i've notice the last few times, New Member #1 post about looking for a cheap bach/masters program, says research shows up a list of choices, all or most of which are questionable programs/sites. New Member #2 comes in to try and validate some of the programs and provides more questionable sites. Both pretend to start a conversion about it. Has happen afew times, I suspect is to generate SEO hits for searches? dunnnooooo. maybeeee im a cynic
I concur. The forum has been invaded by newbie trolls, most of whom appear to be dumb foreigners. Mind you, I am not saying that all foreigners are dumb, merely a good number of the foreigners we're getting here at DI. Fortunately, there are not enough of them to make me go out and buy a MAGA hat. And, on rare occasion, we even get a smart foreigner or two. (No, campers, I'm really not xenophobic, but I like to rankle the people who think I might be.) And it's not that I feel I'm any smarter than most of the foreigners here; I also feel that I'm smarter than most of the Americans here. I didn't ask to be smarter than most of you, and it has truly been a burden to bear at times. But I can't help it if most of you are dumb and I'm smart. I have learned not to question the wisdom of God and how He arranged these things.
We haven't seen any direct evidence of malicious intent, but there has been some fishy activity lately. When similar events have occurred on this site, what has often happened is that when the threads die down, the users log back on and post spam in their signatures. They thereby mark every thread they posted in and, yes, they do so in an attempt to improve their SEO. What they don't realize is that the mods have seen this game hundreds of times before and we're ready with the ban hammer and editing scissors when it happens. They therefore find themselves having wasted all of their efforts while making themselves look like complete tools. I'm not saying that's whats going on this time. I'm just saying that we're ready in case it does.
Yes I also notice that also. It seems like the only institutions that they are capable of finding in their research are degree mills which is making me suspicious.
In my experience you are right to be suspicious. There are a few different ploys we see, and that's one of them. They eventually wind up dropping a link into their sig line, as MC said, or ask questions about shady entities. These most often are non-US and have something other than direct accreditation (or whatever term is appropriately equivalent) by the country in which they exist. They seem juuuust a little shady to me and in the process of figuring out their true legitimacy is simply too much work. It shouldn't be so hard to figure out if a school is legitimate.
Levicoff: " I didn't ask to be smarter than most of you, and it has truly been a burden to bear at times." Bear: No, it's all right with me.