I don't know why Prosper's constant ballot box stuffing surprises me, but for anyone to rate this crappy article more than 2 stars is just ridiculous.
As a matter of record, do you have any proof of your allegations of ballot box stuffing in this or any other case involving PMI?
I realize that asking that will just give you all a chance to vilify me again, but it is valid. You, and others sure like to throw accusations around. It is not unfair to ask if you have any legitimate proof supporting what you claim.
Maybe you should spend a little more time asking Prosper if it has "any legitimate proof supporting what they claim," such as "Earn 8.74-12.10%" -- especially since, as has been documented here many times before, when you plug Prosper's stated criteria into Prosper's performance page, you DON'T get their claimed results. I think false advertising to entice lenders to invest their cash is a little more important than ballot box stuffing on web sites, don't you?
Misdirection, obfuscation, irrelevance, two wrongs don't make a right, etc. (Am I going to have to start doing this to your posts again, Ira?)
But since you asked, I clearly remember at least one instance on .com when someone from Prosper (Andrew, IIRC) posted asking everyone to click a link that he provided and vote for Prosper. It's not a big step from there to expecting that Prosper employees were asked to do the same, and probably repeatedly if the voting allowed multiple votes.
It's not a big step to assume from your arguments in the first paragraph that your second graph, directly above, would be full of the same crap. It happens, in this case that it is, but that's not "proof" - you could just as easily have written something that made sense, and then I'd have been wrong for judging you speculatively based on prior behavior... not a big step, maybe - but a doozy nonetheless.
Moreover, some other past situations have obviously been the result of Prosper's ballot box stuffing, most notably its "win" for "Best Blog of 2007" (or some such), at a time when Prosper's blog had only been up for a month or so. As tracked here, the pro-Prosper voting patterns were highly suspect, to say the least.
You can't claim as "proof" for one instance a prior instance for which you also -have no proof-. Your "As tracked here" statement is kind of pathetic, too. "As tracked here" (read: by the vocal majority of ceaseless critics who post constantly and vote in 200 dumbass polls a week, the most popular answer to which is usually WGAF), it's a fucking miracle Prosper still exists.
Even the article at issue in this thread provides reasonable circumstantial evidence of Prosper ballot box stuffing. The article is so bad that it boggles the mind to think that the number of favorable votes is due to anything other than prosper's PR efforts.
You ever consider that *the audience it's targeted to*... likes it? I don't eat at McDonald's because I think their food is shit, but every time I drive by one, the lights are on and there's a line. If I'd -never tasted their food- (or seen a fast food joint before), I might very well be tempted to test out the drive-thru... "wow, what a great idea - instant food, no waiting, always consistent, and cheap!" - the same thought ("wow, what a great business model - loans with no banks! ebay for money! etc") is what attracted us all here in the first place. Why's it so hard to believe that the -concept- is STILL ATTRACTIVE to people who probably haven't sampled the whole menu?
-t
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Topic: Article, World's Most Innovative Company, Prosper.com (Read 13096 times)