why is meta-refresh tag bad for SE's?

heard it from a few sources

[Don_Hoagie]

This will mark the first time I've ever considered using META REFRESH on a homepage... I'm sure Ajax would be a better way to do what I need to do... but that's a different topic.

I noticed that a few sources on the net said that the META REFRESH tag shouldn't be used on pages where you want to get a lot of SE traffic... I'm a little confused as to why that would be, other than the fact that the tag just has a low-down, slimy, black hat kinda feel to it. Anyone know why? Is it because it is used to redirect? In this case i'm not redirecting to another page, just refreshing the current page.

[jessejump]

>>>> i'm not redirecting to another page, just refreshing the current page.

But, is the page content going to change?

[skipfactor]

I use it on static webcams without any ranking issues. Personally, I wouldn't set it to less than a 60 second refresh. WW's "active posts" page uses this tag obviously w/o issue.

[tedster]

low-down, slimy, black hat kinda feel to it

Because a fast or instant refresh has been used in some sneaky, low-down ways to try to fool the search engines.

[topsites]

Not to mention it has also been used to 'force' or trick visitors (well it IS a re-direct), and as a rule, what's bad for our visitors is bad for the engines :-)

Yes, I know for a Webcam this may not be the case, but ...