5 ms·

The article is amusing but unfair - it's mostly just selected quotes from contributors to the new site. One could write a similarly far out (and amusing) stor

The article is amusing but unfair - it's mostly just selected quotes from contributors to the new site. One could write a similarly far out (and amusing) story about HN or any other social site, by judiciously selecting from amongst the troll comments.

asolove 16y ago
Uhm, did you visit the site? I browsed two pages and saw only one suggestion that had both punctuation and was not obviously a troll.
- moultano 16y ago
  Sort by interest and you get ones that are at least more literate. http://www.americaspeakingout.com/browse/questions/in/job-creation?sortkey=interest http://www.americaspeakingout.com/browse/questions/in/job-cr...
  - amalcon 16y ago
    Even many of these seem a little naive. Take this one: PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION: Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. So, people really think that it will help to protect the Constitution to write "Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3" on every bill? The court has historically interpreted the commerce clause in such a way that everything is justified by it. The hard part is getting the court to stop doing that, not making Congresspeople write some extra stuff on the bill.
    - byrneseyeview 16y ago
      It reveals dependencies. People might be concerned if, e.g., 90% of government spending was valid if and only if the commerce clause had a particular interpretation. Companies disclose if a single customer represents even 10% of their revenues, because it's a risk factor.
      - amalcon 16y ago
        Looking at that would be a great way to create some really perverse incentives. "Let's spend more money on the armed forces and post office, to make the portion that comes under Clause 3 appear smaller." A lawyer I spoke to told me that there's a question regarding federal law on the bar exam every single year, asking "From where is the power to create X law derived in the Constitution?" It's a different law every year, but the answer is always the same: "The commerce clause."
- michael_nielsen 16y ago
  Milbank chose the comments he quotes for maximum rhetorical effect, not as a representative sample. Mind you, I certainly agree with you that a representative sample wouldn't exactly inspire, either...
- eli 16y ago
  Not all trolls are obvious. I saw the site early yesterday and most of the submitted comments were sad and depressing (or complaining about having had a previous post deleted), not ridiculously stupid as the ones highlighted in this article. After Wonkette linked to it, I'm sure plenty of left-leaning people went and had some fun.
sethg 16y ago
The humor is not that a social site attracted trolls; the humor is that a major US political party used a social site to solicit help developing its political agenda. The trolls are just helping us see the violence^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hfoolishness inherent in the system.
yummyfajitas 16y ago
Democrat's new website not exactly what he hoped it would be: "Today presently in our world you can notice a lot of instability in our Earth’s physic’s. Like now we are having a lot of Earthquakes, Tsunamis, we also have El nino on the equator and now something new like Iceland’s new erupting Volcano and this hasn’t happened since the 18 hundreds. I would also like to talk about how I thing we can possibly repair some of these major problems in a fairly simple way. In my Books Moon People 3, I developed something called the Ecliptic Satellite Tint Shield [...] Now the connection that I am getting at between the "Ecliptic Satellite Tint Shield" and the Earth’s current instability is you can use this satellite on Earth. We could park one right over the volcano in Iceland to where we could adjust the tint shield over the Volcano to eclipse it to cool it off." "The entire Earth gets 70% of all of our Oxygen all over the world from Plankton. Could you imagine what it would be like on our Earth without our normal 70% oxygen in our atmosphere, if all of a sudden all of the plankton in the ocean died. It wouldn’t be pretty, this is prophisized in our Bible." "I respectfully ask The clerics of Iran and the President of Iran to let NATO redo elections for the good of your country[...] I would just like to say one more thing before I go. MELCHIZEDEK'S name means "The KING of RIGHTEOUSNESS and JUSTICE" and the Heart of JUSTICE is FAIRNESS and MELCHILEDEK rules over a "KINGDOM called SALEM" which means PEACE!!!! "MELCHIZELDEK is The MESSIAH and is The CHRIST" and The CHRIST is the son of the Living GOD and his name is JESUS!!!Those who follow him will have ETERNAL LIFE!!!!! " http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/dalecourtney http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/dalecourtney (This is from the author of the "Moon People Trilogy", http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.aspx?bookid=49194 http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.aspx?bookid=49... . Amusing side note: this guy is a "45 year old Single man who works at the local High school as a science teacher and astrology in the 12'th grade level." Our children are doomed. )
- illumin8 16y ago
  Quit linking to insane blog posts and pretending it comes from an official DNC website. Anyone can create a blog at my.barackobama.com. It's like blogspot. Unfortunately, there is no mandatory mental health screening required to purchase an Internet connection or a computer.
  - 16y ago
JustinSeriously 16y ago
I was rickrolled on the 7th comment I read. I don't think I've ever been rickrolled on HN. I think they just underestimated the need for moderators. Though I can't really fault them for that, a good moderation system is tough.

