AskMe Etiquette January 12, 2007 3:14 PM   Subscribe

AskMe etiquette: is it OK to use AskMe answers as a lead-in for business? Someone close to me is a professional career counsellor/resume writer & I've thought of recommending they join MeFi specifically so they can join in answering job-related questions, with a thought to promoting their own services if people want more in-depth assistance. I'm absolutely NOT talking about a cookie-cutter spamish approach that purely takes advantage of the community while giving nothing in return, but real answers that help people out with an understated offer to provide something more substantial at a price. I see a lot of job- & career-related posts to AskMe & I see it as a good fit, but I'll only suggest it to them if I get a thumbs up from the hive.
posted by scalefree to Etiquette/Policy at 3:14 PM (43 comments total)

No.
posted by crabintheocean at 3:19 PM on January 12, 2007


My instinct says that would be a bad idea, and more likely than not, frowned upon.

If it were up to me, I'd allow it, but with the caveat that if the guy starts to act too "spammish" about it (to be defined as "what the admin thinks is 'spammish'") it would be dis-allowed.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 3:19 PM on January 12, 2007


I was with you unitl you called it "the hive." That totally killed the buzz.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:19 PM on January 12, 2007 [1 favorite]


A user who has an incentive to not give all the advice they can? Sounds great!
posted by smackfu at 3:20 PM on January 12, 2007


While in many cases, you get what you pay for, I don't think anyone should be making money off of AskMe except Matt. I think that any "business" should be done outside of AskMe, and should be a disinterested referral. "I live in your area and I have someone who helped me with this exact problem. Contact me at the e-mail in my profile and I can give you their information." I find that a lot less unsavory than "Hey, I do this for a living, why don't I e-mail you and we can set up an appointment."
posted by Eideteker at 3:21 PM on January 12, 2007


Mail-Order Answer Syndrome
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:21 PM on January 12, 2007


Helping people out and hoping if they like you enough they'll click through to your site and maybe give you business? Fine. Help "with an understated offer to provide something more substantial at a price"? Nitz, Toto. Nitz.
posted by languagehat at 3:26 PM on January 12, 2007


We've seen people joining lately who dive in to questions on their specialty and lately what I've been seeing is spammy link garbage. IF they have a link to their business in their profile and they don't link to themselves in AskMe they can offer advice same as everyone but using AskMe to upsell to paid services isn't cool and if we see it we'll remove it.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:28 PM on January 12, 2007


"real answers that help people out with an understated offer to provide something more substantial at a price"

Yeah, no.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:29 PM on January 12, 2007


I don't like it at all. Ugh. No.

I'm picturing an ambulance chaser - someone who joins and trawls AskMe looking for a certain kind of question to answer so that he can hopefully drum up some business for himself. Am I far off?

Mail-Order Answer Syndrome

I wub you.
posted by iconomy at 3:29 PM on January 12, 2007


promoting their own services

nonononononono
posted by CunningLinguist at 3:31 PM on January 12, 2007


I would like to say, though, that I really appreciate that you asked first, scalefree.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:33 PM on January 12, 2007


I can tell you more about my answer to this question for a small fee!
posted by crabintheocean at 3:36 PM on January 12, 2007


You want to give me half an answer, and charge me for the rest?
posted by aisforal at 3:38 PM on January 12, 2007


Hitler's moustache, no!
posted by cortex at 3:46 PM on January 12, 2007


I am extremely qualified to assist you in assessing the metamorality of your situation- if you contact me via e-mail we can discuss the rates, etc. of the details.
posted by baphomet at 3:47 PM on January 12, 2007


No.

The way to do something vaguely like this would be to get on askme and answer questions related to her expertise, and that's it. Never offer services for pay, always refuse to accept payment for services, and always and in every circumstance refuse business from askme people.

But, people on askme might recommend Madam X to other people for their Whatever needs, so she might benefit.

On the other hand, it it's plain that she's not really interested in helping people and is shilling for business in one way or another, people on askme might pointedly refuse to recommend her to other people.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:03 PM on January 12, 2007


I'm frowning right now.

