Setting fair rules for member promotion

Member promotion works when a product, article or event genuinely answers a community need. It becomes noise when every conversation is treated as distribution, so distinguish a relevant mention from unsolicited advertising.

Adopt a rule such as: “Promotion is allowed only in the designated promotion channel or thread, or as a direct reply to a member’s relevant request. Explain how the offer answers that need; unsolicited promotion elsewhere is not allowed.” This names the permitted contexts and gives members a relevance test.

Publish a frequency cap beside the permitted spaces and apply it equally to every member. The community should choose and state its own cap rather than leave timing to moderator discretion.

Require a member with a commercial interest to start the post with “Commercial interest:” and explain that interest. This is a proposed community disclosure label, not a claim that Australian law mandates that exact wording.

For commercial promotion, require accurate claims and do not allow misleading or deceptive representations. The Australian Consumer Law applies nationally and is enforced by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and state and territory fair trading agencies.

Use the same relevance, frequency and disclosure tests for founders, sponsors, moderators and ordinary members. A separate promotion space may suit some communities; others may permit only direct responses to relevant requests.

If the community is a Queensland incorporated association, put its promotion rule in its written rules where appropriate. Those rules govern how the association runs and members’ rights, and the association and its members must follow them and the Associations Incorporation Act 1981.

For an unclear post, explain the rule and give the member guidance on how to correct it. Remove repeated irrelevant posts, but do not punish a new member for an unclear rule without guidance.

Discord’s native moderation features include role and channel permissions, which can help limit promotion to approved spaces. Discord also describes bots with manual and automatic moderation features; tools do not replace human judgement about relevance and fairness.

On Discord, Developer Mode lets moderators copy user, channel and server IDs, which can help with moderation, reporting issues to Discord and dealing with bots. Review approved promotion by asking whether it helped members solve a problem, and watch for low-value posting to earn status.

Fair Promotion Rules for Community Members

Key Compliance & Enforcement Bodies (Australia)