites. We were a little loose about it for a while, but it turned into a free-for-all for some. Where certain individuals would post links to their site in practically every thread. It ruins the discussion and that is why we don't allow it.

Casual linking to other sites is, of course, allowed, especially if it contributes to the discussion. But similarly, 3rd party or "shill" accounts will quickly result in banning for obvious reasons.


arn

[1337brian]

Being on the site since October last year, I can say for a fact that these forums are very open to any developer, as long as they do identify themselves. In fact there are many games I have purchased simply based on the fact that the dev was very involved on these forums....

[snow_mani]

It's good to see this rule being implemented. I really enjoy discussing apps with the developers and other gamers but nothing annoys me more than someone with a shill account spamming the forums.

[goblues11]

great rules arn

[Sainter]

Arn. I am about to post about Fieldrunners being easier after the new update but have to point people to a post on the official Fieldrunners forum. Is that allowed?\

Thnx

[arn]

Arn. I am about to post about Fieldrunners being easier after the new update but have to point people to a post on the official Fieldrunners forum. Is that allowed?\

Thnx

See above:

"Casual linking to other sites is, of course, allowed, especially if it contributes to the discussion"

[Sainter]

See above:

"Casual linking to other sites is, of course, allowed, especially if it contributes to the discussion"

ok thanks, just wanted to make sure

[BulletDev]

I'm a developer, I swear to god.

[1337brian]

I'm a developer, I swear to god.

I wanna play bullet skater! :)

[Tennisking1o1]

It's horrible when devs post as normal users, it's too obvious. If I was a dev, I would much rather post as the dev, and even if people thought my game was bad, I could receive constructive criticism. This is compared to acting like a normal user, and having people be mad at you for recommending a bad game. Also, if you get caught doing that, your rep on the app store is ruined forever (unless you start a new dev name on the app store). It's just not worth it. I'm much nicer to a dev who doesn't have the best game but is striving to improve it rather than an apparent false normal user

[dannys95]

thank you arn. finally some rules for the spammers here. :rolleyes: