Legal Niches

Filipinos Offered Work as Forum Posters

By John Keefer

Out of work and need cash in the Philippines? Then post in a U.K. Call of Duty fan forum and get 4 cents per post!

Yep, that what the site forumcash.com is advertising, complete with rules on how to post in the forums. Interesting tidbits from the post:

Examples of QUALITY POSTS that will be accepted:

Introduce yourself FIRST at http://www.codhq.co.uk/introduce-yourself — Just don't mention that you are getting paid to post

The forum takes ANY POST as long as it is:  Written in PROPER ENGLISH  and  is related to Call Of Duty

And don't forget to follow the rules:

Rules

-Your first post must be in the introduction section http://www.codhq.co.uk/introduce-yourself/

-Some posts must include screenshots from the game (you can find these online)

-POSTS SHOULD ENCOURAGE CONVERSATION/INTERACTION

Apparently the real impetus behind this is the guy paying for the posts. Payment comes from a Ross at ross-lee.co.uk. A visit to that web address offers nothing other than "Something coming sometime in the future!" I emailed Ross asking what was up and if Activision was behind it and he replied that payment was coming out of his own pocket. He said that he is unaware of anyone making substantial posts.

I followed up, noting that I was a writer and an editor and asking what his interest was in the site and if he is doing this with any other sites. I am still waiting on a response, but a bit more digging shows that Ross is the founder of the CODHQ site.

GP: I know that companies usually post people in forums to talk up games, but it seems odd that a private individual would be so blatant about hyping his own site and telling paid posters NOT to mention they were being paid. The guy obviously is trying to build up his fan site with a community, but the way he is going about it can shed a bad light on any new site or network trying to get a following. What other sites are paying or have paid people to keep a gaming discussion going?

To paraphase the movie line: If you build it they will come, but are they being paid to be there?

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on December 30, 2009 (boomark / email).