Cool! Sphinn is a press release site now! No offence - it's just not that "hot" news worthy for me, though it might to be to the few involved.

EDIT 1 - Actually I assumed this would go hot and be promoted to the home page - do Sphinn Zone things go hot these days? If that's not the case, then I''l retract that

EDIT 2 - Actually, this isn't newsworthy to be atop the upcoming page either all weekend, if that is indeed the case

Agreed, peeps have posted announcements of mine (Handbooks a few years back, Dojo more recently) without my prompting and it was nuked by mods. I had no problem with that as it was always my understanding that this isn't a place for self promotion (per se hehe).

On the other hand, when certain industry types have 'news' it goes by just fine. I do wonder where the editorial line is here - if one of the mods could clear this up it would be appreciated. Sheesh, I have news all the time, but tell peeps to please not add here - can I change that now? j/k

Yes I too am curious to learn the editorial perspective on this one - I happened to have Sphunn it earlier, given that I think it is industry news, yet now that I'm reading Shaun and David's comments, I wonder if Sphinn is appropriate for press release type content...

Well, it's more about the haves and the have nots Alan - is it fair is 'names' in the biz can but if some lesser known entity puts their company new here it gets nuked? Where do we draw the line? it seems a slippery slope. I love Loren and the gang, but they have a pimpin post about their new conference. Can I then start promoting SEO Dojo activity here? Where does it end. I merely want some clarification so that I can take the embargo of that type of stuff from my site. I've told members NOT to be shlling that stuff here. If it's ok? GREAT. Its fine by me. I just want to know the rules.

Guys,

I appreciate your insights.  At this point I do agree that the slope is too slippery to allow this kind or article.  Unfortunately, since I Sphunn it initially, I am apparently not able to unsphinn it.  So I just clicked to report this as spam.

I definitely don't want to see Sphinn turn into a press release site, nor a clique-based place where lesser known or otherwise unknown people can't have their voice heard.

Alerted by Alan's tweet, I'm going to release this one, at least temporarily, for the good discussion. I'll leave the link intact as a reference. Personally, I agree with Dave, Shaun, Andy and Alan. As a mod I'd like to throw in that stories submitted to the Sphinn Zone category cannot go hot.

We’re very excited to announce that we have acquired Brent Csutoras.

It almost sounds like Brent sold his soul? How does a person get acquired? Ah, you mean assimilated? ;)

It's my understanding as a forum Mod/Editor that these types of posts are fine as long as they're in the SphinnZone. That means they are here for people to see, but they won't go to the front hot page.

This submission was moved to the Sphinn Zone category by a moderator. From the guidelines:

"Sphinn Zone" Category The "Sphinn Zone" category allows for some off-topic conversations, such as industry jokes, sarcasm, and posts about an internet marketer's birthday, wedding, baby, anniversary, etc. These posts must still have a connection to internet marketing. Submissions to this category will not reach the Sphinn home page (no matter how many people vote for them) and may get removed by moderators if deemed unsuitable.

Hi folks -

Just saw all of the debate around this now.  Agreed, it probably should have been in the Sphinn Zone to begin with.  It was big news to us and Brent was obviously quite excited (as were a lot of the people the Sphunn it).

I can see where the Desphinns would come from (based on the category it was put into) but I definitely don't think this would classify as spam.  But the great thing about social media sites and discussions is that each person is entitled to their own opinion.  I was a mod since Sphinn started (I had to step down because I simply didn't have the time anymore and couldn't give the level of service needed) but this post wasn't something that I would ever have marked as 'spam'.

BTW - just one clarification.  Brent actually has 3 other employees in his company, most people think it's just him because of the company name but just like Bruce Clay, Inc. or Ogilvy, there are more people behind the scenes ;)

Thanks for the discussion and for voicing your opinions!

Chris, I don't think anyone here classified the submission as spam, but as "stuff that doesn't belong here". Clicking the "report spam" link was just a way to express this, I believe.

For the records, "Report Spam" isn't meant as a "stronger DeSphinn", or even as a handy procedure to bury a submission due to disagreement.

I've quoted the Sphinn Zone paragraph above to show that the submission doesn't violate the guidelines.

This one has gathered enough votes to reach a prominent spot on the upcoming page, for a few days until it disappears. Countless very similar submissions made it into the huge pool of outdated stories without enough votes to attract attention.

