Why I Love Ask Metafilter
Or: Cash Gifting? More Like Cash Grifting AMIRITE (yes, so rite)
There’s a lot of scammy crap on the internet. This isn’t news to anyone, I know, but it’s part of the narrative here so just work with me for a second. One of the grand themes of the lots-of-scammy-crap parts of the internet is the willful use of evolving exploits and misdirection and just plain brute force to game search results in order to promote your scam.
If you’re a scammer, you want your website to be the first thing someone sees if they go credulously a-googlin’ for this crazy new money-making scheme they’ve heard about.
So it probably pisses you off when the top google search result for your scam is an Ask Metafilter thread discussing its scammy nature. That’s lousy PR. It’ll tip off the marks.
So what do you do? You sign up for a Metafilter account and you hop into that #1-search-result thread. And you leave a long, glowing defense of cash gifting and explain that it’s a great idea, a smart investment. You mention — and dutifully link to — some websites you just happened to find, which also just happen to disagree with the idea that cash gifting is a scam. (And which also just happen to hide their whois data behind a proxy service.)
Unfortunately for you, the folks at Metafilter are actually paying attention; your apologist shill is quickly deleted; your account goes on a Very Special List; and that damned AskMe thread is still right up there at #1.
There ain’t no justice in this world.
iamkimiam Said,
September 4, 2008 @ 7:58 am
D’oh!
Josh Millard Said,
September 5, 2008 @ 11:52 am
If you’re a really stubborn scammer, you might even sign up again, drop a couple more comments, get them immediately deleted, get banned again, and have a reason to curse the universe doubly.
Heh.
Dan Bruno Said,
September 6, 2008 @ 6:14 pm
If I were Matt Haughey, I would earmark every fiver from a scam artist for ice cream cones.
Milan Said,
September 29, 2008 @ 6:01 pm
Thank you for serving as a MeFi admin. It is one of the very most valuable sites out there.
Josh Millard Said,
October 29, 2008 @ 2:05 pm
The annals of Fuck You, Cash Gifters continue. It’s like they don’t even think.
Alex Said,
October 29, 2008 @ 2:50 pm
Actually, there was a link to a very well put together anti-gifting site on that thread which got deleted by a somewhat overzealous Metafilter mod with a burr up their ass, because the thread was getting “spammed” so much.
Josh Millard Said,
October 29, 2008 @ 8:25 pm
Heh. Link removed, but if you’d like to read about my secret method for winning at blackjack we can always talk.