Sometimes, I Don’t Understand People.
Your grammarian was asked this evening to plug a site collecting funds for victims of the West Texas thing.
I looked at the website, and — if this guy is honest — it’s nowhere near ready to be plugged. It has a couple of articles, but no information on who the fund it, what its mission is, who the principals are, etc.
Given all the scammers who arise after these sort of catastrophic things, you’d think he’d know better. Especially after complaining to me that he suspects another site to be that of a scammer because it only has one page.
I offered him feedback instead, and offered to look at the site again when it was complete, and he got kind of huffy about it.
The thing is, while I’m sure he’s sincere I cannot in good conscience plug something asking people for money unless I know exactly who is collecting that money, where and how it will be disbursed, who is behind the collection, and all the other stuff you want to know before giving to charity. It would be irresponsible of me to to do so.
If I ask my readers to click on something, it is something I can totally endorse. And, if I try to ascertain that your site is something on the up and up, I don’t expect huffiness as a response.
The guy tried to backtrack and say that the site was not complete, but he wants linkbacks to start coming in now. He may want that, and he may find others who will do that, but I won’t. He claims to be working with the mayor of the town affected. Why not have the mayor write a testimonial for him, then? All I see on the site are some uncredited articles about the incident.
To me, that’s a warning that this guy is not going to be doing what he says he is. Especially since his response to being asked to provide more information to his visitors is to get huffy.
Anyway, you guys can rest assured that I will never steer you towards something that I do not believe to be totally on the up and up.
Not Just Another Grouchy Grammarian 