Comments on: Spam from a MeFi user.

Spam from a MeFi user.

stbalbach — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:32:38 -0800

I don't know what the policy is on this but I just got this spam via MeFi email from someone I don't know or care to know:

You have a new message from MeFi member br0chet: Hi, I'm a distributor located in province of Quebec. If you're looking for games like gba, ds, xbox 360, ps3, wii, bluray disc or dvds movies i can probably help you. I sell a lot to online sellers and always looking for new clients. I agree payment via paypal without a trouble. -- br0chet http://www.metafilter.com/user/77481

By: LarryC

LarryC — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:33:40 -0800

Justice will be swift and merciless.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:35:27 -0800

Yeah this is completely and totally against the rules.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:36:16 -0800

Banned.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:40:51 -0800

Ugh. His first day?

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:44:30 -0800

I will miss him.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:47:05 -0800

I agree payment via paypal without a trouble.

Yeah, but the red drapes look better.

By: R. Mutt

R. Mutt — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:50:49 -0800

Sigh, I never get mail...

By: rooftop secrets

rooftop secrets — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:52:19 -0800

Maybe new users should have a restriction on using MefiMail until a certain contribution amount is reached like posting on the front page?

By: rooftop secrets

rooftop secrets — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:54:06 -0800

Or add a way to flag messages in your inbox as spam like comments/posts.

By: R. Mutt

R. Mutt — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:54:41 -0800

Individual spam mail? I think he misses the whole point o' spam.

By: Parasite Unseen

Parasite Unseen — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:54:54 -0800

I will miss him.

Any man's banning diminishes me, because I am involved in Metatalk, and therefore never send to know for whom the ban hammers; it hammers for thee.

By: crapmatic

crapmatic — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:57:15 -0800

On the new user application just ask "What was the very first MetaFilter post about?" No spammer is going to spend time educating themself on obscure MeFi history.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:00:45 -0800

They don't allow outside spam into Quebec. They make their own.

By: Divine_Wino

Divine_Wino — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:02:32 -0800

I'm just sayin' I also agree payment via paypal without a trouble. Hook me up.

By: jpdoane

jpdoane — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:15:50 -0800

I wonder if he'll recoup his $5 from all the new "clients" he was able to round up today on MeFi?

By: davejay

davejay — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:18:12 -0800

That was the most expensive spam ever; usually spam costs nothing.

By: CKmtl

CKmtl — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:30:22 -0800

Outside spam is allowed into Quebec. It's just not allowed to be pink, lest consumers mistake it for real meat.

By: bardic

bardic — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:46:13 -0800

/sends everyone a tubgirl pic

By: msconduct

msconduct — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:54:28 -0800

wow. how disappointing! i mean, i don't get much mefi mail and it's pretty exciting when i do. at least it used to be pretty exciting.

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:55:01 -0800

Maybe new users should have a restriction on using MefiMail until a certain contribution amount is reached like posting on the front page?

I can see drawbacks to that. A limit on mefi-mail capability to 2 a day or something until the account has been active for a few months might work.

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:56:50 -0800

*MefiMails msconduct a low low price subscription offer to pretend pen pal*

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:06:51 -0800

I WAS INTERESTED!

By: ryanrs

ryanrs — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:07:34 -0800

I doubt mefi mail spam is common enough to warrant policy changes.

By: fantabulous timewaster

fantabulous timewaster — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:09:56 -0800

... yet

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:12:15 -0800

Hey, that wasn't tubgirl! That was a Rick Astley video!

MORBO DEMANDS SATISFACTION

By: Effigy2000

Effigy2000 — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:26:18 -0800

So do I put this on Musings of a Metafilter Spammer or not?

By: Skorgu

Skorgu — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:34:53 -0800

Spammers make me reconsider my opposition to the death penalty.

By: dismas

dismas — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:38:09 -0800

Man, I still didn't get any mail. Ain't nobody got no love.

By: lukemeister

lukemeister — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:39:33 -0800

If only user 'poutine' could have talked to him, br0chet wouldn't have gone down this self-destructive path.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:41:23 -0800

They don't allow outside spam into Quebec. They make their own.

I think you mean: Ils ne permettent pas le spam étranger au Québec. Ils fabriquent leur propre spam.

By: Fuzzy Skinner

Fuzzy Skinner — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:43:21 -0800

Canadians, man.

