HotMaids post removed
By Paul Lundgren on Aug 31, 2010 in Bitching, PDD Shop Talk
A note from your friendly neighborhood PDD moderators:
Many people read and commented on a post from August 29 about a cleaning business called HotMaids. We have decided to remove the post due to deceptive tactics engaged in by the author of the post, who is also the owner of the business.
Many of the comments responding to the post were made by the author, under multiple names, all raving about what a great idea the business is. Initially we removed those comments and left the post up, but ultimately we felt the entire thing should be removed.
The post also received many negative comments from people who did not appreciate the nature of the business. That had nothing to do with why the post was removed. We simply felt that the deceitful tactics of the author were reason enough to include the phrase “let the buyer beware” at the front end of the discussion.
With that in mind, we now resume the forum on this topic — unless everyone prefers to ignore it at this point.
My favorite thing about PDD is that it always has such a positive vibe, community coursing through its veins. Keep up the good work.
I’m glad you explained why you removed the entire thread, Paul. I was wondering what’d happened. Sad the owner of the business would try to mislead people like that. But not that surprising.
My respect to you for your monitoring … thanks.
That is some serious detective work. Buyers beware!
It’s happened before, I think … anyone recall the YMCA nude swim posting guy?
The YMCA what-huh?
I remember some post last year (?) I think about nude swimming?
Was kinda creepy. I think later it was found out that a lot of the comments talking about it were done by the same guy posing as different people.
I think that creating a post promoting yourself thusly is very similiar to Nazi propaganda. But, I also think censoring such posts smacks of an oppressive Nazi state.
P.S. Glenn Beck writes all my material.
Zra, I remember that, and Barrett was the one who alerted us to that. That indeed was creepy. Glad you guys are on it, Paul!
Dear Claire,
Nobody cares what you think.
Thanks,
Everyone
Damn, I wanted a hot maid to come over and dust my Tiffany lamp shades.
Good memory, zra. That actually occurred several years ago.
There was a guy who’d comment under the same old thread every month or so, talking about boys’ swim classes in the Duluth Public Schools used to occur in the nude, and how it was natural and normal and not weird at all. Some of his personae, however, thought it was “hot.” He was definitely a creepy guy.
Yeah … totally creepy in an “I’m a freakin pederass” kinda way.
I was fuzzy on the time frame, but I do remember the event. I guess those other six brain cells are still working after all.
Sherman it’s too bad you don’t live in Duluth. This would’ve been your birthday present.
Zra, help me out here… or maybe Barrett remembers… I seem to recall one of the sock puppets claiming he was doing research for a book, article, or some such, and wanted people on PDD to post their own stories about nude swimming in school? I remember thinking, what a creepy topic, and then when Barrett alerted us to what was really going on, it all made sense. As much as something like that makes sense.
Ahhh, yes. I forgot all about that 2006 post.
Government-sanctioned, Forced Skinny Dipping
Funny that the post starts with Barrett stating “This isn’t a joke or a hoax,” but then eventually it becomes one … a strange and icky one.
Irony of ironies indeed that Barrett of all people started that thread.
I AM APPALLED… by many things, but this is not one of them. Keep up the good work, PDD.
Wow reading all this made me hungry for a coney island!
…hey, that sounds like a good idea! I could really go for some coney island with a malt! I should go and complete that task!
Zra, you’re probably fuzzy on the time frame because that guy revisited that post and used it as spank-bank fodder for two years. It’s the vehemence that brought him to a whole new level of gross.
Two years from now, we’ll probably be rehashing the “Hot Maids” mini-scandal. I’d better take notes.
He he. Sock puppets.
I just can’t help but laugh at the whole situation. Priceless. Where’s Freebird now?
I read the archived swimming posts and it was like a mystery…whodunit? And then at the end it says this person has all these names…and I thought “Am I dumb or what?” I got the freebird bullshit right away, but the nude swimming just would not occur to me that some creep-o would be posting this for kicks … uffda.
I so agree with you, Jude — and who even has time to write the kind of crap that guy [and his sock puppets] was writing? I understand why Freebird218 would pull the crap she tried to pull, as Paul explained it. After all, she’s trying to make her sleazy “business” sound legitimate, and trying to make a buck off of unsuspecting and nondiscriminating PDDers who have $35/hr to spend on “maid service.” But someone writing about his and his sock puppets experiences swimming in the nude in school for kicks? I don’t get that at all.
First of all, I wouldn’t be so sure Freebird218 is a woman.
Secondly, Claire, every time you ask a rhetorical question like “who even has time to write the kind of crap that guy was writing” it’s like you’re begging Danny to call you out for having time to write your comment.
Let me save him the time of antagonizing you and you the time of responding by calling him names and me the time of deleting the whole string of asinine comments.
There. Don’t we all feel better?
Actually, I read C’s last comment and was legitimately wondering something. I don’t recall anything about the apparently very controversial nude swimming topic. In this history lesson about it the word “sock puppets” is being used to describe some of the people who commented in that thread. Can someone give me a bit of the back-story on that? Why are they being referred to as “sock puppets”?
