Where you're allowed to show up

Seventeen community and platform rules on self-promotion, each with what's allowed, one contribution that fits, and a dated source.

Local rules decide whether a post is a contribution or a nuisance. The same write-up can be a gift in one venue and spam in the next. Hacker News accepts an occasional post of your own work; on r/SaaS, moderator posts from April and June 2026 cap product mentions at once per 60 days and bar a whole product category. Those posts reached us as cached copies, so a rule's date matters as much as its text.

Below: seventeen rules we read on 2026-08-26, what each allows, one contribution that fits, and where the text came from. It's a reference, not permission.

How to read this directory

Every entry carries an evidence class and a checked date.

• Direct rule. We loaded the venue's own rule or guidance page that day. It records what the page said then, not that it still does.
• Cached copy. A moderator post's full body came from a research cache; the live page wouldn't load. Primary text with a freshness limit.
• Snippet-only. Only a search-index title or excerpt was readable. A lead to verify, never a rule, never permission.

"Paraphrased" means the wording is ours; a blockquote is the venue's words, copied exactly. Every Reddit entry is a cached or indexed copy of a moderator post and must be rechecked on the live subreddit. Reddit for Business and Indie Hackers are operator guidance, not formal rules. "Checked 2026-08-26" means we looked that day, not that the rule was written then or still stands. Recheck before acting.

Developer news and Q&A

Hacker News

What the rule says. Paraphrased: your own work is fine in moderation, from an account driven mostly by curiosity. Soliciting votes or comments is out; so are generated or AI-edited submissions. Show HN has separate guidance for showing a usable project, under the same limits.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Allowed: an occasional own-work post from an account that mostly reads, comments, and submits other people's things.
• Not allowed: asking anyone to vote or comment; model-written or model-edited text; an account that exists to promote.

A contribution that fits. A Show HN of something people can use today, in your own words, with you in the thread answering questions.

Source. HN Guidelines · direct rule · checked 2026-08-26. Show HN: guidance page · direct rule · same date.

Lobsters

What the rule says. Paraphrased: computing topics only. Occasional self-promotion fits when it's a minority of your participation. Write-only traffic seeking, analytics-heavy marketing links, and general entrepreneurship content don't.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Allowed: a technical story about your own work, from an account whose other activity is about other people's.
• Not allowed: submitting only your own links; tracking-heavy URLs; business content that isn't about computing.

A contribution that fits. A write-up of one engineering problem you solved, with no tracking link, once your own work is a small share of what you've posted there.

Source. About and rules · direct rule · checked 2026-08-26.

Stack Overflow

What the rule says. Paraphrased: disclose your affiliation. The answer must solve the question by itself; a link may support it, not replace it. Answers that mainly promote one product, or keep recommending the author's, are out.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Allowed: a complete answer that says "I work on X" and links only where that helps the asker.
• Not allowed: a pitch shaped like an answer; the same product across many answers; hidden affiliation.

A contribution that fits. Answer a question your product solves, with the full fix inline, then one line of disclosure and a link for anyone who wants the packaged version.

Source. Promotion policy · direct rule · checked 2026-08-26.

GitHub Community

What the rule says. Paraphrased: shared links need context and relevance. Unsolicited own links, no-context cross-posts, and bumping are out. AI-assisted contributions need human revision and verification. A programming-help area explicitly rejects project advertising; repository maintainers set their own Discussion rules.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Allowed: an answer with a link only where relevant; an Action or app published through the Marketplace's listing route.
• Not allowed: your repo link in unrelated threads; the same post in several places; bumping; unreviewed model output.

A contribution that fits. An integration listed through the Marketplace route, plus a human-written answer in a Discussion where someone asked for that kind of tool.

Source. GitHub Community Code of Conduct · direct rule · checked 2026-08-26. Also: programming-help rule, Marketplace publishing · direct · same date.

Launch platforms

Launch HN

What the rule says. Paraphrased: usable product, transparent pricing, and a factual, personal, peer-oriented post. Marketing voice, booster comments, inaccessible demos, and dodging critical questions are called out. Who is eligible isn't recorded in our research; check the page.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Allowed: a first-person account of what you built and why, real pricing, a product people can use that day, answers to hard questions.
• Not allowed: press-release tone; colleagues seeding supportive comments; a demo behind a wall; ignoring criticism.

A contribution that fits. A launch post written for peers: the problem, what you built, what it costs, what doesn't work yet, and you in the thread answering critics.

Source. Launch HN instructions · direct rule · checked 2026-08-26.

Product Hunt

What the rule says. Paraphrased: products should be new, usable, and distinct; makers take part as people, not company accounts. Paid upvotes, paid launch traffic, and spam can remove a launch or ban an account. Launching is free.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Allowed: launching a product people can use, from a personal maker account, and answering commenters yourself.
• Not allowed: buying upvotes or traffic; coordinating votes; company or bulk accounts; spam.

A contribution that fits. A launch of a working product by the person who built it, with a maker comment that says what it does and what it doesn't. Expect vote-trading offers afterward; accepting one breaks the rule above.

