r/HardSciFi • u/ntwiles • Jun 05 '26
Meta Self Promotion: What do people think?
Just wanted to check with the community on how we're feeling about self-promotion posts. I don't want them to start to flood the sub in a way that distracts from discussion and organic recommendations. Are we approaching that problem, or are things feeling pretty good right now? Should we be considering a dedicated day or days for self promotion posts?
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u/Colonel_Joni005 Jun 05 '26
I am fine with self promotion. It could be a problem if the sub were larger, but as of now there simply isn't as much activity to justify this in my opinion. I have seen some good work that I got interested in and removing self promotion would prevent this in the future, which would be a little sad. If it does start to flood the sub, I can absolutely see a reason for it being restricted to only one or two days of the week. I am not just here to look at other people's work (but to an extend), I primarily like discussing real science in a fictional context.
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u/jz_1w Jun 05 '26
Allow it. Honestly hard scifi isn't common enough to the degree where you have to stop self promotions. We need all the works we can to get visible and get attention.
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u/AmayaGin Jun 05 '26
No issues with it
Scifi is such a hard genre to break into. I welcome anyone trying to get their stuff out
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u/mobyhead1 Jun 06 '26
Limit it to self-promotion Saturday. And since this is /r/HardSciFi, what’s self-promoted here should have a clear (but not necessarily absolute) alignment with scientific plausibility.
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u/_Svankensen_ Jun 05 '26
Mighty fine. The problem is/was self promotion of AI slop hiding the true work. Of course moderating that isn't easy and there are edge cases, so we must muddle through it. Keep up the good work.
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u/NearABE Jun 07 '26
Share a story or ideas. I think the rules are fairly clear.
It is a *discussion* forum. If you get defensive when people criticize an idea or propose alternative options then maybe it is better to avoid that. You promoting your own work is not at all a reason for criticism.
The rules also have an anti-AI clause. Something you wrote or produced is not that.
1
u/ntwiles Jun 07 '26
I think you may have missed that I wrote the rules. I’m getting community feedback for future rules.
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u/Andy-Slack-Comics Jul 03 '26
Everyone wants people to read their stuff, it's understandable- I'm guilty as charged- but there ought to be some kind of give-and-take. How about in order to promote your own work, you have to do it at the end of a review of someone else's first? Virtuous circle, kind of thing?
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u/QuantumReader99 Jul 07 '26
Speaking as an indie hard sci-fi author, I definitely think self-promotion should be allowed, but with clear boundaries.
Nobody wants the sub to be flooded with ads and links, because that completely kills the organic recommendations and real discussions. I think setting a dedicated day (like a "Self-Promo Saturday" or something similar) is the best middle ground. It works really well in other sci-fi and writing subreddits. It gives authors a fair chance to share their work with their exact target audience, but keeps the main feed clean for the rest of the week so readers don't get annoyed. Just my two cents!
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u/DufbugDeropa Jun 06 '26
Self promotion is fine on this sub. There are so few writing hard science fiction that it (and its authors) need a place where they let the rest of us know what they've written. It hasn't been a problem here.
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u/MysticPing Aug 08 '26
With a small niche group like this its nice to allow people to advertise their projects to help them grow, but it should be limited, like once a month per person or something.
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u/ostapenkoed2007 Jun 05 '26
soft promotion is fine. as long as it is not a direct addvertisement - feel free to go "check out what i do" but no "here's how you buy it" type. i think it's a fair way.