Gotcha Sebastian, it was hard to tell from some of the comments above ;)  And as I stated above - I definitely agreed with the mods (either you or Jill - wasn't sure who) decision to move it into the Sphinn Zone - definitely the most appropriate category.

Hi Chris

At no point did I class this as spam just to clarify this.

This was just a notice about a company to friends on this forum, and I can appreciate that.

However, it offered no real value other than be a PR piece, for me.

It was only as it picked up a bit of momentum with friend votes - not merit votes -  and began to stick to the top of the "Top 10 Most Sphunn Latest Submissions" and "Getting Hot" pages - which are linked to on every pages on the site -  I questioned wether or not this was actually a good thing. After all, it's just an advert.

If there's no decision how the sphinn system works, that means we can all submit our press releases on a Friday to our friends and vote up and get some free traffic/branding/pr about our companies on prominent pages of this site over the weekend. Or can we?

Perhaps it's a flaw this voting system can't really prevent - hence it would be nice to get moderators / editors opinions on wether a CLEAR PRESS RELEASE is allowed so much publicity for so long on a forum for tips, blogs, search engine and social media news and gossip.

PS - I have been here since the beginning though relatively quiet - As I desphunn this I actually had in my mind the story Andy Beard relayed above and numerous others I have noticed.

It's cool to see you back Andy. :)

Andy, I'm glad to see you here again. As you said, Sphinn has evolved since back then. So I'd say we can't totally compare this submission, which can't go hot, with your case two years ago. Do you agree?

Rest assured, we do our best to guarantee that moderation is a level playing field.

Yep - understood Shaun and as stated above - Sphinn Zone was the appropriate place for it.

Just one thing that I'd clarify, it does seem like there were a bunch of friend votes (which would make sense, heck - mine being one of them) but from checking out some of the other people that Sphunn it, there definitely do seem to be quite a few merit votes in there (based on their histories/etc - including the the main Sphinn admin m2).

At the end of the day, I think we're all saying the same thing though.  And thanks for your clarification.

BTW - I am also glad to see you back Andy :)

Hey gang... ok, here' the thing. I don't think it is spam, and personally didn't mark it as such. I merely voiced my opinion via the de-sphinn because that' what it is there for. That really isn't the problem.

Now, I too have been around since the beginning and have been loyal to the community and active (more comments than submissions even). It goes without saying that things have certainly slowed over the last while. Which is sad. Heck, I have folks that say things like "You're STILL hanging around Sphinn? bla bla bla". Like it is some kind of joke. Sad but true. I take heat for hanging here. Won't stop me, but is concerning none-the-less.

So when I get those still trying to participate come to me about there seemingly being two sets of standards; that SOME folks can put PR here and others can't; it does concern me. So only large brands or known entities are allowed to do so? Or can every Tom Dick and (Dave) Harry post their latest company happenings?

Case and point - in early 2009 Jeff Quipp (a mod at the time) posted about the release of my handbooks and it was removed. Which is fine. Other times, later on, when we launched the SEO Dojo, peeps (without my prodding) posted them and they were left (such as; http://sphinn.com/story/130549/ ). Now, obviously it is not in my best interest to say these shouldn't be allowed, but I care more about the community than my own promotion.

I am simply interested in the final editorial stance on  this and worry that we're further damaging the (Sphinn) brand as there are those in the SEO sphere that see them as a double standard. If joe-blow posts his self-promotional PR here it invariably would be nuked lest we become a SEO presss release site... it could get ugly.

I hang out with Andy a lot and it's something he's experienced himself and I'd have LOVED to finally get him back involved.

So, all I am really interested in, as already stated in my first comment/desphinn, is some clarity on this. Are we to pick and choose WHO is allowed to drop PR here? And how does one do that? Is there something in the TOS/Submission guidelines? Seeking clarity and caring about the perception/future of Sphinn is my main motiviation.

I've just re-read the guidelines and the 'self promotional' and 'press release' limitations do seem to be what would be the consideration in situations like this.

I like Chris, (don't know Brent) and wish them all the best... thrilled for them really, a kick ass partnership. I simply want to get some clarification on this as I have told people I know that are still Sphinners, to refrain from submitting my 'News' items. Do I now encourage that? Or do I keep the embargo in place? Peronally, I think it can put off some folks and has the potential to open Pandoras box with this type of stuff in the future.