“I received lots of DMs and emails asking to ‘collaborate’ for upvotes.” — first-person report on Hacker News, checked 2026-08-26

Source. Official launch guide · direct rule · checked 2026-08-26.

Developer publishing

DEV Community

What the rule says. Paraphrased from an operator post about moderation, not a rules page: information should outweigh promotion, low-quality promotional content may be downranked, and articles that function mainly as sales or affiliate pages are the stated problem.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Allowed: an article that teaches, with your product as context or one example among others.
• Not allowed: an article whose real purpose is a signup or affiliate link.

A contribution that fits. A teardown of a problem you hit while building, with code and reasoning, naming the product once as where the lesson came from.

Source. Moderation and support · direct rule — operator post · checked 2026-08-26.

Hashnode

What the rule says. Paraphrased: technical contribution is welcome. The current code explicitly rejects engagement farming, bulk automation, SEO abuse, and accounts used mainly for self-promotion without contribution. The page states 2026 effective and update dates; we didn't record them.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Allowed: technical articles from an account that mostly contributes; your own work mentioned inside a useful piece.
• Not allowed: automated likes, comments, or follows; bulk posting; SEO filler; an account that exists to promote.

A contribution that fits. A hand-written technical article on one thing you learned, from an account that also reads and comments, with no automation touching it.

Source. Code of Conduct · direct rule · checked 2026-08-26.

Founder and business communities on Reddit

Eight entries share one warning. Reddit was not loadable live from our workspace: two moderator posts came back as full cached copies, five as index snippets, and one entry is Reddit's own business guidance. None is a live rule check. Read the entry, then open the live subreddit's rules. The community's side, from a snippet-only r/SideProject post:

“mutual help, not turning every subreddit into a low quality ad board.” — r/SideProject participant, snippet-only, checked 2026-08-26

Reddit communities generally

What the rule says. Paraphrased: Reddit's official business guidance says each community sets its own rules, and tells brands to check promotion rules and work with moderators. It's platform guidance, not a rule for any subreddit.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Allowed: reading each community's rules; asking moderators whether a specific contribution belongs.
• Not allowed: treating Reddit as one place with one set of permissions.

A contribution that fits. A short modmail before posting: who you are, what you'd contribute, and whether it belongs. Then do what they say.

Source. Reddit for Business · direct source — official platform guidance, not a community rule · checked 2026-08-26.

r/SaaS — general self-promotion limit

What the rule says. A moderator announcement titled "New Rule against Self-Promo", posted 2026-04-14 by u/Dubinko, reads in part:

Promoting projects you're part of is fine occasionally, but accounts that exist mainly to promote will be removed.

• Self-promotion is limited to once per 60 days
• This includes posts, comment plugs, and links (and mentions) to your own product
• Alt accounts promoting the same product count as the same user

Violation of this rule will result in ban, removal of all your submissions, and blacklist of your url/product in automod.

Cached copy, crawled about three weeks before we read it; moderator flair wasn't visible. Recheck the live subreddit.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Allowed: one mention per 60 days, counting posts, comments, links, and mentions together.
• Not allowed: a second mention inside the window; an alt account; an account that mainly promotes.

A contribution that fits. Answer other founders' questions with no product mention for the whole window, and spend the one allowed mention on a post that would still be useful with the product line deleted.

Source. Moderator announcement, posted 2026-04-14 · cached copy — full post body recovered from a research-gateway cache; live page unavailable · checked 2026-08-26.

r/SaaS — banned product category

What the rule says. A second announcement, posted 2026-06-09 by u/ergonet and signed "The r/SaaS Mods", reads in part:

From now on, r/SaaS is not going to allow promotion, recommendation, launch announcements, feedback requests, recruiting, or user acquisition for SaaS products made for advertising, promotional outreach, lead/opportunity detection, or ad/content generation.

This includes software tools that generate, suggest, schedule, detect opportunities, automate, or coordinate promotional posts, comments, DMs, replies, or campaigns on Reddit or other platforms.

Violations may result in a permanent ban for the user who posted or commented and the tool name and URL may be blacklisted.

Same caveat: cached copy, about three weeks old at our read, flair not visible. Recheck the live subreddit.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Allowed: for products outside the category, the 60-day rule above still governs; for anyone, answering questions unrelated to your product.
• Not allowed: for products in the category, any promotion, recommendation, launch post, feedback request, recruiting, or user acquisition.

A contribution that fits. If your product detects opportunities, drafts replies, or automates posting anywhere, the fit here is none. Learn from the discussions, answer unrelated questions, and don't name it.

Source. Moderator category announcement, posted 2026-06-09 · cached copy — full post body recovered from a research-gateway cache; live page unavailable · checked 2026-08-26.

r/microsaas

What the rule says. Paraphrased from an index snippet: self-promotion is banned, with narrow tolerance for genuinely useful lessons or data, or a fully free useful tool. Where that tolerance ends is unknown; we saw only the snippet.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Allowed, per the snippet and unverified: real lessons or numbers; a tool that is completely free and useful on its own.
• Not allowed: self-promotion; a thin "lesson" wrapped around a pitch; treating the snippet as permission.

