Quick question regarding linking relevant hubs in forum replies

1. 75

   Paul Maplesdenposted 11 years ago

   Hi there,
   
   Simone, or another splendid HP staffer, can you answer the following for me?
   
   A few times recently, someone has asked a question in the forum about how to get more out of HubPages through interacting in the community.
   
   I've written a hub around this, but am aware of the rules regarding linking to your own content to promote it, so I normally say 'You can find *such and such a hub*, linked from my profile', which seems a bit cumbersome.
   
   So, my question is, is it OK for us to link to our own or another's hub directly when:
   
   1. It directly answers a question / forum post someone is asking
   2. It is not done for the intent of self-promotion, but to specifically answer that question
   3. We don't start the thread ourselves
   
   I absolutely understand why you don't allow self-promotional threads as otherwise the forums would be *awash* with them (and no-one wants that!), and I also understand if you have a 'zero tolerance' approach to any hub links being posted, but just wanted to get an official word if something were to meet the three criteria that I suggested?
   
   If it's still 'look at my profile and follow the link from there', then I understand; I'm just looking for clarity so I don't break any TOS.
   
   Cheers,
   
   Paul.

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2. 93

   Susana Sposted 11 years ago

   I'm not HP staff but I've been here a long time. Self promotion is frowned upon here whether it be links or lots of references to a hub you've written yourself. If you want to link to other people's hubs, the learning center or external resources (that you have no vested interest in) to help answer a question that's fine.
   
   Here are the relevant bits in the forum rules:
   "The Forums are for discussion, not self-promotional link-posting. We encourage you to avoid posting promotional or irrelevant links, be they to Hubs or external sites in which you have a vested interest. The three places where we do encourage you to post links to your Hubs are in the HubChallenges section, Extreme Hub Makeover section, and in Weekly Topic Inspiration threads."
   
   and
   
   "No cross-posting. Posting the same message to more than one Forum or thread is seen as spamming."

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3. 88

   Simone Smithposted 11 years ago

   Yeah.... posting links to Hubs is a no-no.
   
   Self-promotional rules aside, the reason why is even if many Hubbers mean well, tutorial Hubs they contain might not actually be accurate. We prefer people JUST go to our official Learning Center entries or FAQ answers when looking for information on HubPages-related stuff.
   
   Obviously I'm not saying that ALL Hubber-written HubPages tutorials are misleading or wrong (some are quite good), but it's important that people are directed toward official guides whenever possible. 

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   1. 75

      Paul Maplesdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      No problem, thanks for the clarification! I'll stick to my original responses then and point people at official hubs whenever I can.

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   2. 90

      Howard S.posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      @Simone: This reply pertains to the accuracy of official hubs rather than to the OP's initial question. There are occasional errors in the FAQ and Learning Center hubs. They stem primarily from the enormous task of trying to maintain the accuracy of all official hubs when features and policies are dynamically changing. There are still at least two otherwise excellent LC hubs that refer to the 5-photo minimum for slide shows--and they carry recent revision dates.
      
      To demonstrate that this isn't simple complaining, you will recall that you started putting revision dates on those official hubs in response to a suggestion from me. (It is no longer necessary though, since everyone's hubs now carry a revision date.) But that didn't entirely fix it. Since these hubs are neither commentable nor flagable, the only way to tell HP about such errors is through email--something I'm not going to do.
      
      In summary, while official hubs are more accurate than the average hub about "how to hub," they do contain occasional errors.

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