By: lukemeister

lukemeister — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:43:40 -0800

br0chet systematically went down the list one by one, knowing that if he could get the movers and shakers of the Internet to buy his products, he could finance his dream of Quebecois independence.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:46:45 -0800

As others have said, at $5 per spam, this is a great way to fund the site. Let the current policy continue. Hell, set up a form for the crap and redirect to /dev/null after the paypal clears.

By: Quietgal

Quietgal — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:28:03 -0800

I didn't get one either. Man, I miss out on all the fun around here!

*sulks*

By: crapmatic

crapmatic — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:34:38 -0800

Oh, I forgot about the $5 barrier. I withdraw my half-thought out idea. $5 is enough of a barrier anyway.

By: Afroblanco

Afroblanco — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:21:35 -0800

Individual spam mail? I think he misses the whole point o' spam.

Doubtful. How hard would it be to write a script to do this?

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:23:48 -0800

Michael Bay could make that script look real good

By: mathowie

mathowie — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:30:00 -0800

As others have said, at $5 per spam, this is a great way to fund the site.

Except for the part where these jerks report my account to paypal for "services not delievered/product not as described" which locks my account, launches arbitration proceedings, and paypal generally becomes a huge headache for a week or two until paypal gives the spammer a refund for breaking site policies.

It drives me nuts, because they accuse me of fraud for banning them and paypal usually takes their side. I have something like 10,000 successful transactions and I still get the feeling paypal is going to shut down my account one of these days because of the weird guilty-until-proven-innocent way they treat me as a "seller" that is being accused of as "fraudulent". It's worth staying with paypal because everyone has an account and it works easily for most people (and acts as a great bozo filter for keeping out casual vandals/noise from the site), but I do sometimes wish there were more alternatives.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:31:08 -0800

Outside spam is allowed into Quebec. It's just not allowed to be pink

that's why in your can of quebec spam, you're give a pink liquid capsule, so you can dye your spam pink, although some jokers prefer to save it for someone else's poutine

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:37:19 -0800

lukemeister writes "br0chet systematically went down the list one by one,"

Geez, amberglow hasn't made a comment for months and he's still at the top of the list.

By: Mid

Mid — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:38:56 -0800

Matt: Google checkout?

By: pearlybob

pearlybob — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:01:18 -0800

We all need to send Matt 5 more dollars so that he will have over 20,000 successful transactions. Make it an early ten year anniversary gift...

What do ya say team??

By: The Straightener

The Straightener — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:24:42 -0800

I got a message the other day saying that magic pills could engorge my whale bone with lusty mermaid's milk but that was just Divine Wino showing me his Markov.

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:31:08 -0800

I agree payment via paypal without a trouble.

I dunno, he seemed like a pretty easy-going, cool dude. And what if I did want some Xbox 360 games? And lived in Canada.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:46:55 -0800

By: cobaltnine

cobaltnine — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:50:49 -0800

Hey, wait, if he's from Quebec, shouldn't that spam be required to be bilingual, or something?

By: qvantamon

qvantamon — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:57:51 -0800

Matt, don't they offer you an easy way to just give the money back, or revert the transaction yourself or something?

I wonder what you'll do once spammers and trolls start pouring into the ultra-special-ultra-secret $5000 site noone knows about.

By: Meatbomb

Meatbomb — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:07:58 -0800

You could set it up so that initial signup was $5 plus a $20 promissary note. You get you $20 refunded after a month of keeping your promise (which you make at signup) not to be a spammer or SEO jerk.

By: Effigy2000

Effigy2000 — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:40:44 -0800

"We all need to send Matt 5 more dollars so that he will have over 20,000 successful transactions. Make it an early ten year anniversary gift...

What do ya say team??"
posted by pearlybob at 3:01 PM on July 17

A very nice idea, but what would perhaps be more useful is if we did a form letter which users could copy/paste and then e-mail to PayPal pointing out spammers know that if they break the rules of this site, which include spamming, they will lose their account and not get a refund. Links to the FAQ and the message you get when you click 'Sign Up' demonstrating this should be included.

20,000 letters of support (or even just 500) would likely go a long way towards ensuring Matt doesn't have to deal with the kind of headaches he described.

By: TheOnlyCoolTim

TheOnlyCoolTim — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:46:12 -0800

I'm just sayin' I also agree payment via paypal without a trouble. Hook me up.

Untrue. I put your profile e-mail into the Paypal and there was indeed a trouble when it didn't find any account. Now it's too late. You've missed out.

By: davejay

davejay — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:56:23 -0800

20,000 letters of support (or even just 500) would likely go a long way towards ensuring Matt doesn't have to deal with the kind of headaches he described.