So my dear mods, please do clarify for us so we undertand the rules better moving forward.

Hey gang... ok, here' the thing. I don't think it is spam, and personally didn't mark it as such. I merely voiced my opinion via the de-sphinn because that' what it is there for. That really isn't the problem.

Now, I too have been around since the beginning and have been loyal to the community and active (more comments than submissions even). It goes without saying that things have certainly slowed over the last while. Which is sad. Heck, I have folks that say things like "You're STILL hanging around Sphinn? bla bla bla". Like it is some kind of joke. Sad but true. I take heat for hanging here. Won't stop me, but is concerning none-the-less.

So when I get those still trying to participate come to me about there seemingly being two sets of standards; that SOME folks can put PR here and others can't; it does concern me. So only large brands or known entities are allowed to do so? Or can every Tom -bad language - and (Dave) Harry post their latest company happenings?

Case and point - in early 2009 Jeff Quipp (a mod at the time) posted about the release of my handbooks and it was removed. Which is fine. Other times, later on, when we launched the SEO Dojo, peeps (without my prodding) posted them and they were left (such as; http://sphinn.com/story/130549/ ). Now, obviously it is not in my best interest to say these shouldn't be allowed, but I care more about the community than my own promotion.

I am simply interested in the final editorial stance on  this and worry that we're further damaging the (Sphinn) brand as there are those in the SEO sphere that see them as a double standard. If joe-blow posts his self-promotional PR here it invariably would be nuked lest we become a SEO presss release site... it could get ugly.

I hang out with Andy a lot and it's something he's experienced himself and I'd have LOVED to finally get him back involved.

So, all I am really interested in, as already stated in my first comment/desphinn, is some clarity on this. Are we to pick and choose WHO is allowed to drop PR here? And how does one do that? Is there something in the TOS/Submission guidelines? Seeking clarity and caring about the perception/future of Sphinn is my main motiviation.

I've just re-read the guidelines and the 'self promotional' and 'press release' limitations do seem to be what would be the consideration in situations like this.

I like Chris, (don't know Brent) and wish them all the best... thrilled for them really, a kick ass partnership. I simply want to get some clarification on this as I have told people I know that are still Sphinners, to refrain from submitting my 'News' items. Do I now encourage that? Or do I keep the embargo in place? Peronally, I think it can put off some folks and has the potential to open Pandoras box with this type of stuff in the future.

So my dear mods, please do clarify for us so we undertand the rules better moving forward.

Here's the difference in my mind at least.

If you're announcing something that cost money, I don't want to see it here. If you're announcing something else of interest to the community, it's fine for the SphinnZone.

I don't know if that's the official rule or even the other mods' stance, but that's basically my criteria when I discard posts. I'm not a fan of people announcing their conferences and seminars here, but I believe Danny and other Admins have said they are okay in the past. I think that's partly so that it doesn't look like they're locking out the competition since Third Door Media obviously offers conferences :)

Ok, that's a good approach. So, if I launch something that is FREE to the public, although tied to a paid community, would that be ok in your scenario? Obviously this post in question isn't a shill for money, but is tied to a company that by all means is charging for services.

And example would be the FREE IR patent/paper database or the FREE video library (of publicly avail vids) that we added to the Dojo.

Such announcements, in your personal view, would be ok? Once more, text has no personality, I am not in the least being cheeky. I truly want to know what is and isn't ok, so I can bear in mind for future reference.

Interestingly I'd not be as oposed to conferences/seminars as it is an oportunity to further the industry and its practitioners. Which is a great thing. But I can understand how that might get ugly in a hurry as well.

Thanks for the stance Jill, things are getting more perspective which is a good thing.

Yeah just to reaffirm - I had originally been one to sphinn it, because it is noteworthy. ANd yes, a big part of that reasoning is the people involved.

Once I had more time to ponder given the additional information, I felt it should be desphunn, but had no ability to do that, so I had no choice but to hit the spam link.

What I'm having a challenge with now it whether The Sphinn Zone is the right title for the "other posts" section, since honestly, I had never even read the definition of that category.  As a typical half-baked person, I have always assumed that no such "other" category even existed.  Even if an entry never goes hot, just by virtue that it's in the stream right now would cause confusion to me.

