First, check the top comment in the Techdirt link below. This idea is so halfbaked it's beautiful. Set up a website that people can forward their favorite NES (Nigerian Email Scam) email to. Select for continuity and compatibility, and post this large "shared word" of people trying to bail out of a bad political situation with the millions held by the corrupt goverment.

From the comment: "I've gotten many which almost tell a story... I get one email from the son of a deposed leader, another from his lawyer, another from his younger brother, etc, each telling a bit of the story. One from a son who's father was killed by a rebel leader, and one from the rebel leader's son who's father was killed by the government! "

Could this be a way to "get back" at the scammers? Turn the Nigerian Scam into a fictional Genre? Even if authors didn't jump on the bandwagon ad create fictional lives for these characters, making NigeriaWorld would still up the surreality quotient.
-- bear, Nov 04 2003

Original Techdirt Comment http://www.techdirt...1103/109232_F.shtml
The real progenitor of the idea [bear, Oct 17 2004]

It is a clever idea, but admittedly not original to the author. From the help file: "Ideas for the halfbakery should be original to the poster and should, as far as the poster knows, not exist already."
-- krelnik, Nov 05 2003


Urh? Mea (admittedly) Maximu Culpa.

On the other hand, I didn't claim authorship of the idea, just love for it. (and took the idea slightly farther)
-- bear, Nov 11 2003


I recently saw a great article which described an experiment applying genetic history tools to spam snail mail of this type. The author was able to construct a family tree of how a particular story mutated over time, mutations arising as new scammers misread poor quality photocopies or simply made things up.
-- DrCurry, Nov 11 2003



random, halfbakery