Under Radar Sleazer Predators - should pay for advertising - cheapen Forum Content

I notice the new poll about minimum age people should smoke pot.
So I gather somebody running the marihemp network sites cares about the qualitiy of lives young people will have... enhanced by using cannabis... but also with a future that is good... not entirely stupified by deadened ambitions.

My feedback here is more about commercial and psychological predators whom I've been noticing lately on the grow forums, pushing their own commercial websites, and how they are getting away with cheap self promotion without paying for commercial advertising and with an apparent disregard for the qualitiy of info that can be found on Marihemp Network sites.

One such cheapster created an account on Oct 17, for the sole purpose of listing a mushroom related webstie which they say is free, but which immediately asks for donations from their secondary pages.

http://boards.cannabis.com/member.php?u=34032
http://www.psychonautical.org/

The other kind of predatory tactic is more subtle. But I think it is somethign that site administrators ought to be discouraging. Only because it degrades the quality of idea and information exchange.

In this predatory tactic a link to a poster's commercial website is entered as part of their signature. From there the predator spends much of his day chiming in on various threads with little or no solid information or worthy suggestions. His main purpose is to get free advertising.

Predator responses are usually glib or very short incomplete answers to peoples questions. But that is not the worst damage they cause. One in particular, a member named Garden Knowm, is not content with this first level of free advertising.

In his effort to get his website name posted on as many threads as possible he is also actively and deliberately making efforts to discredit other knowledgable posters, by not paying attention to whether a thread has been sufficiently satisfied with a good answer.

From my view that second part of his campaign is the most damaging to marihemp community since the effort appears to be one of making himself out to be an authority. This would be fine except it is misleading newbie people and kids to believe he is the only authority - that nobody elses posts are to be trusted - and that he is capable of contributing solid information -
BUT NOT ON MARIHEMP.COM OR CANNABIS.COM - but rather - on his website alone.

The style of this is very deceptive since it uses snobbery and phony mocked imitiation of stoner-speak to get stoners to become more attracted to his dumbed down style of information - which in the end is delivered or phrased in his posts so as NOT to encourage further participation by other knowledgable people.

He discourages better info from being posted in a couple of ways. One of which could be viewed as a kind of bullying technique where there is the threat of humiliating good posters with one of his smart assed denegrating "last-word" comments.

Examples of his bullying technique are very subtle but they are pushing for or encouraging a culture of withheld detail. Of belittling those who would provide detailed and more complete info -- again creating the impression that all knowledge leads back to him and his website.

I do not object to either the free be spamming-phishing advertsing OR the technique of discourgaging and berating good detailed posts with his faked dumbed down style.

But the combination of those two things ought to be looked at in my opinion.

Thanks

PS Please do a search for Garden Knowm and compare the quality of his posts on THIS network - to - the impression he tries to create as being knowledgable - if only we choose to go to his commercial website which is not paying for any advertising as far as I have seen.

Thanks for the post, Rezin. Or should I say, thanks for the rezin post, rezinator.

That's why I consider myself blind. :cool:

So no one expects me to follow a trail anywhere.

Free advertising on a site where I participate in (the numbers are non-existent, it's more like "the site I participate in") is useless.

Useless to me. I answer every phone call from a telemarketer. I don't search the internet for anything but information.

Damn, Rez, I didn't know you felt that way...I noticed some of this going on with others...did not know the Knowm was doing this, although, he does sometimes post, when question has been sufficiently answered, but so do I...sometimes I feel I can clarify an answer that appears a little cloudy or incomplete. Is it possible that, that is what is happening?
Not making a defense here, just a discussion about your complaint.

:p

I wondered what that fucker was up to, but I never noticed the sig!
:o

Good catch, Rez!
:cool:

I think his lousy FAQ should be removed from Grow FAQs, too.
;)

http://boards.cannabis.com/showthread.php?t=31218
:rolleyes:

It's an undetailed piece of shit.
:eek:

:)

Everything you're saying is all well and good but this is a message board. It's hard for administrators and moderators to police every member and every post. I'm not sure I want them to, anyway. I'd rather choose to put the idiots that get on my nerves on my ignore list myself.

What you're describing happens on all boards. Some people are here to discuss, some people are here to goof off, and some people are here to SPAM. It's the nature of the beast.

I personally don't have a problem with a link selling something that has to due with what the topic is of this forum. There are hundred or even thousands of other members that have links too. There is no rule about this and there should not be any either. Don't click if you don't want to. We even have a forum for them to post their products for FREE.

I have a copy of this same DVD and the grower is correct he did grow that amount in that amount of time. He used techniques I would have not used my self and he did make errors IMO but GK is not the grower only the cameraman.

