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I'm wondering if it allowed/ethical to "promote" ones package on TeX.SE? Evidently I'm talking about free and open-source packages so not with a (direct) financial benefit. The idea is that many programmers write nice (hacky) packages for some need, but fail to attract other users/programmers to use/contribute to these packages.

The idea could be to ask some question like: "How can you do X effectively?" And the answer: "With package Y" (and evidently with a short introduction to the features Y offers). Since answering is open, other programmers can come up with their own package and its features.

Short question: will this practice be supported, or should these questions be closed?

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    There is definitely a tone of "primarily opinion-based" when asking how to do something "in the best way" or "effectively".
    – Werner Mod
    Commented Oct 14, 2015 at 21:49
  • Allowed: Yes... ethical..hm.... it's too much self-promotion to do this and as Werner stated: 'primarily opinion based'. Perhaps the TeX.SX blog is the better place for this?
    – user31729
    Commented Oct 14, 2015 at 22:00
  • @ChristianHupfer: the aim is not that much self-promotion, but reuse of effort, and collaboratively creating more qualitative packages.
    – willeM_ Van Onsem
    Commented Oct 14, 2015 at 22:01
  • @CommuSoft: I see that point -- but other's won't see it, perhaps
    – user31729
    Commented Oct 14, 2015 at 22:02
  • 2
    You could also see: meta.tex.stackexchange.com/questions/4531/… .
    – Romain Picot
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 6:23
  • I think that “promoting” is used with certain connotation in this question that does not apply to the TeX world at all. I think there's no problem with “promoting” (rather “using ones package to answer a question”), nor is unethical.
    – Manuel
    Commented Oct 18, 2015 at 23:19

2 Answers 2

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If you actually find questions that are related to your package content, then you can fire an answering frenzy by mentioning you can also do this with <insert package name> and so on. Then I don't see why it should be a problem since we have loads of package authors answering questions with their own poison of choice. And it is a very very good thing since you get the information directly from the source.

But if it is a pretty obscure subject, say counting the keystrokes that left/right hand presses for typing a document1, then you can ask one-two questions, which really means please don't overdo it, with really well prepared content including those obscure keywords such that others can find it via googling, and then answer yourself.

But you better prepare the questions a bit better as you can see there is a defensive mode for such best practice stuff even though the whole site is about best practice answers instructing don't do this, don't use that, those are deprecated etc.

1) I trust the nerdiverse that it must exist somewhere

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    An answering frenzy might not be a good idea, but i fully agree with the rest.
    – Johannes_B
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 7:39
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    @Johannes_B I have seen so many frenzies for editing, voting, closing tagging. Unlike them, proper answering frenzy never hurt.
    – percusse
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 19:39
  • True that. lala
    – Johannes_B
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 19:46
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Strange, mostly I use the site for the opposite use:

Don't use longtable

Longtable vs. supertabular: Which is right for which job?

Don't use xspace

https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/86620/1090

Don't use tabularx

Alignment in tabularx environment

Column width table in tabularx environment

https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/145918/1090

https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/241411/1090

Don't use xmltex

https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/42207/1090

XML or other markup to LaTeX?

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    You make longtable the slowest internet trolling ever, laid over twenty something years.
    – percusse
    Commented Oct 16, 2015 at 9:53
  • I'm noticing a trend… :)
    – Sean Allred
    Commented Oct 24, 2015 at 5:38

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