Or would convince the bureaucrats at PayPal that he wasn't worth the trouble, seeing as how he was indirectly generating all this mail in their mailboxes, and find some bs reason to kick him out. You know, either or.

What if we just all donate $8ish to his campaign?

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:27:51 -0800

What is all this? I'm just looking for a used car.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:29:08 -0800

I agree payment via paypal without a trouble.

You are full of the shit!

By: philomathoholic

philomathoholic — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:18:20 -0800

Is there any hope of finding out how many emails this guy sent? I'm curious whether it was less than 50 or so (which might indicate that it was all manually sent), or more than that (which might indicate that he figured out a way to automate the process).

By: telstar

telstar — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:08:30 -0800

Matt, I reluctantly let my PP account go to seed. Just too much badness around that company. Comiserations.

By: chillmost

chillmost — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:38:37 -0800

Metafilter: bozo filter, we haz one

By: shiu mai baby

shiu mai baby — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:37:34 -0800

Silly boo. Scrapple is a cuisine unique to the Fluffia* region. To suggest it might be of Canadian origin is to invite a whole lotta hurt from a bunch of burly Iggles** fans. No wudder oyse*** for you, chief.

* Philadelphia
** Eagles
*** Water ice

By: le morte de bea arthur

le morte de bea arthur — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 05:33:36 -0800

One work-around for the Paypal "services not delievered/product not as described" issue might be to sell an initial subscription of 1 hour, then give an automatic free re-subscription for life to subscribers as long as they don't break the guidelines.

It's kind of silly-sounding, but then at least if you ban someone after the first hour of subscription, it's none of Paypal's business.

By: mrmojoflying

mrmojoflying — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:15:39 -0800

20,000 letters of support (or even just 500) would likely go a long way towards ensuring Matt doesn't have to deal with the kind of headaches he described.

I dunno, $50,000 goes a long way in alleviating headaches as well.

By: SteveTheRed

SteveTheRed — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:28:40 -0800

Why not use a captcha to validate each MeMail? That would slow down any spam scripting.

I don't think that I've ever sent a MeMail, so forgive me if Metafilter is already doing this.

Oh, right. MeTa and forgiveness are mutually exclusive. I forgot.

By: popechunk

popechunk — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:36:31 -0800

bea is a genius! What an awesome ToS that would be to write.

By: popechunk

popechunk — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:37:50 -0800

referring to this comment

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:48:32 -0800

I know that, shiu mai baby, but it was either Scrapple, or Canadian Spam. I work with what I have, I guess. I mean, "No, they call it Canadian Spam" can't make sense if they don't know what Spam is, cause they won't have the frame of reference. And the only thing remotely close to Spam, I think, is scrapple.

Nevertheless, I thank you for your feedback. It has been noted.

By: Shepherd

Shepherd — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:13:59 -0800

Vincent: You know what they call Spam in Quebec?
Jules: They don't call it Spam?
Vincent: No man, they got the metric system. They wouldn't know what the fuck spam is.
Jules: Then what do they call it?
Vincent: They call it Scrapple.

Actually, the only home-grown Quebec meat spread is Cretons, which sounds disgusting but is actually freaky good, especially on a hangover morning.

Any recipe that starts with the instruction remove the membrane from the fat and cut it into small pieces is a guaranteed winner in my book.

By: drjimmy11

drjimmy11 — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:20:43 -0800

"flush twice, it's a long way to the scrapple factory."

-spotted in bathroom of Baltimore, MD IHOP, mid 90s

By: Shepherd

Shepherd — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:20:53 -0800

"No, they call it Canadian Spam" can't make sense if they don't know what Spam is, cause they won't have the frame of reference. And the only thing remotely close to Spam, I think, is scrapple.

Outside of Quebec and the above-cited Creton, the ROC actually enjoys delicious KAM, the all-Canadian meat in a can.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:38:18 -0800

I am learning so much. Thank you all.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:55:08 -0800

What if the $5 payment was for "instructions on how to become a metafilter member," which you email to them after they sign up. Then they can't claim they didn't receive what they were paying for.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:02:41 -0800

Then they can't claim they didn't receive what they were paying for.

I think the point is that they CAN claim it and PayPal WILL give Matt crap, just because someone claimed it, as opposed to actually using common sense or reality.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:14:53 -0800

Which is delightful, because every time that I've had trouble with paypal as a buyer, they immediately took the seller's side despite common sense or reality.

By: Grither

Grither — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:28:14 -0800

I'm sure Paypal takes no side but their own. They tell the seller and buyer to shove it, and just keep the disputed money for themselves. Pure profit!

