Faux Community

This L.A. Craig’s List job listing seeks a professional liar: someone to pretend to be multiple users on a bulletin board, to simulate an active and thriving online community.

“However, these characters must maintain a strong presence on the board so other members feel as if they are genuinely part of their community, thus, creating more activity on the board.”

Someone out there doesn’t quite get it.

Comments

    Whoops, I think I just found my answer. Another ad was posted an hour later seeking an erotic writer with “diverse writing ability to take on various character writing styles.”

    “May use this job towards school credits.”

    I don’t see the problem.

    Some communities /need/ to be kicked off. Of course, the idea behind the community should be good enough so that you don’t need hundreds of fake posts to reach critical mass, but I don’t see a big deal of booting a community off with numerous characters. If you can’t dredge up a few interesting characters in real life, better to have a few virtual ones to get the conversation started than none 😉

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