So one of the things I do with my time is help moderate Metafilter, which is a lovely site and all that but let’s jump to the interesting bit: when a user signs up for the site with the sole intent of spamming. Mefi has a $5 fee for signups, which seems to work pretty well at discouraging bad-faith accounts, but we still get the occasional assbiter willing to speculate a fiver for potential profit.

Hence this mess: that’s the community-policing thread calling out the user who had just earlier signed up as (and I don’t know whether to call this guileless or simply direct) “What is Mesothelioma?”. Said entrepreneur dropped a few comments in various threads, linking to some forgettable ad-trap. Said comments are now nuked — one of the quiet pleasures of the job — but the thread remains.

As does (in deleted form) a sort of riffy reaction post by a legit user. Such are the antics of a community website. And all this over some ad stumping hijinx that probably don’t end up making much money for much of anybody involved.

All of which stands apart from the fact that Mesothelioma is (a) a terrible affliction, (b) a hilarious word, and (c) really what killed Steve McQueen, apparently. Don’t fuck around with asbestos, kids.

Also, it’s deeply important to me to maintain a solid grip on the phrase “twenty bucks, same as in town”, so, you know, there you go. Word up to James “Kibo” Parry.  Giant H battles 4 evah.