Sometimes we get stories that really are not news but some form of product promotion.  This happened recently and I flagged the story with a monkey wrench (needs more work).

The poster was a sincere person, really liked the project s/he was working on, and had a great reason to write about it on NowPublic.  But the story really needed some work. I suggested the addition of the tag, Press Release, to give readers a sense of where the story was coming from. And I also suggested that if the person had a financial stake in the story, that there be a disclosure about that as well.

I am grateful that the contributor did both...but I still thought something was missing...and that was: newsworthiness. 

I wrote: 

Before I remove the flag - it would help a
great deal if you would place your product within a news context. What
problems does your product answer? what evidence is there that people
need help with they way they organize their material on computers? I
know that my sloppiness drives me crazy, so perhaps I should give your
product a try....

For example, you could point people to some of the reasons why an organized computer is a good idea. I found this on Monster.ca (a Canadian job board):

"Create a place for those things and keep everything in order. A job search is trying enough without having to sort through piles of paper or disorganized computer files when you're in a hurry to write a cover letter or rush off to an interview..."

See what I mean?  a bit of independent information really helps!  Lots of us here are really excited by the stuff we work on, and we don't want to prevent people from writing about what they love. But in a newsy environment, it's important to be complete, fair, and transparent.

So write about what you love, but don't ignore the difficulties, your stake in it, and other information that will help people make up their own minds about the issue.