NOTE: I'm working on a firm policy against self-promotional postings to try to avoid instances like the AppOnKey guy that was spamming the forums. I'd like some thoughts and opinions on the following. THANKS!
Please be aware that self-promotional postings are NOT permitted. The goal of this site isn't to let everyone promote their own products or sites. There are a few exceptions, though:
1. If someone asks a question that is directly relevant to your product then it makes perfect sense to chime in. Examples would be questions or comments about your product directly... or someone asking if anyone knows of a good product that does X and your product happens to do X.
2. If you have created an open source application or utility you think may be of use to everyone.
If you have a commercial product you'd like included in the directory, please drop a note to the contact address. It may be a little while until you get a response as I'm currently finalizing the process by which a commercial application will be listed and how open source vs commercial applications will be listed in the directory.
Regards,
John
Visit the Community page
Join our forums
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Subscribe with RSS
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on Mastodon
Follow us on BlueSky
I see no problems with it.
"Portable Software: Just the beginning..."
Deuce
Portable Software: Just the beginning.
I second that.
-Justin
I agree with that too.
Me too
Having useless spam on a forum isn't a very nice thing to have and I think that enforcing these rules will help keep this community clean.
Rob Loach [Website] [Projects]
If I've put together a collection of portable apps that I want to share and get feedback on can I post a thread about it? I've put together a bunch of apps in a first aid kit that I plan on making available to the public (for free, obviously).
Yes, I dont see why not. After all you arnt spamming the community.
Yours
Steve Lamerton
Developer Profile Sync & PortaLog
This is not a major criticism, but isn't this whole site derived from the portable projects at johnhaller.com getting rehoused? And therefore it is a form of self-promotion?
When you (John) post teaser messages (eg, "OO.o 2.0.1 and The GIMP, plus a 3rd mysterious app, soming soon!") where do we draw the line? Is this just about $costly products and ad-filled directory sites?
(If so, why am I being offered 2 Spreadsheet tools by Google on the left of this text field?)
Perhaps a "Self promotion forum" or "Non-free apps forum" could be used, and from time to time we may see useful stuff in it that deserves moving into main fora, plus we could forcibly move spam to it, reducing the smappers' bitterness that usually follows post deletion. "Post moved to correct section" is less likely to start a war!
Or if the main page text included "This site is devoted to bringing you the best _free_ portable apps" that would act as a first warning, plus remove any fears that we are encouraging the legal gray area of unbinding commercial software from its licensed machine.
Maybe a simple link exchange would work - you get promoted, but only if you accept their link.
Anyhow keep up the good work on this site, don't think my sole motivation is picking over these details
CDE
I think that you have very good points. In many forums of which I am a member, there are self-promotion (though usually known by much less socially acceptable names) boards available under strict rules, and belive it or not, some of the information posted there has been very valuable. This is a resource that could POSSIBLY benefit the forum, but again, to reiterate, under strict rules and warnings. Also, as a further sub-division, there might be a section for paid products, and promotion for similar forums (information is power
). There are actually a couple of piad for products (I hesitate to mention them here 
) that I rather appreiciate, are still testing, or, in the case that I do not have a need for it personally, would recomend to another.
I totally disagree with both of you. John is not self-promoting anything, IT'S HIS SITE!! He is trying to eliminate poeple just spamming the forums with their products. Like that AppOnKey guy that just put his product in a few random forums. There should be no spamming of these forums; if your product has to do with a certain thread, then you could drop a comment about it, but making a whole post just to promote yourself is despicable. And I don't see any problem with the Google ads. They are just text and don't draw my eye away from what I am doing. You'll just have to get over them.
-Justin
I'm sorry, I may have been unclear. I wasn't critisising John, I was just saying that a promotion board could have advantadges. I was not trying to imply anything negative at all!
Although it is true that I did not get to view the post that sparked this discussion.
I believe John is doing a wonderful job, and kudos.
As for self promotion, while I hate spam, self-promotion can have it's place.
I cite leftyfb's forum in this example. He promotes his site tirelessly, but I found it quite useful. Through his efforts, a tiny community has grown up as a resource for small, free, portable apps. While not as active in either posting OR development as this one, it has provided me with other resources and information.
I am under the impression that this spam was for a paid product?
I think that if the section that this could be under were moderated, it would be a very nice resource. For instance, on Everything USB.com (the forum), informaton has surfaced about a security product that I am very interested in: ability to specify certain USB keys for permission access to your PC. Unfortuanetly, there dosen't seem to be a freeware version that I am aware of, but the price tag seems pretty reasonable in comparison to ability.
Actually now that I think about it, there could be SEVERAL advanteous additions to the general forums. I am not actually telling anybody that they SHOULD be doing anything, only that it could be done. A permanent tutorial section might be nice, as well as benchmarks, software specs (with firm posting rules), and hardware reviews. An organized external links library may be usefull too.
lol. Again, sorry for the offense, none was meant. 
But in all honesty, I could not do half as good of a job as the people that are already doing it.
These are just opinions after all, not declarations of war,
I never said that we can't discuss commercial offerings. I simply said that you can't blatantly promote YOUR OWN commercial offerings. That's self-promotion. And that's not the purpose of this site. (This is what the AppOnKey guy did... spamming multiple forums)
I did say it was perfectly fine to mention your own commercial offering when someone either asked a question about it. Or when someone asked if there was a product that did X and your product did X.
