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Why? The argument stands on its own legs, how is the commenter's post history relevant?

• afpx 8y ago
  Why? Because there are a lot of paid propagandists on this site (which is expected, given HN’s influential power).
  • neom 8y ago
    Paid propagandists? I genuinely find this hard to believe. Maybe I'm naive
  • dang 8y ago
    What evidence do you have for that? Someone having an opposing opinion doesn't count as evidence. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18622054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18622054 and https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Plenty more at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturfing https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... I've spent a lot of time looking into this. We are always open to new information and when we find evidence of abuse, we ban accounts and then some. We have low tolerance for actual abuse on HN. But I can tell you with confidence that most people accusing "paid propagandists" are simply imagining the nastiest about those who happen to disagree with them. Both sides do this on divisive issues. That's not acceptable either.
    • afpx 8y ago
      Dang, I really respect you; you are a pretty amazing and patient moderator. However, the odds of there being paid propagandists here are extremely high, even without glaring evidence. HN is probably the most influential technology / startup / venture capital forum on Earth. Many important people and groups read this site daily. Those factors alone make it a target for influence campaigns. So, it would be extremely unlikely for HN to be completely free from it, especially given the current state of world affairs and that it’s well known that online influence campaigns are very effective. That’s not a rip on you, the previous poster, or anyone. It’s just a statement that, yeah, sometimes it is important to highlight a poster’s potential bias. Why would you not want to? Also, I’m curious: what technologies do you guys use to identify bad actors? Maybe if I understood the sophistication of your methods, I would have more trust. There are a lot of smart people here (much smarter than me) who may want to help.
      • dang 8y ago
        I'm not seeing a big disagreement here, except that in my view you're badly underestimating how common, and how toxic, it is for users to hurl these accusations at others simply because they disagree with them. That's a cheap, vulgar move that has nothing to do with actual astroturfing, it's by far the most common phenomenon in this space (and growing), and it poisons the community. Therefore people aren't allowed to do that on HN. "Sometimes it's important to highlight a poster's potential bias" is covered by the site guideline that asks you to send such concerns to hn@ycombinator.com rather than posting them in the threads. In the vast majority of cases that I see, it's not hard to establish that the accusation of shillage is wrong and that the user was just expressing their personal view—unless you think the Chinese government planted people on HN years ago to establish posting histories about Julia or whatever. Legit HN users have a right not to be dressed down or have their histories hauled out by a flash mob that doesn't like what they said. If you're concerned that someone is breaking the site guidelines or otherwise abusing HN, please contact us privately. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html