asolove 16y ago

Uhm, did you visit the site? I browsed two pages and saw only one suggestion that had both punctuation and was not obviously a troll.

moultano 16y ago
Sort by interest and you get ones that are at least more literate. http://www.americaspeakingout.com/browse/questions/in/job-creation?sortkey=interest http://www.americaspeakingout.com/browse/questions/in/job-cr...
- amalcon 16y ago
  Even many of these seem a little naive. Take this one: PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION: Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. So, people really think that it will help to protect the Constitution to write "Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3" on every bill? The court has historically interpreted the commerce clause in such a way that everything is justified by it. The hard part is getting the court to stop doing that, not making Congresspeople write some extra stuff on the bill.
  - byrneseyeview 16y ago
    It reveals dependencies. People might be concerned if, e.g., 90% of government spending was valid if and only if the commerce clause had a particular interpretation. Companies disclose if a single customer represents even 10% of their revenues, because it's a risk factor.
    - amalcon 16y ago
      Looking at that would be a great way to create some really perverse incentives. "Let's spend more money on the armed forces and post office, to make the portion that comes under Clause 3 appear smaller." A lawyer I spoke to told me that there's a question regarding federal law on the bar exam every single year, asking "From where is the power to create X law derived in the Constitution?" It's a different law every year, but the answer is always the same: "The commerce clause."
michael_nielsen 16y ago
Milbank chose the comments he quotes for maximum rhetorical effect, not as a representative sample. Mind you, I certainly agree with you that a representative sample wouldn't exactly inspire, either...
eli 16y ago
Not all trolls are obvious. I saw the site early yesterday and most of the submitted comments were sad and depressing (or complaining about having had a previous post deleted), not ridiculously stupid as the ones highlighted in this article. After Wonkette linked to it, I'm sure plenty of left-leaning people went and had some fun.

sethg 16y ago

The humor is not that a social site attracted trolls; the humor is that a major US political party used a social site to solicit help developing its political agenda. The trolls are just helping us see the violence^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hfoolishness inherent in the system.

yummyfajitas 16y ago

Democrat's new website not exactly what he hoped it would be: "Today presently in our world you can notice a lot of instability in our Earth’s physic’s. Like now we are having a lot of Earthquakes, Tsunamis, we also have El nino on the equator and now something new like Iceland’s new erupting Volcano and this hasn’t happened since the 18 hundreds. I would also like to talk about how I thing we can possibly repair some of these major problems in a fairly simple way. In my Books Moon People 3, I developed something called the Ecliptic Satellite Tint Shield [...] Now the connection that I am getting at between the "Ecliptic Satellite Tint Shield" and the Earth’s current instability is you can use this satellite on Earth. We could park one right over the volcano in Iceland to where we could adjust the tint shield over the Volcano to eclipse it to cool it off." "The entire Earth gets 70% of all of our Oxygen all over the world from Plankton. Could you imagine what it would be like on our Earth without our normal 70% oxygen in our atmosphere, if all of a sudden all of the plankton in the ocean died. It wouldn’t be pretty, this is prophisized in our Bible." "I respectfully ask The clerics of Iran and the President of Iran to let NATO redo elections for the good of your country[...] I would just like to say one more thing before I go. MELCHIZEDEK'S name means "The KING of RIGHTEOUSNESS and JUSTICE" and the Heart of JUSTICE is FAIRNESS and MELCHILEDEK rules over a "KINGDOM called SALEM" which means PEACE!!!! "MELCHIZELDEK is The MESSIAH and is The CHRIST" and The CHRIST is the son of the Living GOD and his name is JESUS!!!Those who follow him will have ETERNAL LIFE!!!!! " http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/dalecourtney http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/dalecourtney (This is from the author of the "Moon People Trilogy", http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.aspx?bookid=49194 http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.aspx?bookid=49... . Amusing side note: this guy is a "45 year old Single man who works at the local High school as a science teacher and astrology in the 12'th grade level." Our children are doomed. )

illumin8 16y ago
Quit linking to insane blog posts and pretending it comes from an official DNC website. Anyone can create a blog at my.barackobama.com. It's like blogspot. Unfortunately, there is no mandatory mental health screening required to purchase an Internet connection or a computer.
- 16y ago

JustinSeriously 16y ago

I was rickrolled on the 7th comment I read. I don't think I've ever been rickrolled on HN. I think they just underestimated the need for moderators. Though I can't really fault them for that, a good moderation system is tough.