Thanks.
Thanks Paul, you are so the best. But, not to quibble about something so irrelevant to all of our lives, but I thought Freebird218 referred to a husband (Brian) being one of the “fellas” in one of her comments defending her business and even mentioned being a woman, to deflect the accusations of sexism and misogny?
Claire, you are correct. I’m just being overly skeptical.
So…no answer on the “sock puppet” thing I guess?
Paul, *you* indeed may be correct on that score, it would fit with the modus operandi of this “business” on PDD.
“Sock puppet” is pretty standard internet speak for someone’s multiple accounts/persona on a site. Usually they try and hide the fact they are commenting as multiple “people.” Sometimes it’s malicious, sometimes an attempt to drive traffic/attitude (like this instance) sometimes it is used for humorous effect.
Wiki is your friend
Thanks, edgeways. That explains it quite a bit for me. For some reason I always thought it was a reference to people who will always follow and agree with one specific person or something. I don’t know where I got that.
Anywho, thanks.
I remember seeing the same number on the HotMaids website in a comment by “Brian” advertising Mac repair, but freebird218 said one of the “fellas” was her husband.
Fishy business, all around.
Claire is bewildered by the idea that someone “has the time” to make multiple comments on PDD. So bewildered that she’s made multiple comments about it.
Barrett, my friend. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
This thread is weird.
Vicarious is normal.
I’ll take that as a compliment.
Claire, my friend. “Don’t piss in the wind.”
Coming soon: “Post About HotMaids Post Being Removed Removed”
Vicarious is now married but still without pants.
Tam! That’s supposed to be a secret! (The pantslessness, that is)
my favorite thing on the hot maids site is that one of the guys links to part of the template for the web page. we can see a picture of “sue visiting from boston” if this guy cant even make the webpage would i want him fixing my computer?
Wait, the hot maids will fix things for you and they make websites??
I think if someone has a problem with a legit maid service you are probably envious you didnt think of it first. I’m all for this Hot Maid service in Duluth. It sounds like alot of the people making post on this subject have too much time on their hands, go out and get a job, and if you still have the time go read a book.
OK ?
Oh. my. goodness. Heaven forbid that someone would take ten minutes out of a day filled with a job, laundry, dinner, cat herding and CSI Miami to veg out on a short mental vacation to peruse their community blog.
The humanity.
I’m thinking that being a sock puppet AND a troll would take up far more time. Seems to be a full-time occupation for some folks. If you’re gonna pull a drive by, you might want to actually load those guns.
Locked and loaded, with my permit of course. Doesnt take much to amuse some people.
oh Butch, get over yourself.
Doom at every doorstep … Cheer up Perfect Duluthians! It is I, freebird218! I can clear up a lot of controversy by explaining the dynamic of my household.
First of all, we share several computers/accounts etc. Sometimes this is expedient (think pandora) and sometimes it leads to a little chaos (sock-puppet-like personae shifts on Perfect Duluth Day.) I, as the male half of this dynamic duo, do indeed repair iphones from time to time, macs more often than that, and have yet to take a single booking as Mr. Pink. My wife, out of mischief mostly, and a bit of internet naivete, posted somewhere in excess of 8-10 very crude attempts at humor, under “different” sign-in names on here early on when someone called her employees ugly. It was juvenile and goofy, and I chastised her the moment I saw it. Only 2-3 minutes later the posts were removed, and I was standing proudly with an “I told you so” grin. Didn’t know it would cause all this, and then over the last few days have just unplugged and started taking bookings, which have been fairly brisk for the short period we’ve actually been around.
I understand my wife received an email from WDIO expressing interest in doing a story about the business. Imagine when I log back in to PDD and we’ve be hung as charlatans in our absence! Honey, honey! We’ve been hung! As charlatans!
Anyway … Paul knows more than he lets on, but has to extrapolate too. And most extrapolations aren’t taking into consideration that there are two people at least (I push PDD on all my friends, so I know they check it at my house occasionally too) using my IP address, my account, etc. Ask me any question at freebird218@gmail.com, I’ll give you the straight dope.
Brian
Someday I’ll tell you who the walrus is (koo-koo-ka-choooo!)
Nice followup. /ty
Hello, yes I am guilty for being mischievous. I did not think we would be accused of being sideways, liars, and self-serving business people. Please accept my apologies for messing with my hubby. It was immature and naive. Sorry to the PPD bloggers.
Freebird, as you seem to call yourself, I am hew to PPD and would like to extend a sincere thank you for your last post. I probably wont have an opportunity to use the services of Hot Maids, but feel you are offering a much needed service amogst a vast array of pompass, nose in the air, my shit dont stink dulutians. I think the women employed at your company, and men, are attractive, tax paying citizens. Kudos to you and yours.
Can anybody recommend an English As A Second Language course for our new friend John Hofbauer?
Please just close this thread down….
This whole thread makes me chuckle.