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:38:27 -0800

It's worth staying with paypal because everyone has an account and it works easily for most people (and acts as a great bozo filter for keeping out casual vandals/noise from the site), but I do sometimes wish there were more alternatives.

It's called real money.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:44:51 -0800

It's called real money.

People can always send me five bucks in cash or unused postage stamps in the mail and get an account that way.

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:59:55 -0800

would I have to admit it's a sockpuppet?

By: splice

splice — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:03:05 -0800

klangklangston: Which is delightful, because every time that I've had trouble with paypal as a buyer, they immediately took the seller's side despite common sense or reality.

Actually, by telling the seller they are taking the buyer's side, and telling the buyer they're taking the seller's side, PayPal take their own side and keep the money.

Keep that under your hat.

By: Shepherd

Shepherd — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:48:07 -0800

People can always send me five bucks in cash or unused postage stamps in the mail and get an account that way.

If I send Canadian Tire money, can I have 97.68% of a membership?

By: yhbc

yhbc — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:54:17 -0800

You may want to rethink that pla.

By: TheOnlyCoolTim

TheOnlyCoolTim — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:55:29 -0800

This is why if you use Paypal you're not supposed to keep any money in there, and I'm told that when it gets to the point they make you put in your checking account, that's a poor idea unless you get a checking account only for Paypal and don't keep any money in there either.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:57:15 -0800

People can always send me five bucks in cash or unused postage stamps in the mail and get an account that way.

What if we send in forever stamps? Could we send you one with the caveat that your don't use it until it's worth $5 or are they only worth $.41 cents or so?

By: TheOnlyCoolTim

TheOnlyCoolTim — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:12:32 -0800

I wonder if one would beat inflation by purchasing Forever stamps and finding a good time at which to sell them after price increases.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:24:25 -0800

I wonder if...

According to AskMe, no.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:26:56 -0800

People can always send me five bucks in cash or unused postage stamps in the mail and get an account that way.

what about unruly children?

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:30:17 -0800

People can send me ten bucks and get an unruly child that way too.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:47:32 -0800

I read that as "unruly chicken".

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:00:36 -0800

unruly chickens are twenty bucks. SAIT.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:34:27 -0800

What kind of nunnery is this?

By: drezdn

drezdn — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:36:06 -0800

In the old days someone would have posted an image below the unruly chicken comment.

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:07:37 -0800



    __

   _/o \

  /_    |               | /

   W\  /              |////

     \ \  __________||//|/

      \ \/         /|/-//-

       |     -----  // --

       |      -----   /-

       |     -----    /

        \            /

          \_/  \___/

            \  //

             |||

             |||

            Z_>>

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:08:57 -0800

Scrapple extends westward from philly at least as far as Ohio, where the weirdos put ketchup on it.

By: TheOnlyCoolTim

TheOnlyCoolTim — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:05:18 -0800

A brave attempt at liberation, sadly failed.

By: oaf

oaf — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:44:50 -0800

from the Charter of the French Language (emphasis mine):

Public signs and posters and commercial advertising must be in French.

They may also be both in French and in another language provided that French is markedly predominant.

I don't see a French version anywhere there. Busted.

By: jeffamaphone

jeffamaphone — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:35:38 -0800

The Charter of the French Language is in English?

By: anthill

anthill — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:59:28 -0800

I think what's being said here is: Sacrament de tabarnac, câlice!

By: CKmtl

CKmtl — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:56:46 -0800

Public signs and posters and commercial advertising...

It was private until stbalbach made it public, so the fault is his. A beating with stale baguettes will be scheduled at his earliest convenience.

By: loiseau

loiseau — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:52:35 -0800

languagehat said: "Ils ne permettent pas le spam étranger au Québec. Ils fabriquent leur propre spam."

C'est pas "étrange"? Aussi, au Québec, la plupart de temps on dit "Ils permettent pas". (On peut omettre le "ne".)

(Mais chui pas une linguiste, ou d'ailleurs une francophone.)

By: CKmtl

CKmtl — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:55:57 -0800

"[Produit(s)] étranger(s)" and "[produit(s)] de l'étranger" are both fine, as far as I know.

As for the dropping of "ne", I think that's more a matter of slang and would prompt a swift claque from any French teacher or editor.

By: loiseau

loiseau — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 00:08:15 -0800

Not mine in Quebec! But outside of that, probably yes.

By: loiseau

loiseau — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 00:12:15 -0800

By which I mean in casual conversation, same as T-V, which I understand is quite a bit broader here than in international French.