Maybe it's about coming up with an icon to represent the difference for that category of articles or some way of making it more abundantly clear that Sphinn Zone articles won't ever go hot.

As for the search patent database, for example, I'd vote for a blog post announcing it in the SEO category.

With submissions like "X joins Y" or so my mouse pointer tends to move to the discard button by itself. I ditch it when possible by the guidelines, because usually someone just took an opportunity to mention --and link to-- "a company that by all means is charging for services", as Dave put it. I mean, Larry Page joining M$ would be industry news, but ...

I understand excitement, though. So basically, submissions like this one are judged by Danny's Basic Common Sense Law, applied by mods who interpret them individually to some degree. Makes sense? I don't think that a 20 page long policy on company related news submissions would do Sphinn any good.

I can see everybodies point of view here - it's a strange one. :)

Bottom line. The piece in question is nothing but a press release.

At the moment, this press release is doing a decent job of promoting the brands of 10e20 and Brent Csutoras, Inc without adding anything of substance to the discussion of this community or personal learning experience (or even gossip) - no offence to the peeps in question - this topic is not merely about Chris and Brent anymore - if it seemed to be - that's been settled.

It's about the nature of the content and does it have a home at sphinn?

It keeps more interesting posts down under the fold in some sections of this site, and possibly leeches the small bit of traffic Sphinn sends at weekends. I'm a bit obsessed with site site structure so I see it getting traffic where otherwise it should not.

Ultimately, pieces like this are not why I come to Sphinn daily. I guess the mods need to answer that one as well.

So, if I launch something that is FREE to the public, although tied to a paid community, would that be ok in your scenario?

Probably, but each post would be evaluated on it's own merits.

And it does also depend on who submitted it and who it's talking about. If Joe Shmoe's SEO company who nobody ever heard of "wins" a TopSEO "award" (and I use those terms lightly) and announces that on his blog, we'll probably discard it. It also depends on if someone is submitting their so-called news every day or even every week just for the sake of submitting it. If once in awhile something cool has happened with your company that would be of interest to the community, then by all means submit it here to the Sphinn Zone. But it's got to truly be of interest and don't do it every day.

Again, this is just my opinion on how I evaluate things. All the mods have their own criteria and we do sometimes disagree. (Danny's often the most lenient believe it or not!)

I've changed the title, and its description, to reflect the content of this thread. I hope Chris and Brent, and the folks who voted (21 sphinns minus 3 desphinns) for the original story as well, aren't mad at me now. ;-)

Also: Sorry Jill for having only one vote for your comment.

No problem at all Sebastian - I think it's important to get this ironed out so everyone is on the same page (because there has obviously been a ton of company news/new additions/etc that have made it to the homepage).

BTW - thanks for everyone's opinion here, it's nice to see a spirited and productive discussion (that doesn't have to be 140 characters or under ;)

Shaun: Ultimately, pieces like this are not why I come to Sphinn daily. I guess the mods need to answer that one as well.

Since Jill and yours truly have spoken out already (please note: not representing anyone else at Sphinn): I hope you don't mind when I turn this one around, asking the community:

What's your take on company news submitted to Sphinn?

I think it's weak.. In the past less popular people, Shoemoney for example, not only had their posts moved or deleted, because of who they are, we are now discussing allowing that same behavior by other people, because of who they are..

This clearly takes Sphinn out of the news niche and moves it squarely in to the clique niche.. If you are 'somone' or a friend of someone, the rules are different than if you are just a 'regular guy'.. Not really a gerat precedent to set..

I used to come to sphinn daily, I used to report spam daily, and like many, I have far more comments than submissions. But Sphinn has become less and less relevant the longer it goes.. For me, the final nail came when mods were granted to power to promote things to the front page without forcing those posts to go through the community process..

Feydakin, "because of who they are" isn't relevant to mod decisions. Guess why we discuss this in a thread closely related to two former mods here.

Sorry, Jill said quite clearly just a few posts above

And it does also depend on who submitted it and who it's talking about.

Certainly looks relevant to me.. Unless I'm somehow misunderstanding what she said..