A contribution that fits. What you tried, what the numbers were, and what you'd do differently, with no link and no ask. Check the live rule and any flair first.

Source. Indexed moderator post · snippet-only — indexed excerpt of a moderator post; not a live rule check · checked 2026-08-26.

r/Entrepreneur

What the rule says. Paraphrased from an indexed removal notice: ordinary posts and comments can't promote, solicit DMs, recruit, or run disguised market research, and AI/GPT posts are barred. Designated threads exist for some activities; which ones, and when, is unknown from the snippet.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Allowed: an honest answer in the feed with no link and no "DM me"; a designated thread once you've confirmed what it permits.
• Not allowed: promotion in ordinary posts; profile funnels; "what are your pain points?" posts; model-written posts.

A contribution that fits. A reply to a specific question from your own experience, with no product mention, no link, and no invitation to message you.

Source. Indexed removal notice · snippet-only — indexed moderator notice; not a live rule check · checked 2026-08-26.

r/startups

What the rule says. Paraphrased from indexed posts: self-promotion is continuously restricted in the feed, and a quarterly "Share Your Startup" thread is the sanctioned place for it. We saw the rule post and one quarterly thread as snippets only.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Allowed: an entry in the current quarterly thread, once you've confirmed it's open; answering feed questions without links.
• Not allowed: launching in the general feed; unexplained links; posting into a closed quarterly thread.

A contribution that fits. A plain entry in the current quarterly thread: what you're building, for whom, what stage, and one thing you'd like feedback on.

Source. Indexed rule post and indexed quarterly thread · snippet-only — indexed Reddit posts; not a live rule check · checked 2026-08-26.

r/smallbusiness

What the rule says. Paraphrased from an indexed removal notice: the main feed is honest Q&A among business owners, not audience extraction. Market research, "what are your pain points?" prompts, service promotion, and steering readers to a profile are the named problems.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Allowed: answering a business owner's question from experience, as a peer.
• Not allowed: surveys and research prompts; promoting a service; pointing people to your profile or DMs.

A contribution that fits. An answer to one operational question from your own experience running or serving a small business, with no link and no product name.

Source. Indexed removal notice · snippet-only — indexed moderator notice; not a live rule check · checked 2026-08-26.

r/indiehackers

What the rule says. Paraphrased from an indexed moderator post on a community reorganization: self-promotion uses a dedicated flair; founder stories should teach and substantiate their metrics; disguised pitches, fake Q&A, unsupported numbers, and vote manipulation are barred. The flair's name and any frequency limit are unknown from the snippet.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Allowed: a self-promotion post under the right flair; a founder story with numbers you can back up and a lesson others can use.
• Not allowed: a pitch dressed as a story; staged Q&A; numbers without support; coordinated votes.

A contribution that fits. A founder story under the flair: what you built, what happened in numbers you can show, what you got wrong, and what you'd tell someone a year behind you.

Source. Indexed community post · snippet-only — indexed Reddit post; not a live rule check · checked 2026-08-26.

Founder communities off Reddit

Indie Hackers site

What the rule says. Paraphrased: operator advice, not a rules page. Start with the problem, create value for the people on the site, share what you learned, and open a real discussion. A link-first announcement with nothing useful on the page is the counterexample.

Allowed / not allowed.

• Favored: problem-first posts; sharing learning; a real question at the end.
• Not favored: a headline and a link with no substance in the post.

A contribution that fits. A post that opens with the problem, walks through what you learned, and ends with a question you genuinely need answered.

Source. Operator posting tips · direct source — operator-authored guidance, not a full rules page · checked 2026-08-26.

Before you post

Run this yourself, every time. It is the difference between a contribution and a removal.

1. Read the current rule, not ours. Open the venue's rule page or moderator post today. If the entry is a cached copy or a snippet, this isn't optional.
2. Disclose. Say who you are and what you're affiliated with, in the post itself. Stack Overflow requires it; most venues here treat hiding it as the offense.
3. Give before you ask. Answer, teach, or share a working thing first. If it only works with a link to your product, it isn't a contribution yet.
4. Use the native format. Flair, designated thread, quarterly post, Show HN, Marketplace listing. If the venue built a lane, use it.
5. One venue at a time. The same text in several places is a named offense on GitHub Community and reads as spam everywhere. One place, one adaptation, then watch.
6. Write down what happened. Date, venue, what you posted, replies, removals, any moderator note. That log is how you learn what belongs where.
7. Set a stop condition first. For example: continue if two replies become substantive conversations about the problem; stop if a moderator removes the post, if your answers need a promotional link to be useful, or if nothing happens in 30 days.

Something here is wrong?

If you moderate or run one of these venues and we've misread your rule, quoted a stale version, or missed a sanctioned route, tell us at /method/#corrections. We'll fix the entry, note what changed, and keep the checked date visible.