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<p>Oh god you HAD to dig that one up...</p>
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<p>On October 27, 2014 at 3:54 PM Arclight <arclight@gmail.com> wrote:<br /><br /><br />Let's not forget this type of inquiry:<br /><br />"We're a talent agency seeking enthusiastic, diverse creators to host<br />the most AWESOME reality show about makers ever. It will be like The<br />Kardashians meets Junkyard Wars, with a little Jurassic Park thrown<br />in. .<br /><br />The ideal candidate will have at least 10 years of experience building<br />things from scratch that are sent into space, be able to work with an<br />exciting dynamic team, already have qualifications that probably<br />enable them to have a steady 6-figure job, and be willing to quit a<br />moment's notice to work for $24K a year in a 60-hour per week filming<br />schedule that could end with no notice. Bonus points for having movie<br />star looks and prior film experience.<br /><br />To apply, send a resume and a 10-minute, professionally-produced video<br />to this burner gmail address. Oh, and fill out this 16-page "maker<br />challenge." Expect to hear from us several times per day until we pick<br />someone else and this e-mail and skype address get disconnected and we<br />disappear."<br /><br />Arclight<br /><br />On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 1:25 PM, Nathaniel Bezanson <myself@telcodata.us> wrote:<br />> Okay, the children's puppet shows are a new one, I haven't seen that. We<br />> usually get:<br />><br />> A) Crowdfunding spam. SO MUCH crowdfunding spam. Because when Kickstarter's<br />> community guidelines say not to do a bunch of things, they go and do<br />> precisely those things. And yeah, project promotion is explicitly welcome on<br />> our public list, if it has any sort of local relevance, but see, joining our<br />> public list would mean people might ask questions back, and they're totally<br />> not interested in that. Just the spam, thanks! (And every single one is<br />> convinced that nobody has ever crowdfunded a 3d printer or a robotics kit<br />> before so THEIRS is SPECIAL.)<br />><br />> B) "Please do my market research for me" or "please do my thesis for me",<br />> usually with questions about how many investors we have, or whether we feel<br />> our transformative resource has recontextualized the dynamic millieu of<br />> hyperlocal fluxmuster ideation.<br />><br />> C) "We just created a site to make a list of all the makerplaces / 3d<br />> thingers / communiwhats in the world, but we really mean just the US because<br />> all the international bits are broken, and now we want you to spend a few<br />> hours creating an entry on our list which is a 99% mimic of what you've<br />> already put on hackerspaces.org". It's to the point where simply updating<br />> our listings on all the various sites we could be listed on, would be a<br />> full-time job. And when checking back on these things later, invariably they<br />> end up with *more* cobwebs than the actually-quite-good list on the wiki in<br />> the first place.<br />><br />> (Above this line, the true bulk ones. Below this line, the<br />> specifically-directed-at-us ones.)<br />><br />> D) "Do you want my rotting barn full of e-waste?" Actually some of these are<br />> real gems, and we try to be nice to them while directing the majority of the<br />> real junk to a recycler. Much worse are the ones who just show up with a<br />> truckload of festering CRTs and pound on the door, or worse yet, unload it<br />> and flee the scene.<br />><br />> E) "Do you want to staff our workshop for free? I've never met anyone from<br />> your group and never set foot in your space on a visitor's night, and will<br />> refuse an invitation to come do so, but I'll be sure to email you a dozen<br />> times asking if you have any members who are just made of free time and want<br />> to come babysit small children in a halfway-maker-related exercise of some<br />> sort". Actually some of these do sound interesting, but an awful lot of them<br />> boil down to daycare.<br />><br />> F) "Can I join as a member and then be cranky when there aren't trainers<br />> standing by every machine 24/7 waiting to spoon-feed me? I'm allergic to<br />> reading wikis or otherwise trying to teach myself anything. I really want<br />> something like Techshop but even more tolerant of needy jerks, but for way<br />> less than half the price and with more equipment. Also why don't you have a<br />> blast furnace?"<br />><br />> G) "We're running a mini maker faire in [town 1,200 miles away], can you<br />> bring [large project that doesn't travel well] to it?"<br />><br />> H) "My associates and I are flying in on a private plane next week, and want<br />> to meet with your early stage investors about the collaborative model and<br />> how we can bring something similar to [city-redacted]. After doing some<br />> digging we found your [oldest, and largest in the area] space. We've got all<br />> the right people leading the tech charge, can we jump on a call? Really hope<br />> to connect!"