How this is permitted?
[Moderator Note:
This thread is a split from:
The O.P. of this thread (fairly, in my opinion) questioned how it was that this member could post a link to a video, whereas the O.P. had a link removed.
What follows is that spawned discussion.]
This is a valid question and your curiosity is warranted.
@cc_spicuous posted a link that is not his own. He is not promoting his own channel.
Additionally, cc_spicuous is an active contributing member that provides many forum posts directly helping other users.
Had you been posting helpful commentary and replies to user issues (Which was pointed out to you in the Private Message you received as well) in addition to promoting your own For-Profit content, you probably would have felt some leniency on your self promotion, as it would not be your Primary Use of the forum in that case.
The word is "boundaries of tolerance."
Many users may notice that the forum does not have hard and fast rules. Only the moderators have rules.
The members have Guidelines and the Terms of Service.
Your links were (barely) within the Guidelines, but they were out of bounds in the Terms of Service.
What You Can Do:
If you are interested in helping members of the Operating System, actively contribute with troubleshooting and diagnosing. This Helps You, by fine tuning your skills and knowledge and helps build rapport being part of the community.
Spamming, then running is likely to get caught. Helpfully using resources, even your own, to directly help people is more rewarding.
Sure. Thanks.
Then you realize you have a choice. It is better to guide than to enforce.
Growth and Development are more productive than Spam.
My initial take was, C. Barnatt is an old hand and the walkthrough actually works for normal people before, he did that for 17, too.
(I wasn't aware that me, a third-party, posting this, would disuade moderators from banning the video, while him posting it, would. Nor was I aware of video bans on other people's videos.
Nevertheless, it's a catch-22 and chicken-and-egg for new video productions, I just realized from your question, YouTube only shows already popular stuff, making popular more popular, while preventing newcomers to break in. It's quite perverse. And Chris Barnatt was posting his stuff for 10+ years with miniscule viewership for most of the years, which isn't encouraging, either. [I also remember, Brent Spiner of Star Trek fame, tweeting his *** off, to promote one of his plays with little success. I'm not aware, how to engineer a marketing blitz, either. However, I'm sure there are playbooks posted and written about, how to do it, ... ])
There is not a hard and fast rule, because no rule can fit all parameters.
There is a difference between spamming, but not contributing - and posting helpful content.
It is not this platforms place to help a youtuber with almost 26,000 subscribers increase viewership.
Behind the scenes, we moderators remove spam and spam accounts at a pretty constant rate.
@techsolutionz skated this, by a hair. It was only because I did a quick background check and ensured that the poster posting self-promotion was a live person and the person that posts YouTube content and not a Spam Bot.
This was made more complex when techsolutionz posted a Zorin OS tutorial video that was actually dangerous and harmful and needed to be removed.
However, techsolutionz did also post a helpful tutorial that was directed at Zorin OS users.
It's like standing on the blade of a knife. You could slide down on either side of it.
That techsolutionz questioned this as he did is demonstrative of being a live person.
But Live Person still needs to pick a side.
With all the above falling into gray areas, we turned to check the Terms Of Service.
In this we see that members may not:
- Use the Services to make unsolicited offers, requests, advertisements, or spam;
This was our only guide and techsolutionz posts made unsolicited advertisements.
If a user creates a thread and asks about buying a computer that everything works on GnuLinux, and another posts a link to Starlabs, that is not an unsolicited advertisement.
If a Starlabs Employee posts a tutorial, without anyone asking for help, that tells people how to buy a StarLabs computer with Zorin OS preinstalled... That is unsolicited advertising. Even if it helps ZorinGroup, it would not be fair and would be a Conflict of Interest to permit that - while disallowing others to post other unsolicited ads.
So, Techsolutionz was moderated.
He still has the ability to post, comment, help users and post asked-for replies.
But we cannot allow the forum to slowly become an advertising billboard.
Google purchased YouTube when it got big, and they realized it was going to be a money maker, if they monetized it. When YouTube was new, the developers were sinking in the toilet, cause they had no way to pay for the server costs. The users loved YouTube, cause they could customize their channel profiles, do cool backrounds, transparency, and become amature video creators.
In the past, this was not a thing, unless you paid big money, to get yourself on TV. It was totally understandable of the lure that YouTube had. When Google kicked in monetization, everybody wanted to make it, at least enough for a side hustle fund. everybody had a fair chance to be somebody on the platform.
Unfortunately, a YouTuber lost their mind, and made a live video of committing suicide on the platform. It was after that, Google changed the requirement policy, to a considerate high number of sub count, as well as view count, in order to activate monetization. Making that change, killed earning anything on the platform, for 99% of users.
I was no different then anyone else back then, I too used to enjoy the platform as a creator making gaming video's. I too hoped I could at least have a side hustle one day. After years creating on the platform, it never went anywhere, I never earned a cent, despite all the hours I put into video editing.
Then you had users like Fred, PewDiePie, Markiplier etc, you sprung up and got popular like wildfire. All of them are rich with millions of dollars. The platform favored them, and with that popularity, they cashed in millions in monetization. They had the looks, the personality that people wanted.
Due to YouTube's monetization policy, it made the popular more popular, and the rich, even richer. YouTube made it, so nobody new would likely make it on the platform, unless you were hot, or had a personality to engage with GenZ. Eventually I gave up, there was no point is wasting my time creating on the platform.
Life is not fair, and it will never be fair. Its the same way how the filthy rich dominate over society, while the little guy gets stepped on. YouTube is no different in that regard, and is only worse these days. Viewing video's on YouTube is one thing, forget trying to be a creator, you'll never get a chance to earn a cent. You'll just be looking at your stagnant sub count never rise, & you'll never shine.
Its a rigged system like everything else in life. But hey, its Google, how can one expect anything else, from a Microsoft wannabe? Reality, what a concept!
What initially was a quick question expanded.
I split this off since the other thread is a Tutorial and our discussion was cluttering it a bit.
What I find discouraging, honestly, is how common these click-bait tactics have become, to the point where they're even socially acceptable. As if we didn't have enough ads already...
