Oof, I feel kind of bad because I was spamming my story before. Sorry about that! I didn't realise it was pushing other threads down. I'll be more mindful and stick to promoting in only one or two threads at a time from now on.
Broad promotion threads normally barely work. But more specified threads tend to bring traffic to my works and I find some interesting work on there to. Some people honestly can only find new interesting works via the forms as well so maybe there could be less of them, but they don't need to go away.
Writing this will bump this thread back up, but I think it's kind of telling that when I'm writing this, two hours after the previous poster, this thread has been pushed down by 15 threads, 9 of which are self promotion threads.
3/5 of these threads are self promo. That's a bit too much self promo if you ask me.
One of them clearly asks for some commitment, and to not just post and run.
Two of them have restrictions, but they're vague enough that they still get crowded really quickly.
But that still leaves 6 of those being open post and run threads.
I have to say... I never really thought about it untill I stumbled upon this thread. I did some here and there but figured out pretty fast it wasn't really helping unless it was specified what they wanted. So I didn't bother to do it anymore. But now I see how annoying I was at the start :s
Yeah I agree, I do like promotion threads with a fun twist or something or very specific ones for a specific genre or theme. I mean, I genuinely like reading through the threads where people badly describe their stuff or show a part they're really proud of.
Attempts have been made to try and encourage promotion threads that require more engagement than the usual post and go type threads and in some cases at some points in time it's worked but as there's a continuous influx of new creators and new folks joining the forums, unless they are informed of the expected etiquette or directed to thread explaining what to do or how to do it it will continue to be the same, again and again, over and over. Even threads like this calling out about how there's too much/to many self promo threads are redundant.
At one point there had been globally pinned threads as well as threads pinned for each category outlining some of the basic ground rules and recommended methods of action. At some point or another they either changed or straight up poof and disappeared (they could still be around but I lack the time and patience to go digging that far).
The point is it's 100% possible to have promo threads that are more genre specific or have a certain set of rules to require more engagement that way rather than posting and poofing were encouraging discussion and engagement not only with one another content but the individuals behind them. But the only way that's gonna happen is either making those threads or informing new folks as they come in that that's what's preferred/encouraged or what have you. Someone's just gotta do the legwork 
Basically this.
I honestly think one way right now would be to close all of the old promo threads that haven't been updated for several months to a year and older. Because people do keep raising those from the dead, unaware that the OG poster and other users on that thread are gone.
Another way would be to somehow modify that pop-up message when making a new thread. You know how it goes "this title is similar to Thread X"? Maybe it can be modified in a way where it WON'T allow you to make a new promo thread if several others are already in existing with the same topic.
But that would also give room to people finding loopholes in the titles or getting bots to close them before they open. And then that could end up being "well, you're silencing users" and what have you.
There's also the fact that...people just don't plain read. They don't look at the OP to see that "yes, this thread is 10 years old and the last known post was 4 years ago. maybe don't post here". They don't look at a promo thread that has 500+ replies and go "wow, a lot of these aren't getting a lot of clicks. And it's already got so many replies. Maybe I'm gonna get buried here" They just post and go.
Can't cure that, sadly.
I'm enjoying the promotion threads that have "prompts" far more than the generic ones. Getting to post a favorite scene, or a line that contains a specific word, or an interaction between two favorite characters -- that's a win-win. It's fun for me to do, and it's also really fun to see what others are doing; I think it can give potential readers a sense of a story in a way that a carefully worded summary or elevator pitch can't.
So... more prompts, please!
Promo threads with prompts helped me get where I am, so can't really say the solution is to take them all out. Moderation tried to limit them before and keep raw promo to the stickied thread, but not only we have someone there constantly replying to every new post with their comics instead of just one and done, every new user that shows up sees a promo thread and goes "neat, I want to do that too!" since they don't know it doesn't work if it's just links and nothing else.
Concerning threads with prompts it'd be neat to see something like one or two new prompts a week or so, that way there's a couple different topics for folks to choose from depending on their personal preference or area of interest and enough time for people to interact, engage and keep things interesting overall.
Not to sure how to test such a thing out but it could serve as a decent starting point?
The problem with promotion threads is that for anyone who's been hanging around here a while, you've already checked out most of the other works and either subbed or know it's not your sort of thing. I think getting rid of the prompt-based threads, however, would remove a lot of interaction between authors - I made one the other day and I really enjoyed reading all the responses to it. Perhaps there should be some kind of avoidance of the 'drop your link and run' ones, and promotion of ones that involve community interaction.
