I’m apparently not “wicked” enough…

Posted by Lisa Preston

May 7, 2007

I’m a pretty easy-going person, and for the most part I try not to ruffle a lot of feathers. I follow the rules, and am generally a pretty good friend. I like to help other people, and give excellent advice when asked. I also like to make new friends and contacts within the marketing community, and I spend a portion of my day reading industry news, blogs and participating on forums.

Well, a short while ago I was told about a forum called WickedFire - a site that was supposed to be up-and-coming, and internet marketing related. Naturally I checked it out right away. I signed up for an account, and started reading a few posts, then had some work to finish so I bookmarked it for later.

Upon my return a few days later, I tried to log in and was met with this:

You have been banned for the following reason:

Ebook scammer

Date the ban will be lifted: Never

Can you imagine? Me? An “Ebook Scammer”?

I’m probably the furthest thing from it!

So of course I thought there must be some kind of mistake… After all - I had never even posted to the forum! I KNEW I had not broken any rules, so I contacted the site owner about the “misunderstanding”. (Hey, everyone makes mistakes, right?)

I didn’t get a response to my first email, so I sent another. This time I got a reply:

Lisa-

I’m the one who banned you. We research every user who joins WickedFire to ensure the integrity and quality of the forum. We have strict rules against the ebook community and have been waging a war against them. I found your website and it had lots of affiliate links to ebooks on the market, which is part of our fight against ebooks in general. If you’re willing to disassociate yourself with them, and be vocal about it, then I would gladly reinstate your account and give you positive reputation on WF for it. Until then, I have to keep you banned. If you choose to create a new account though, be forewarned that if there are any references to buying or selling ebooks as a good way to make money, you’ll be banned, for life. My apologies for coming on about this too strong, but without brute force, we would just because too lax and the quality would dwindle to that of the other forums out there.

Jon
AIM: aojon
Admin
WickedFire.com

HUH?

Okay… (Can someone please point me in the direction of this multitude of ebook affiliate links? Can’t seem to find them…)

Since then, I’ve spent several days reviewing the forum - post by excruciating post. Although there are a few intelligent posts hidden throughout the forum, I found that the juvenile preoccupation the majority of hyper-active members seem to have with nude pictures and excessive profanity detracts considerably from those hidden gems. The overall feel of this community was “high school kids playing grown-up”. I actually read in one post that they wanted to make it a “rule” that you MUST post a nude female picture on the forum for your 1000th post! (SERIOUSLY!) By the end of that particular discussion, they had decided to just make it “tradition” instead. Sad, really.

The icing on the cake…

As much as I hate the thought of directing ANY traffic to that site, you have got to see this to believe it:

http://www.wickedfire.com/shooting-shit/6348-got-em.html

The forum owner himself… Offering $500 to anyone who will do violence to a teenager - and take pictures of it! After reading that, I finally had to stop… and go have a shower.

I signed up to the forum with the intention of participating, hoping to engage in an intelligent discussion regarding SEO tactics and Affiliate Marketing techniques. Perhaps Jon saved me the trouble… after all, I am fresh out of nude pics.