Thank you Clifford for the defense on my behalf. Due to the unforgiving longevity of the Internet, it was my greatest fear that this thread would gain a high search engine rank in regards to my name. This could of permanently ruined my professional reputation.
Off topic: I think Dale Carnegie was a very intelligent man. Thanks for the advice. I will search out an open source project and start contributing. I wish I could help with this list but I feel that my lack of experience might render me useless in answering anybody's questions. Now at least I don't have grow a mustache, change my name and move to Mexico :P Thanks again, Ashley On May 16, 2:50 pm, CLIFFORD ILKAY <clifford_il...@dinamis.com> wrote: > On 05/15/2010 11:18 PM, AshleyS wrote: > > > > > > > Hi David, > > > I guess now that you are convinced that I am a scammer there must > > not be much I could say to convince you otherwise. > > > Previously I have contacted all of the Australian Django freelancers > > and asked them if they had any work. I didn't scrape them, I > > manually went through the 146 Australians of them and found 46 > > freelancers. 30% of the freelancers responded to me and were all > > happy to check out my website and consider subcontracting to me. > > > I then decided to contact all of the American Django people. But the > > idea of clicking through 1.5K of them didn't sound appealing. So I > > decided to scrap them. I didn't scrape the entire djangopeople.net > > website, only the US Django people. This was my first and last > > scraping experience. > > I'm miffed that you didn't scrape and "spam" the Canadians, too. :) > > > Before I ran my python script to scrap the US people, > > "Scrape", not "scrap", by the way. :) > > > I wondered > > whether what I was doing was unethical. I was spamming many people > > but I certainly wasn't a scammer. > > I wouldn't consider this spamming. People put their contact information > on djangopeople.net presumably with the aim of being contacted. If > someone is so uptight that you contacting him to ask for work causes him > to go off the deep end and write a long-winded and nasty email to a > public mailing list effectively asking everyone to ostracize you, it > says more about him than it does about you. That person really should > not have his contact information on a public web site if he is that > sensitive about being contacted. Moreover, that person really needs to > read Dale Carnegie's classic "How to Win Friends and Influence People" > and apply the principles therein. > > Having said that, Ashley, in marketing, what you did is known as "the > shotgun approach". It's a low-yield and not particularly effective way > of marketing. > > > How can someone scam a Django > > freelancer by asking for work? I'm not asking for money to free > > millions of dollars locked away in overseas accounts. I was asking to > > to have the opportunity to work. The only way someone would pay me is > > if I did a good job for them, thus there is no way for me to scam > > them. > > > I convinced myself that it wasn't unethical because I did not have > > evil intent and that it was in the best interest of some of the > > recipients. Many Australian django users thanked me for contacting > > them. This was surprising to me since I was thankful that they read > > my email. > > While I wouldn't do it, I don't view what you did as unethical at all. > If you don't ask, you don't get. > > > I sent my email via Gmail, so: I dont understand what you mean by > > 1). About 2), somebody sent me an email like this to me about a job > > and thats where I learnt it. 4) is not true. ashley.j.sa...@gmail.com > > is my email and my name is Ashley James Sands. 6) I work from home as > > a freelancer so since no clients ever meet me there, I don't list > > it. 7) I agree with that this is pathetic, hence why I was so > > desperate to scrape and spam. > > You didn't explain away #5, "The site listed has WhoisGuard protecting > the whois information", which is supposed to "prove" that you're a > spammer, so I'll do it for you. There are many legitimate domains > protected by WhoisGuard. Pointing to this as "proof" that the person > behind an email from such a domain "is a leech" is a bit much and > totally uncalled for. > > > If I was a scammer, I would of dumped this email account and moved > > on. I wouldn't be posting to this Google group forum trying to > > recover my badly damaged reputation. The only way I can prove to you > > I am not a scammer, is by asking you to ask yourself "What is his > > motive?". I am just trying to get work, not scam money. A scammer > > never hangs around to defend a false/stolen alias. > > > Also 7) is a great point to prove that I am real. If I were a > > scammer, I wouldn't put something as pathetic as 7) on my website. I > > would of listed many fake projects that did many great and wonderful > > things. So since 7) is so pathetic and crap, it is proof that it is > > real. > > While upgrading a Django site from 0.96 to 1.1x isn't rocket science, it > isn't "pathetic" or "crap". Some experience is better than no experience. > > > I apologize to you David, everyone I spammed (~100 US Djangoers) and > > the Django community for spamming those 100 email addresses. I have > > learnt my lesson and I won't do it again. > > > This is actually quite embarrassing experience since I have made > > such a stupid newbie mistake. > > > Is there any sort of community service I can do for the Django > > community to attempt to make up for my stupid mistake? I don't want > > to be forever labelled as an evil scammer and I am willing to give > > back to the Django community as an attempt to recover my reputation. > > > So here's the chance for somebody in the Django community to get > > free work, open source or not. > > If you're going to work for free, do it for an open source project or a > charity. Hang around on IRC and help people. Blog, answer questions on > this list, build sites, and have fun. The work will follow. > > > Once again I must say that I am sorry, Ashley > > Don't be so hard on yourself. It's not a big deal. > > By the way, I'm <http://djangopeople.net/cilkay/>. > -- > Regards, > > Clifford Ilkay > Dinamis > 1419-3266 Yonge St. > Toronto, ON > Canada M4N 3P6 > > <http://dinamis.com> > +1 416-410-3326 > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Django users" group. > To post to this group, send email to django-us...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > django-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group > athttp://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To post to this group, send email to django-us...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en.