I am guilty of dropping my link in the non-prompt based ones, but I do try not to spam them.
Agree with everything here. The interactions in the prompt-based threads are the most enjoyable part of them.
I think there should just be a thread per medium and genre, and you basically get to post your work in each of it's subgenres once. Then once every quarter the threads are refreshed and you can post again. That way every three months those threads would be cleared out, people could find a comic or novel they wanted by genre, and there wouldn't be as much spam.
Other than that, if you're going to link your work it should probably be in relation to the discussion that's being had (to provide an example or to respond to someone directly asking for it).
Honestly that's the only way I could imagine cleaning it up, making it servicable and keeping it managable.
When I first started my comic I got a decent chunk up and then made a post saying "I've got a scifan comic about giant robots, who's got some similarly niche scifan for me to check out" and that got me some subs who are still wit me and helped me find some comics I'm still following. It worked. I've even been trending a few times. I also got a few recommendations.
I'd say I'm more of a fan of recommendation threads, and I am in theory, but the problem then comes like with the front page that people will just recommend the same few more popular creators over and over unless you're very specific about what you want.
But honestly, with things like post your latest update threads and plenty of other appropriate places to link your comic during your average conversation, there's no need for these dozens of bog standard share you comic self promo with no limits threads. I think the more specific these threads can be the more likely you can get the readers who are genuinely interested and the more likely you won't just get swept up in a wave of newcomers spamming their comic in every self promo thread around, not that specifics always stop them just not reading and spamming it anyway. I think some of the nicest balance can be you can promo yourself as long as you also promo someone in the same genre or a smaller creator as well, but forcing restrictions on people can definitely be unpopular.
In my experience on Wattpad, I agree that promotion threads should be more engaging than "drop your novel/comic below!" stuff. It took me a while to realize that the weekly share your story threads barely got people to check out my story on there. Though Wattpad used to have something where you can request a specific type of story. Like someone would say, "I want a sci-fi story with horror" and sometimes they were more effective at getting reads.
Not sure if the forums has this already, but maybe we can create feedback for feedback/critique for critique threads. I know that's not a guarantee to get genuine readers but it could help.
@KRWright That is 100% what I hated about the Wattpad forums. No matter what you do there isn't a fair way to make sure that each genre is properly represented. Categories like Fantasy and Romance are always going to have a flood of link dumps that people can't actually sort through no matter how often they refresh the category. They're useless and it limits self promotion too much.
@everyoneelse I like the idea of self promotion threads. When done cleverly and sparingly they've been the most successful means for me to gain subscribers who actually read my work (especially the themed/prompt threads.) I think its a great start for newer authors and artists.
I think the problem is that I also keep seeing the same authors with the same work over and over again on the generic post your link threads. Like @sxxaint said.
I also would like the idea weekly prompts and some of the other limitations @VibrantFox proposed.
The whole point is to limit self-promotion.
But I mean, if you really want to self-promote I'd say the best advice is to actually get away from promoting on the forums all together. I'm pretty sure only a handful of my readers are from here and all the others came from my update schedule, promotion on social media, networking, shout outs by other creators I knew from Discord, etc.
Exact opposite experience here. Had very few followers on Wattpad. The sites where I self promote I have ten times that, and it isn't a lot but they actually read my work because they liked something they saw in the prompts/ they write the same themes. As I said, the generic post your link threads don't really work.
There's also still the matter that there's no fair way to make genre catagories when some genres are more populated than others.
Honestly, this isn't just specifically towards you btw, but this is something I was really afraid of when a lot of Wattpad users joined. I didn't want the structures of their forums to be encouraged here because they don't work.
I've definitely posted on the generic self promotion threads. Being able to see the number of times a link is clicked let's you know how effective that method is.
I've gotten more engagements with interactive threads and those are more fun anyway.
New users are typically going to post in self promotion post or make a new one. Maybe there's a way to tie in how many link drops vs clicks. I'm not sure if it's possibly but the trust level on the forum apparently limits the amount of likes you can give st a time. I wonder if it could limit the amount of times you link the same work. Vs how many times you've actually clicked someone else's work. Sadly the simple work around would be just to click links.
@KJWhitten there's currently a feedback thread opening let me know if you'd like me to link it here.