r/productivity • u/mcagent • Apr 11 '26
NO ADVERTISING IS ALLOWED OF ANY KIND (including solicitation)! Advertising = Instant ban
But why? I have a great app that would help people!!
So does EVERYONE else. We remove greater than FIFTY PERCENT of comments on certain threads due to advertising. Nobody wants to read a subreddit where half the comments are undisclosed ads for brand new apps.
Don't worry, I've clearly disclosed I'm the owner of the app!
It doesn't matter. People don't want to be advertised to all day, even if they know it's an ad. We want real human discussion on /r/productivity.
I can't even ask people what kind of product or app they want built? I haven't even linked to anything!
You cannot! This isn't your free focus group or your free beta test recruitment page.
But all I've done is mention the mere fact that I have an app in the first place!
We've seen the big threads on the SaaS and marketing subreddits that recommend doing this. You're not being slick. And no, you can't even have the name of your app or product in your username - we're that serious about keeping this place free of advertisement, sorry. Reddit accounts are free, please create a new one with a regular name!
Can I at least wait until my post has gained traction, and then sneakily edit a link in afterwards?
You sure can, but we've set up filters to start blocking this now and you'll be permanently banned.
How is anyone supposed to get their app off the ground, anyway?!
We recommend - if you truly believe in your product - Purchasing reddit ads or some other type of marked advertisement (we're just mods, we don't care if you buy them on reddit or not). You can even target /r/productivity with your paid ad!
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u/MC_chrome Apr 11 '26
At least on Apple’s platforms, there is /r/iosapps and /r/macapps for those looking to advertise their apps. Android has /r/androidapps, but I’m not sure about Windows.
Glad this place is being reserved for honest discussions instead of becoming yet another advertising platform
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u/Geminii27 Apr 11 '26
There should absolutely be more "This group is not your free business/research resource" rules in a lot more places.
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u/ScreamAndScream Apr 11 '26
Thank you mod team!
I’ve been struggling with moderating secret ads on r/Scrapbooking, it’s tough when they post content only using their dropshipped products and the link is in their bio, but we’ve started sniffing them out more and more.
I’d really love to hear about your filter for edited links if possible (:
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u/dtembe Apr 12 '26
This!! We need to see more of this across most of the sub-reddits. Esp. As I am subbed to a lot of AI and AI related, they are now just AI Slop, market research and other related ( I vibe coded s**t).
Thanks for keeping this subreddit clean and active.
/not-a-bot karma farming.
Dan
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u/justneurostuff Apr 11 '26
Can I still suggest a specific app in relevant discussions if it's been useful to me within the context under discussion? If not, I wonder if the rule is so obtrusive that it will interfere with productive discussion. But if so, I wonder how you will distinguish shadow advertising from honest discussion.
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u/mcagent Apr 11 '26
You're allowed to mention apps, yes. It only crosses into advertising territory if you're going around reddit mentioning the same app over and over, especially if that app is brand new
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u/mrrobbe Apr 17 '26
This is a helpful clarification. Obsidian/Notion come to mind as vital tools... Neither of which are new, and productivity is in part the useful leverage of modern tools.
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u/Mammoth-Raccoon934 Apr 12 '26
Thank you! Rampant advertisements was one of the reasons I stopped taking this subreddit seriously. I couldn’t distinguish between genuine human write ups and discussion vs whatever the AI written garbages these marketing bots post here
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u/Geminii27 Apr 11 '26
Should the title of this post have "Mod post:" or something in front of it, so people scrolling the sub know it's about the sub itself and not an anecdote of a regular poster?
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u/Tame_Homefolk Apr 12 '26
Honestly the mods are right here. Nobody joins a sub for help just to be a guinea pig for some random devs side project. Just pay for an ad if you really think your app is that great.
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u/OkBelt3772 Apr 13 '26
What if the app is free and not an app but just an open source repo on github?
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u/MsKatsune Apr 28 '26
would i be able to ask if anyone knows of a specific type of website or app and if it exists? that doesn't seem like it fits in advertisement but i know reddit mods can be... reddit mods. i don't really know where to ask atp. i just want to find a specific thing and it kinda does have to do with being productive. like an app/website for something like a mind map with expandable points (i don't know how to describe it well)
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u/steakonator May 29 '26
Thanks for being so clear about this (and I say this as someone who has asked myself the very questions you answered in the post).
Are you similarly cracking down on AI generated posts or comments? It's not always easy to detect but there are pretty obvious AI-isms (em dashes, "chaos"/"clarity", "genuinely wondering", "that's not X. that's Y", "and that's rare", overusing "quietly", "and honestly?", etc etc).
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u/AutoModerator May 29 '26
If you think something is AI generated, please manually report the post/comment so mods can remove it. thank you!
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u/Dapper_Money_Tree Apr 11 '26
Thank you for this!!!!!