FROWNING!!!!
posted by blue_beetle at 4:25 PM on January 12, 2007


Yeah, if anyone actually did this and got caught doing it the negative psychic energy from tens of thousands of Metafilter readers would leave their whole city a smoking hole in the ground. That's a lot of blood on someone's hands.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 4:28 PM on January 12, 2007 [1 favorite]


No. No. Absolutely not. No.
posted by Elmore at 4:32 PM on January 12, 2007


let me say that, since we're talking about someone who provides significantly more than answers as their profession, I can see why this might be ok, in this particular instance.

here's an example of the bad way to do this:

question: how can I beef up my resume so that people will like me at job interviews:

answer: you can contact me to beef it up for you.

here's an example of the good way:

answer: you can do [x] and [y] and pray to vishnu, which is what I do. I work professionally in the industry.

in my good example, i specifically do not include a link to the person's site or whatever. if a questioner wants pro help, they can check the answerer's profile for contact info. otherwise, leave it alone. that's my feeling. a pro, if they know what they're doing, can completely answer any question about their profession, leaving nothing out, and it wouldn't be working for free. if someone asks me about digitizing footage for film on a final cut or avid system, I can answer them all day long, and I still won't have done the work for them. If someone, seeing the answers, decides to contact me via the info in my profile, rock out. if not, rock out.

but if I post: "why don't you contact me, and I'll do it for my standard fee," then I'm a douchebag.
posted by shmegegge at 4:37 PM on January 12, 2007


Yes. Enough of the amateur idiots.
posted by cillit bang at 4:46 PM on January 12, 2007


if anyone here needs answers about how to askmefi, contact me and we'll discuss some numbers.
posted by localhuman at 5:04 PM on January 12, 2007


Late to the party, but:

No.
posted by jason's_planet at 6:15 PM on January 12, 2007


"While in many cases, you get what you pay for, I don't think anyone should be making money off of AskMe except Matt. "

Even an over/under pool on whether or not to dump 'em in RomoFi? You're killing me here!
posted by klangklangston at 7:53 PM on January 12, 2007


To me, this is a much more complex issue than the people commenting so far are willing to consider. If you join the community because you want to participate in a broad range of activities, and you just happen to be able to raise your profile and/or attract some customers, fine. In fact, it has been that way from the beginning, and it is how it should be. However, to me, the following is right out!
[...] they join MeFi specifically so they can join in answering job-related questions, with a thought to promoting their own services if people want more in-depth assistance.
That would be pure spam.

From a broader perspective, I think that reasonable self-promotion may eventually be banned for fear of spammers. For example, mathowie has already changed profile pages so that links aren't indexed by search engines. There was a clear problem, but the correct solution was to allow users to have one, and only one, indexable homepage link. To avoid the paying for listing thing, it would be easy to scrub URLs that show up too often, or those of known spammers. My "correct solution" would probably be more trouble than it is worth, but we need to be careful about how far this fear of commerce goes..
posted by Chuckles at 8:06 PM on January 12, 2007


I don't think anyone should be making money off of AskMe except Matt.
I often think about the tension between community and personal interest here. For now, it is a fantastic thing that mathowie has been able to turn community interest into a career, but eventually the ownership and revenue of MetaFilter will become a significant issue. Lately, I have been in the 'leave well enough alone' camp, but then an issue like this comes up... -- Chuckles
posted by Chuckles at 8:11 PM on January 12, 2007


AskMe etiquette: is it OK to use AskMe answers as a lead-in for business?

The fact that you ask this question suggests to me that you are suffering from serious brain damage and should see a neurologist.

My practice accepts most major insurance.
posted by ikkyu2 at 8:22 PM on January 12, 2007 [5 favorites]


is it OK to use AskMe answers as a lead-in for business?

Heh, I can't believe you're getting off so easy on this one. I remember a day this might've precipitated a 100 comment abuse-fest and possibly flameout. Mefi must be changing... sad really...
posted by scheptech at 8:38 PM on January 12, 2007


Ah, that's better. I take it back.
posted by scheptech at 8:45 PM on January 12, 2007


Just in case you're still undecided, scalefree, please add another voice to the chorus of opposition.
posted by box at 9:22 PM on January 12, 2007


scheptech: its friday for christ's sake...
posted by Pacheco at 9:24 PM on January 12, 2007


This is how the commons are lost.

I see a community resource where I have an occasional opportunity to give help freely (often using the skills I can charge a fat fee for in my working life); your friend sees a lead-in to a business opportunity. The latter's a mindset I find deeply unappealing.
posted by Abiezer at 3:16 AM on January 13, 2007


When ever anyone asks about work/business-related stuff on AskMe, I just tell them to click on the 'Jobs' button at the top right. It's my way of giving back to the community.
posted by slimepuppy at 4:26 AM on January 13, 2007


Your friend's expertise in a particular field is welcome. Your friend's trolling for business in that field is not. Please note the clear distinction between the two.
posted by majick at 7:19 AM on January 13, 2007


is it OK to use AskMe answers as a lead-in for business?