<br />><br />> Okay that last one only happened once, but it's a very close paraphrase of<br />> the original email and I had to include it for laughs. (Bonus: they seemed<br />> to be unaware of an also-years-old actual hackerspace right in their own<br />> hometown. Wow.)<br />><br />> I'm gonna include, by way of positive example, some of the really GOOD ones<br />> we get:<br />><br />> I) "I'm from [not-quite-local area] and working on putting together a group<br />> that might end up starting a space here. I've read a bunch of stuff on your<br />> wiki and have a few specific questions, is this an appropriate venue to ask<br />> for details about a few things? Also I'll be in your area next week."<br />><br />> J) "My student group is working on a documentary about local DIY resources,<br />> and we'd like to arrange a time to come do some filming and interviews with<br />> your members, if that's OK. I've attached our standard talent release so you<br />> can make sure it's acceptable ahead of time."<br />><br />> K) "We're a [slightly similar group] in [neighboring town] and it looks like<br />> people interested in your classes might be interested in ours too. Plus<br />> we're totally interested in yours. Can we work something out, maybe a<br />> reciprocal deal? Or let's just see how we can help each other."<br />><br />> -Nate B-<br />><br />><br />> Sector67 Team wrote:<br />><br />> Lol - and I thought we were special! I get the exact same set of 4<br />> requests all the time :-)<br />><br />><br />> Chris<br />><br />> Chris Meyer<br />> Director<br />> Sector67<br />><br />> 608-241-4605<br />> http://sector67.org<br />><br />> 2100 Winnebago St<br />> Madison, WI 53704<br />><br />> On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 10:51 AM, Alan Fay <emptyset@freesideatlanta.org><br />> wrote:<br />>><br />>> It comes with the territory of being a public space. Freeside gets four<br />>> distinct types of spam (aside from your typical email spam):<br />>><br />>> 0. "Can you advertise my [product, service, website, kickstarter] to your<br />>> members?" Really, what these folks want is an endorsement. We have an open<br />>> public mailing list that gets this sort of thing from time-to-time, but they<br />>> are after is our credibility and access to our platform to sell our members<br />>> or social media audience on something.<br />>><br />>> 1. "I have an idea but I need a team of people to work for little to no<br />>> compensation to execute it for me. Can you help?" A similar flavor, this<br />>> person wants to sell us on an idea and get us to recruit on their behalf,<br />>> for free.<br />>><br />>> 2. "Are your members interested in [paying to attend, or managing and<br />>> hosting (for free)] a hackathon?" Companies now use hackathons to spot and<br />>> recruit talent, and perhaps even manage to develop the start of something<br />>> with free labor. So they're looking for everything: credibility, access,<br />>> and recruitment - for free.<br />>><br />>> 3. "Can I use your space as a venue for [something unrelated,<br />>> exploitative, or weird], for free?" Our goto example of this is that we've<br />>> received not less than three (yes, 3!) separate requests to host children's<br />>> puppet shows at the space. Other requests include time-share presentation<br />>> variants, shooting rap videos, repairing air bags workshop...<br />>><br />>> On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 10:19 AM, Nathaniel Bezanson <myself@telcodata.us><br />>> wrote:<br />>>><br />>>> We get/got a LOT of maker-targeted spam to our contact address. Once in a<br />>>> while, the spammers wouldn't understand BCC, and we'd get a look at the<br />>>> address list: All hackerspace contact emails. I finally realized that these<br />>>> folks were just scraping addresses from the hackerspaces.org wiki.<br />>>><br />>>> I finally went and changed the contact address on our entry, and the<br />>>> volume seems to have fallen off quite sharply. A real human trying to<br />>>> contact us should figure it out in no time. But I wonder whether anyone else<br />>>> has taken this step, and how many more will be pushed to do so, and what<br />>>> this suggests for the future of the resource.<br />>>><br />>>> -Nate B-<br />>>><br />>>> _______________________________________________<br />>>> Discuss mailing list<br />>>> Discuss@lists.hackerspaces.org<br />>>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss<br />>>><br />>><br />>><br />>> _______________________________________________<br />>> Discuss mailing list<br />>> Discuss@lists.hackerspaces.org<br />>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss<br />>><br />><br />><br />> _______________________________________________<br />> Discuss mailing list<br />> Discuss@lists.hackerspaces.org<br />> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss<br />><br />_______________________________________________<br />Discuss mailing list<br />Discuss@lists.hackerspaces.org<br />http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss<br /></p>
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