Sometimes, we get posts that contain a link to the authors website hidden in some part of the post.
When flagging those as spam (for the missing affiliation), I get mixed responses back as the result, ranging from "declined - Just edit out the link!", to "helpful".
A example of a hidden link to the authors website, can be seen in the following posts:
-
https://stackoverflow.com/revisions/10183482/1
post not deleted and edited by moderator
[SPAM] marked declined
-
https://stackoverflow.com/revisions/13764328/2
post not deleted and edited by moderator
[SPAM] marked declined
A few more cases where outside of the hidden link, where there was also plagiarism:
- https://stackoverflow.com/a/36542052 (deleted)
- https://stackoverflow.com/a/36542012 (deleted)
- https://stackoverflow.com/a/36541912 (deleted)
Both of the above posts followed the same pattern, the OP has make a answer, and then included a hidden backlink in the dot to his own website, with as only reason to promote his own website.
TL;DR:
What is our policy on these kind of answers (original content with hidden backlink) and how should we treat them?