Profiles: linking to commercial sites not OK?

August 29, 2006 6:15 PM

Are we not supposed to have commercial homepage urls in our profiles?
posted by leapingsheep to Etiquette/Policy at 6:15 PM (19 comments total)

Why not? I do.
posted by jpburns at 6:20 PM on August 29, 2006

jonson nailed it.

Of course, I had the same thought, but wasn't as forward as jonson.
posted by yhbc at 6:25 PM on August 29, 2006

Hmm. Maybe I should read all the new posts before making with the funny in MetaTalk. Sorry if my observation should go in the thread down below.
posted by yhbc at 6:37 PM on August 29, 2006

lol what
posted by thirteenkiller at 6:51 PM on August 29, 2006

No it's totally fine to have pretty much whatever you want in your profile.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:52 PM on August 29, 2006

Thanks. I'd never heard anything against it, but that comment made me wonder.
posted by leapingsheep at 7:00 PM on August 29, 2006

There is a nofollow on the links, so it's not like they are taking advantage of anyone.

Someone mentioned it because it is often a fishy clue that they're up to something else, but in this case, I don't think it has anything to do with a run of the mill news post.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:01 PM on August 29, 2006

your site, your call, obviously. but this is fishy as hell. the post is weird and chatty, with a strange non-OP sig at the end. And it comes immediately after 5 listless comments.

Seems clear to me that the point of the post was to drive traffic to his profile and, ultimately, his website. Just because this is a pretty ineffective way to up your hit count doesn't make it any less an abuse of MeFi.
posted by felix betachat at 7:15 PM on August 29, 2006

I really have no idea why he uses different names like that.

It is odd that he made five throwaway comments then posted some news story, poorly composed and written like a letter. The whole thing stinks.
posted by bob sarabia at 7:30 PM on August 29, 2006

Maybe he just hasn't figured this place out yet. Put down your torches and pitchforks, already.
posted by dg at 8:11 PM on August 29, 2006

bob sarabia, that is.. is..
<mouth wide open>
posted by Plutor at 8:18 PM on August 29, 2006

Maybe he's just a moron. Entirely possible.
posted by delmoi at 8:24 PM on August 29, 2006

Yeah, I'm kind of leaning towards that.
posted by bob sarabia at 8:27 PM on August 29, 2006

No it's totally fine to have pretty much whatever you want in your profile.

*posts 3 meg snuff film gif*
posted by cortex at 8:53 PM on August 29, 2006

No it's totally fine to have pretty much whatever you want in your profile

I tried to put a PayPal Donation button in mine, [just on the off chance...] but it didn't take. I think I'm markup-challenged. CSS is beyond me.

*copies and pastes all of timecube into profile*
posted by exlotuseater at 9:39 PM on August 29, 2006

Are we not supposed to have commercial homepage urls in our profiles?

I don't know why it's being called commercial when it has no ads, no referral URLs and doesn't even work. It looks more like a 1997-style make-a-website-for-the-sake-of-it exercise.
posted by cillit bang at 12:47 AM on August 30, 2006

cortex hasn't btw - Oral Times indeed.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 12:50 AM on August 30, 2006

"No it's totally fine to have pretty much whatever you want in your profile"

..aside from personalised styles.
[bitter weeping and rending of clothes]
posted by NinjaTadpole at 1:17 AM on August 30, 2006

aside from personalised styles.

When are we going to be able to embed a MetaMusic Player in our profiles?
posted by yeti at 6:01 AM on August 30, 2006