Why would anyone pay any attention to a garbage website like "data science central" in the first place? Why should any sane person care if this empty bit of internet flotsam puts fake widows and orphans in it? Newsflash: lots of crummy websites fake like they're popular and fashionable.<p>You people do realize that mass hysteria over political correctness nonsense is a way of driving traffic to your website, right? I mean, not that I've taken advantage of this lemming-like behavior in modern culture or anything.
Is this bad? (The approach, not the contest.) I thought it was pretty well-established that you can boost participation by posting under multiple accounts to make it look like there's more activity. And since the point of this was to make women feel more comfortable on the site, it seems like a net positive.
I've seen this approach used for evil (for example, fake female profiles on dating sites), and the gender-neutral version used on social networking sites of all sorts.<p>It's a hack, and not a particularly savory one. I'm not surprised it left the OP with a bad taste.
Another thing abut Data Science Central - I can't seem to unsubscribe from their spam. They come in different forms, and I can't seem to get rid of them