Feydakin, you put Jill's statement out of context. If I understood you right, you were referring to submissions to all categories. This discussion is about company news in the Sphinn Zone. With industry news, we don't look at the submitter. When it comes to company news submitted to the Sphinn Zone like "Just another 'SEO in India' company offering hand crafted comment spam" that's a completely different story. If you really want to read stuff like that, I can send you an excerpt of today's spam queue.

Wow, what a great and interesting discussion. Thanks to all for sharing your thoughts. Andy - great to see you again. Whether you decide to stick around or not, it's nice to see you back. Not sure where/how to best jump in with my opinions, so bear with me if this goes off in multiple directions.

I have no problem with this submission at all and voted it up because it's interesting and noteworthy industry news. Both Chris' company and Brent's company have well-earned, strong reputations and for them to merge like this fits my definition of the type of content that belongs on a site for "Internet Marketing News & Discussion." We have the Sphinn Zone specifically for this type of material, and Jill correctly moved this to that category.

"Cool! Sphinn is a press release site now!"

But it's not a press release. In fact, it fits exactly what our guidelines say about press releases: "In almost all cases, press releases will be considered too self-promotional. Better to write an article or blog post and submit that." That's exactly what this is: a blog post written by Chris that links to the press release. Brent didn't submit the press release itself, which I would've been inclined to discard (if he had).

"If there's no decision how the sphinn system works, that means we can all submit our press releases on a Friday to our friends and vote up and get some free traffic/branding/pr about our companies on prominent pages of this site over the weekend. Or can we?"

Shaun, you are certainly welcome to give that a try if you think that's the best way to contribute to Sphinn. :-) As I said, when two well-known companies merge like this, I certainly consider it newsworthy. If your company regularly has equally newsworthy material that would be of interest to the whole community, submit it. If we like it, we'll vote it up. If we don't, we'll desphinn it. If it's not really newsworthy, we'll probably remove it. If you go overboard, maybe we'll have to take other actions. Who knows? That's how the "Sphinn system" has always worked, and you've been around long enough to know. We have a set of guidelines (I'm pretty sure Danny chose the word "guidelines" instead of "rules" on purpose) and the mods/admins do the best we can to apply those guidelines to all the unique situations that arise.

When we started, Danny specifically didn't want to write a long, detailed list of guidelines. The idea/hope was that common sense would rule the day and people would choose to do the right thing. Over the last three years, that hasn't worked well with some members and so now we have a very specific list of guidelines. Yet every week we get emails from people complaining -- some tell us we're too strict and have too many rules, others tell us we're too loose and need to add more guidelines to deal with things that person who emailed us doesn't like.

The point is that we still want to -- and still do -- trust our members to know what works here and what doesn't.

About level playing fields...

The idea of a level playing field is nonsense. It doesn't exist. If Ask.com were to announce a new ranking algorithm tomorrow, would you care as much as if Google announced the same thing? Of course not. There's no such thing as a level playing field. When Andy left Sphinn a couple years ago, it was quite the big "to do" and got a lot of attention, deservedly so because Andy is well known ... yet I'm sure we have other people who leave Sphinn every week and the community doesn't care about them, no one bats an eyelash. So yes, it's a different story when two well-known industry companies merge compared to two companies no one has ever heard of.

But here's the thing: people and companies can use Sphinn to make the field more level for themselves by becoming good, trusted members of the site. Sphinn is and always has been a great way to make a name for yourself in this industry. How many of us knew who Marty Weintraub was before Sphinn? Or look at some of the currently active users -- people in this discussion -- like Alan B. I'd never heard of Alan before he got active on Sphinn, and because of his contributions here, Alan's become much more visible and leveled the playing field for himself. I think I can say the same thing about Dave, Shaun, and many other Sphinn users. It's not difficult to earn respect here. When you contribute quality, people notice. Sphinn has opened a lot of doors for people in our industry to make a good name for themselves, and I love that.

Dave: "...example would be the FREE IR patent/paper database or the FREE video library (of publicly avail vids) that we added to the Dojo."

Dave, if anything should be clear from this discussion, it's that we review things on a case-by-case basis when necessary. Sebastian suggested a blog post announcement might be appropriate for Sphinn's SEO category. Not sure I agree with that -- it depends what the news is. I'd have to read it to develop an opinion. I agree with what Jill said in comment #77400: http://sphinn.com/story/151084/#77400

Shaun: "Ultimately, pieces like this are not why I come to Sphinn daily. I guess the mods need to answer that one as well."