I did say that it's perfectly fine to mention your own free/open source software if you think it will be of interest to everyone.
As for me promoting my own apps, they are indeed free and open source. And they are the base on which this site was built afterall. Would you even know about this site if you weren't a user of Portable Firefox, Portable OpenOffice.org, etc?
And as for the Google ads, I made them small and unobtrusive. Remember, I've been developing and hosting Portable Firefox since June of 2004 entirely on my own dime. These apps have been self-funded since then... even during timeperiods when I had no money coming in. I finally started accepting donations in November of last year (after multiple people hounded me... hehe) and that has helped a lot. But, the Google ads are actually going to enable me to get a dedicated Linux box for PortableApps.com. 2 tiny ads in the lower left of the page helping to ensure the future of this site as the community grows... I think that's a fair tradeoff.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Funny those google ads.... pFF with the adblock extension gets rid of them...... OOPS!
Aussie_USB
Ever used USB "downunder"?
Aussie_USB
Ever used USB "downunder"?
You'd need to use, for instance, the publicly available set of AdBlock rules which are, in my opinion, way too restrictive. I think AdBlock is great for getting rid of all the distracting ads, but I don't find plaintext seperate ads distracting. I even placed the sponsored links in a location that would make less money because it was less distracting for site visitors.
Remember, if everyone blocked those Google ads, I wouldn't be able to get a dedicated box, and this site would probably die.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Too many good things are being born in this site to let it die off.
Aussie_USB
Ever used USB "downunder"?
Aussie_USB
Ever used USB "downunder"?
Let me see if I am getting this right. John, who has dedicated thousands of hours and who knows how much foregone revenue, is defending himself or at the least having to explain himself on a forum that he created. There are suggestions about what would enhance the forum and create even more work without consideration of how that would impact his time.
In other parts of the forum, there is a great deal of collaboration and work going on to achieve the objective of having quality PortableApps and working to support John’s contributions by doing beta testing and user analysis.
Perhaps there should be two parts to the forum. One for the people that have the courtesy to hit the donation button or the AdSense from time to time, to help with the hard costs and/or find a way to be positive contributors AND another for those who have been conditioned into this sense of entitlement that Open Source is free as in beer or a good place to promote at the expense of others.
I feel John is demonstrating a lot more class and patience then I ever would.
Ridgewood Foundation Open Source Project
Site: http://zedfiles.com Blog: http://blog.zedfiles.com
I never said JOHN should do it, #1.
#2, I DO actually click on interesting ads occasionally.
#3, I do realize that this is on John's own time, and like I said: Worderful job, couldn't ask for more from HIM.
#4, Thank you John for that clarification, I appreiciate it. Like I said, I was not able to view the spam message, and my suggestions may have been slightly jaded due to someone elses opinions posted elseware. I apologize for any affront.
#5, Like I said yet again, I am NOT critisizing HIM, and these are only OPINIONS, and at the end of the day, they are not really going to revolutionize the world, OR start a war, are they?
#6, I would love to contribute in anyway that I can, altough for the moment, as a PSYCOLOGY major, I do not quite have the technical expertise, nor very large financial resources to tap. But if ANYONE has a suggestion or observation in which way I can most valuably contribute, I would most welcome the comments.
#7, I would never encourage SPAM. I encourage the sharing of resources, information, and information on resources. This was a way (I beleived, was I wrong?), that I could contribute to what I think is a wonderful community collaboration project that has EMMENSE potential. I thought that mabey having a seperate section for the information that I mentioned would make it just a little easier for people who are new to this area of programming and productivity to dive right in. I have no doubt that there are MANY people, (myself included), that are not already contributing in the development or testing areas, who would be willing to donate, if not exactly financially capable, time: for volunteer moderation so John's load is a little ligher here, or, for the generation, contribution, organization, and maintenance of earlier said databases.
#8, Just to clarify, now that I have a better understaning of what John meant myself, I just think the information that I was MUSING about could help a lot of people that are just not as technically gifted as others, like me. I realize now that perhaps my thoughts could have been presented in a better way, so I apologize for that; just not for that fact that they were expressed.
#9, Middle name is: VOLUNTEER. Just ask, okay?
Whitelist whole site
Hide not remove
Browse on my PSP which doesnt have AdBlock
BTW I only see one ad at a time not 2
----
R McCue
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
It depends on what page you're on. In the forums it will be one at lot of the time.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I should have expected that.
Considering the AppOnKey spam, I know my points are all picky and minor, and yes, pFF and pOO.o led me to this site, and yes, it's John's site, and YES, IT'S ALL GREAT
I was mostly concerned with the concept of self-promotion vs. app-promotion, which *could* be addressed with a dedicated forum - I still think that moving spam to it would incur less retaliatory re-spamming than deleting posts and blocking users.
And I'm not blind to the role of small ads, or the fact that a site's creator has ultimate freedom on that site. It was just a couple of thoughts; John said "Comments sought", so why not have a Devil's Advocate now and then?
So apologies for any bruised sensibilities there. At least it sparked a debate.
As ever, keep up the Haller-ification of Sourceforge fodder and anything else that seems worth it. Vive la revolution! (and fetch the GIMP...)