This is more personal between you and him Rezinator i bet.

In my opinion I think his DVD work is fine and worth the price. Am I not entitled to my opinion too? I was not going to endorse his DVD but you leave me no choice with your attach I felt the need to speak up.

There is more to this then you are saying, am I not right? Your accusation are very disappointing, I once had a better opinion of you. GK is a member and entitled to post and have fun like everyone else on this forum. If you don't like a link then don't click if you donâ??t like the person thatâ??s fine then add him to your ignore list. If this was not on the Internet you could be sued over your accusations in a court of law for slander and liable I believe.

Thatâ??s my opinion.

Helpful comments. Thanks.

Zandor, you first, :):

I guess if you think the DVD is worth the money then I can drop that part of the concern. Hadnâ??t seen anyone jump into my previous posts to say they had seen the DVD.

I can tell Garden is knowledgable, otherwise I would not have offered to review the vid.

Should note my main concern is that Garden definitely tries but IMO he should share more knowledge. IOWs spend more time per post giving more supporting detail of what he knows and recommends instead of hitting many threads with what appear to be strategically brief answers. Guess you have to imagine how a newb would read his answers. If you already have the full knowledge of a topic then I am sure Gardens answers all compute perfectly.

So I guess it was the combination of those two things that raised some doubt to his true motives to help.

If Cannabis sees fit to help out a young infomedia talent then I think thatâ??s great. I know he picks up a lot of slack but so maybe he deserves the freebie com.link just on that point alone.

Still respectfully though Z, I think we all know there are quite a few laws that could use some tightening as well as some that could use some liberalization.

Meanwhile speaking of picking up the slack...

Kudos go out to you for recent efforts, Latewood. And yeah, I am all for how if somebody sees a way that something can be explained better. Just seems GKâ??s tendency is to push the dumb-down style of communication.

Lemonâ??s prob got the best argument. People come here for diff reasons. I mean I would hate it myself if EVERYBODY was totally formal, sober and serious. But Iâ??d just submit that maybe more legislators would come up to the plate to legalize weed if by 20 years from now weed wasnâ??t being discussed by kids who thot the only way to cool, was encrypting their speech into Beavis & Butthead grunts.

And Sensi,

I for one would have to vote for any gubernatorial candidate who laid in on topics with flair.

I wondered what that fucker was up to, but I never noticed the sig!

I still think Knowm would sell more if he had better (more believable) testamonials.

But again Z, my concern may have more teeth if only to those of us with less technical knowledge. Otherwise hell ya Garden is good natured and fun to watch. I actually enjoy a good episode of Beavis and Butthead myself whenever one shows up.

Right Arm, Beachguy.

a newb should do his/her own research or else they won't learn (not that it's hard). learning gardening from others is hit or miss anyway and is more of one of those things where one gets better with experience rather than being taught. if they want to invest in a book or video, what's the prob? everyone should have a grower's guide along with everyone should realize there is more than one way to get to the desired results and who are we to judge which one people should have? i haven't seen his video nor will i in the future but hearing from those who have seen it i have heard/seen no comments about it being blatantly wrong...just different from what most do. and this is NOT the site to learn growing from anyway...we're more of a social space to gather at and discuss whatever. yes, there are many excellent growers here but there are far more not interested in it or can't for parental reasons. the majority here won't be buying any kind of grow guides in the near future and by the time they get around to gardening this video guy will be long gone...so what's the harm?

I was taught on another board to be skeptical.
;)


But his advertising IS funny.

It makes me think -

15 lbs. where? On an open acre? In the woods? In the basement? In a closet?

80 days? From seed? From clone? From 12/12? To harvest? To smoke? Any strain?


His FAQ brings up questions, too -

Perfect temperature? For leaves? For roots? Day? Night? For veg? For flower? For air? For water? For soil? With or without CO2? Effective with what humidity? Stagnant air or circulating? And how to maintain this perfect temperature?

:confused:

There's plenty of GOOD info for FREE on the internet, if you're willing to sort through and learn how to recognize the bullshit. Here, Overgrow, and other sites.

If you want to pay for information, there's a lot of reputable information to be had by folks like Ed Rosenthal, Mel Frank, Robert Clarke, etc. A lot of their stuff can be found on the net as well.
;)

This is NOT a call for censoring GK or his sig!
(His FAQ needs to be edited, replaced, or at least opened up to additional posts, though.)

But neither should healthy skepticism by the members of this board be compared to slander and libel.
:rolleyes:

There is not ENOUGH skepticism on this board, and that has allowed scammers like HighGrade Seeds to gain hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars thru this board.
:(

Not from, or because of me though.
:)