I have a great answer to the question. Just Paypal me $10 and I'll let you know what it is.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:51 AM on January 13, 2007


No. A thousand times, no.

ikkyu2 for the win.
posted by unrepentanthippie at 9:58 AM on January 13, 2007


N


You can have the remaining "O!" for the small fee of $99.99 a read.
posted by dazed_one at 10:30 AM on January 13, 2007


Yes, as long as they don't plug their business in the thread beyond saying: I do this for a living and what I would tell a client in your position is X, Y and Z.

They can link to their business in their profile, and if the questioner or anybody else is interested, then they can find that information out on their own.

In other words-- as long as they didn't respond to ask me questions any differently than people who are not using it to drum up business, beyond mentioning their professional credentials, than it's okay with me.
posted by empath at 12:36 PM on January 13, 2007


I've noticed that a lot of recent books on marketing for small business recommend that people join communities to build up goodwill and perhaps get referrals. But I think it's pretty difficult to do more than spam unless you're willing to actually become part of the community. Just jumping into the occasional thread and providing a link (in the answer or your profile) is probably not going to embed you in the fabric of the community. Communities rely on trust and the hermit who only appears to get on a soapbox about a single topic is probably not going to build a lot of trust. So, from a strict marketing perspective -- nevermind the etiquette question -- there's not much point to joining just to promote her services, even indirectly. Trust is not something you can achieve with random comments.
posted by acoutu at 9:30 PM on January 13, 2007


There are questions that can be answered in a paragraph or two and those that require a significant amount of one-on-one information exchange in order to really solve the problem the questioner is asking, the kind of effort that's just not possible in a format like MeFi. If a person is contributing to the community & giving useful, complete answers in the first category, building trust that they know what they're talking about, how does it hurt the community to offer your services in the second category?
posted by scalefree at 10:11 PM on January 14, 2007


If a person is contributing to the community & giving useful, complete answers in the first category, building trust that they know what they're talking about, how does it hurt the community to offer your services in the second category?

Because it feels like a quid pro quo and it calls the information into question. If I'm just some regular person saying "Hey I tried Celexa and it made me feel great and I think people should try it" that's really different than some drug rep saying "Hey my company sells Celexa and I think it will make you feel great and you should try it, call me". So there are two issues here

1. Participating in the community only so you can eventually get some financial gain from it is considered skeevy and overall not really community-minded. Posts that contain a lot of "call me and consider hiring me" links will be removed from AskMe, period.
2. AskMe is not a classified ad service and is not the place to be hawking your wares. People want to get information from a lot of unbiased sources and that is compromised if the place gets taken over by fee-for-service or "first one's free" people.

Granted, AskMe gets a lot of mileage out of the fact that there are a lot of talented professionals who stop in and give their advice. However, one of the reasons people think the place is great is because they don't need to give the super-scrutiny to every post thinking "are these people trying to sell me something?"

When you look at Amazon comments/reviews for example, you always have to think "Is this person just a shill for the company being reviewed?" because you know, without a doubt, that those people scan the reviews of their products religiously and post pretending to be regular people but with a favorable and often even glowing review of the product that just happens to refute every major criticism everyone has had about the item. That sucks and is a pain in the ass for the average person who just wants to know if something is a good coffeemaker or not.

The last reason is that people who think they are leet promotional and marketing types are often dead wrong. We must get one clueless self-linker here every month who thinks they have read and memorized the "How To Use Social Networks to Pimp Your Shit" handbook. And you know what? Their posts suck. They have obvious huckster language in them and people call bullshit on them early on. I write them nice emails explaining why we deleted all of their posts/links and I often get these totally insane emails back, indignant because I've stepped in the way of their American Dream. Now it's totally possible that this is just because we miss the savvier self-links and self-promotions and I'll concede that.

However, you asked, in this thread and people answered nearly unanimously "Tell your friend not to do this here." and the fact that you're still asking says to me either a) you don't have a friend, you are talking about yourself and you can't get your head around why this is a bad idea because you badly want to do this (and apologies if I'm wrong, this is just my initial read, not an assault on your character - I haven't gone trolling your AskMe answers) or b) you're asking for a loved one who really wants to do this (or possibly needs to do this) and you have to find a way to let them down easy. If the latter is the case, please show them this post.

A shorter answer is this, for you or whoever you're talking about: please do not do this here, AskMeFi is not the place to give answers with the hopes of upselling people to paid advice.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:41 PM on January 14, 2007


I abide by concensus whether I agree with it or not, so I was already not going to carry it out. I was honestly asking in order to understand, because most of the answers were either snark or answered some other situation than the one I'd described. It's a fine line to walk but I still think there's a positive role that professional level (and yes, paid) help can play in the AskMe community. But given the overwhelming negative response, I have no intention of trying to bring it about.
posted by scalefree at 12:12 PM on January 15, 2007


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