--- title: "About Blogging Etiquette and Inline Product Promotions" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/29/about-blogging-etiquette-and-inline-product-promotions.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/29/about-blogging-etiquette-and-inline-product-promotions.html" published: "2003-05-29T05:30:00" updated: "2003-05-29T05:30:00" tags: ["Off Topic"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "Last night I got a comment on one of my posts . My post basically pointed to a rant by Joel on Software about prototyping habits, and also points out the book he recommends. Here is the comment I got: \" Richard Posted @…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # About Blogging Etiquette and Inline Product Promotions By Roy Osherove May 29, 2003 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) **Historical article** · Originally published May 29, 2003; technical details may be outdated. Last night I got a comment on [one of my posts](http://dotnetweblogs.com/rosherove/posts/7702.aspx). My post basically pointed to a [rant](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/news/20030516.html) by _[Joel on Software](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/)_ about prototyping habits, and also points out the book he recommends. Here is the comment I got: _"__Richard Posted @ 5/28/2003 1:17 PM I really like some of the things you have to say in your blog, but why bother putting references to stuff Joel recommends in yours (other than to get the Amazon commission). If I want to know what Joel recommends, I'll subscribe to his blog (which I do)?"_ Although I've answered Richard's question as an inline comment, I felt the need to discuss this in a separate post, since I've been thinking about this thing for the past night or so.   My reply to Richard was composed of several points: - Not all the people who read my blog read Joel's (I know of at least two) - I only recommend books I would buy myself, hence I feel I lose no credibility when I get commissions from books I refer to - I would rather have a book recommendation by a developer like me than from a commercial book site. I don’t mind that developer getting commission for my purchase as long as I know the recommendation is legit These points bring on a much broader point to me: 1. Does the fact that I, as a personal blogger, promote books for commission, hurt my credibility? 2. Should personal bloggers never promote stuff for profit? 3. If so, what are the ethics for this process? Here's what I think: 1.      Only when certain conditions are met: a.       It is likely that a certain promotion is based solely on profit, and not on personal choice of favorite b.      Or, Promotion, even though for profit, is represented as a "personal recommendation" and not as a "on the side" ad 2.      No. Bloggers should be able to make a profit on their efforts, as long as it stands to a certain ethical code of conduct 3.      I can see several points here: a.       Any promotion that is not a personal recommendation should be displayed in a separate part of the display area – A banner on top,bottom or side, but not as inline text where it could be perceived as a personal recommendation b.      If a promotion is a personal recommendation then there has to be a way for the reader to know that this link is somehow sponsored is commissioned. This should be an easy to see text or banner saying that "I am an affiliate of X" or "All book recommendations here are part of an affiliate program" c.       Never hide the fact that you are promoting **anything**. Distrust is a deadly and infectious disease There are probably more. Perhaps we should start making out a draft for a "blogger code of conduct" of some sort. Sort of amendments for the blogging community. What do you think? ## More in Off Topic [All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) - May 30, 2003 ### [Donny Mack Reveals Hidden Developer Secrets](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/30/donny-mack-reveals-hidden-developer-secrets.html) - May 29, 2003 ### [About Knowledge Blocks](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/29/about-knowledge-blocks.html) - May 27, 2003 ### [PeopleWare](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/27/peopleware.html) - May 27, 2003 ### [BlogWear](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/27/blogwear.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/