There are a lot of things that get submitted to Sphinn, belong on Sphinn, are successful on Sphinn, and yet have zero interest to me personally. Shaun, are you interested in every tweet that lands in your Twitter stream? Every status update that your contacts post on Facebook? Why should Sphinn consist only of content that directly interests you? We'll never develop a site that pleases everyone. When you come here, the assumption should be that you'll like some of the material and you won't like others.

Lets put some perspective on this (though also please understand that I think Brent & Chris with their respective companies now combined knock out some great content)

Take relationships outside Sphinn out of the equation totally and look just at submission history.

Brent's most recent 25 subimissions cover a timeframe of 481 days

Of those 19 were self serving.. plus this one was as well makes 20

Here is one of Brent's own comments

Self submitting is fine in my opinion. You can nominate yourself in most organizations for positions, you can vote for yourself in almost all competitions and elections, and etc. Submitting your own content is just putting it into the system. It still has to be voted on by the masses to become popular. I think what people get concerned about when it comes to self promotion is when that is all you do. If you never vote on anything else and all you do is submit everything you have ever had to say online to a community, then you are starting to cross the line on what your community involvement is.

1. Brent knows the rules, & knows Sphinn zone doesn't go hot... if he had made a mistake with the submission he likely would have left a comment, & if he had asked for it to be moved I am sure Jill would have mentioned it.

He also wouldn't have tweeted the story if he knew there was no way for the story to go hot. Brent is too smart for that.

2. The only other story he found worthy of a vote on this visit to Sphinn happened to be an announcement of a conference where 10e20 are partnering with SEJ - that is a coincidence

3. Normally when people try to squeeze this kind of thing through they at least go to some effort, maybe do an interview on a 3rd party blog for a book announcement (e.g. Art of SEO) or write a great content article with a small mention at the bottom with an additional annoucement. In this particular case the blog post didn't really offer any more value than the press release.

Incidentally Brent tweeted about Maile's negative offset post which is the type of content that should be making the front page on Sphinn http://sphinn.com/story/150533

Vanessa actually wrote something similar a few months ago about some Superbowl ads on SEL, which I questioned in the comments and didn't get a response, thus it seems this is something Googlers & ex-Googlers know about. SEL breaks this hint for Maile using uverflow hidden on the menus.

That was a story worth promoting, real news that should have made it to the front page, and possibly should have been promoted to the front page even without the votes to get it there, as despite Maile saying this slightly off the record, it made Search Cap.

The strange thing is that little SEO shop in india which writes a few articles that don't get votes because of their overall reach, votes on other people's articles which they find interesting, and then submits a blog post about one of their new services probably has just as much right to the attention.

All I can see is self promotional intent (for both submissions)

How newsworthy was this compared to Jill's submission about Hearst buying iCrossing?

http://breakingmedia.com/2010/06/hearst-purchases-icrossing/

I would look on that one as a 7/10 ho hum as it doesn't really affect your average webmaster.

Brent's submission is only news based upon being part of the "Sphinn Community", which isn't really any more active than I have been for the last 2 years.

I will finish with another Brent quote from his days of despinning

"Missing the most important aspect.. Value to marketers :("

May I suggest we don't turn this into a "who's too self-promotional" to Sphinn stuff thread? This isn't about Brent (anymore).

Here's my conclusion:

Press releases (and articles that just promote press releases) should only be allowed in the Sphinn Zone.  Sphinn Zone submissions should NOT even be a Sphinnable.  This takes any "clique" or "bias" concerns out of the equation altogether.  It also helps to declutter the main Sphinn stream.  The only thing that should happen with submissions is editorial review to ensure they're legitimate and not just spam.

Personally, and this is just my opinion, I see a primary value opportunity in Sphinn being the closest thing we have to an article peer review community platform.  The more that can be done to eliminate even the perception of biased buddy business promotion, the better for everyone.

Just my opinion for what its worth

Ohhh I like that idea!

lol @ Jill - Alan and I talked AT LENGTH on Skype this morning and thought it was a reasonable approach.

Oh and I think it might be a good idea to be reporting these types of threads (Sphinn related) on the Sphinn Blog - and open the comments. So that it would garner more discussion - this post is now off the upcoming, thus the convo really won't continue (as well).