5 ms·

Almost leans some credence to the theory that disinformation agents lurk and astroturf here actively.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
Absolutely. The way the same comments are rapid-fire added to these threads every time is deeply suspicious and a great cause for concern. This should be one of the top comments, it’s not reasonable to disagree with this worry given the commenter behavior on this thread and all the previous iterations.
- foldr 6y ago
  Same offer to you. Call me and lets talk about it, if you really think I am an agent of some kind. I find it worrying that trust is breaking down to this extent. Even if we disagree strongly, perhaps I can at least persuade you that my opinions are my own.
  - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
    I don’t think you’re an agent, but I do think you’re astroturfing.
    - foldr 6y ago
      Here's Wikipedia's definition of astroturfing: "Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants." Are you saying that I'm an agent of some larger organization and not revealing this? If not, what exactly do you mean by 'astroturfing'? And why will you not take me up on my offer to talk about this? Does it not concern you that you may be making a false accusation? It's cowardly and rude to make these kind of accusations without even giving the accused person any kind of opportunity to present you with evidence to the contrary.
      - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
        As I just said, I do not believe you are an agent, but I do believe your comments are astroturfing. I do not care about the Wikipedia article, I’m not sure why you’re linking it. It seems like a rhetorical deflection to try to make the discussion about semantics of the word “astroturfing” - which I do not agree to participate in. Your communication habits throughout the thread cause me to believe it would be fruitless and possibly dangerous to actually talk to you outside of these comments. I’m not writing any of this to engage with you or convince you, just hopefully as a thought provoking warning for other readers who come across the thread.
        foldr 6y ago
        What do you mean by astroturfing, then? At this point I don't even know what I'm being accused of. I linked to the Wikipedia article because according to the usual use of the term 'astroturfing', it doesn't really make sense to accuse someone of astroturfing and yet deny that they are working as an agent of an organization of some kind. Again, we could easily resolve all this with a phone call, if you were actually interested in the truth of the matter. But I guess you'd rather hide behind your online persona and cast false accusations around.
- dang 6y ago
  You also can't break the site guidelines like this, so please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stop. All you need to do is look at the public 11-year history of the account you're complaining about to get an idea of how ridiculous this is. The bar for serious comments here is incredibly low—but it needs to be higher than that. I'm sure you can do much better if you want to, and if you don't want to, please find another forum that's better aligned with what you do want. All of this holds even if foldr is completely wrong. I'm not making any claim about their views—I don't even know what their views are, nor care. The moderation issue here is that on this site, people can't issue the garden-variety internet insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, spying, etc., that the internet loves to generate ad nauseum. As the guidelines say, if you have evidence you should send it to hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate. In this case you could simply have done the "investigation" yourself. There's reams of previous explanation at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=astroturf%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme..., for anyone who wants to understand why we have this rule. The short version: because insinuations of astroturfing are poison to community, and because they nearly always collapse under inspection, usually trivially, as in this case.
  - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
    I very sincerely and respectfully disagree. foldr’s comments here are very out of line. They are seeded comments copy/pasting the same smearing of Craig Murray’s alleged bias on every post about the Assange hearing. It’s unconscionable to me that you would think the guidelines rule out my comment but wouldn’t find deep, inarguable cause for more concern over foldr’s comments. I cannot see any way the account age or comment history bears relevance. Being a commonly-seen community member for years, then suddenly deciding to spam smear comments about Craig Murray’s alleged bias on posts about the Assange hearing still is quite flagrant.
    - dang 6y ago
      There are two separate issues: 1. Posting repetitively on flamewar topics is against the site guidelines. 2, Accusing other users of astroturfing is against the site guidelines. foldr did #1. You did #2. You both broke the site guidelines so I replied to both of you.
foldr 6y ago
I was wondering how long it would be before someone would accuse me of being a disinformation agent. You seem to have a real HN account. I tell you what, why don't you phone me and we can talk about this like adults? I'm actually fascinated to talk to someone who thinks that I'm not just some random guy on the internet posting my opinion. And if we're still on the subject of the guidelines, making baseless accusations of this nature is certainly in violation of them. To downvoters: if you're really concerned about shills or astroturfing, why don't you take me up on my offer? I mean, what are you actually objecting to here? Is it not ok for me to refute allegations that I'm a shill?

mlthoughts2018 6y ago

Absolutely. The way the same comments are rapid-fire added to these threads every time is deeply suspicious and a great cause for concern. This should be one of the top comments, it’s not reasonable to disagree with this worry given the commenter behavior on this thread and all the previous iterations.

foldr 6y ago
Same offer to you. Call me and lets talk about it, if you really think I am an agent of some kind. I find it worrying that trust is breaking down to this extent. Even if we disagree strongly, perhaps I can at least persuade you that my opinions are my own.
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  I don’t think you’re an agent, but I do think you’re astroturfing.
  - foldr 6y ago
    Here's Wikipedia's definition of astroturfing: "Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants." Are you saying that I'm an agent of some larger organization and not revealing this? If not, what exactly do you mean by 'astroturfing'? And why will you not take me up on my offer to talk about this? Does it not concern you that you may be making a false accusation? It's cowardly and rude to make these kind of accusations without even giving the accused person any kind of opportunity to present you with evidence to the contrary.
    - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
      As I just said, I do not believe you are an agent, but I do believe your comments are astroturfing. I do not care about the Wikipedia article, I’m not sure why you’re linking it. It seems like a rhetorical deflection to try to make the discussion about semantics of the word “astroturfing” - which I do not agree to participate in. Your communication habits throughout the thread cause me to believe it would be fruitless and possibly dangerous to actually talk to you outside of these comments. I’m not writing any of this to engage with you or convince you, just hopefully as a thought provoking warning for other readers who come across the thread.
      - foldr 6y ago
        What do you mean by astroturfing, then? At this point I don't even know what I'm being accused of. I linked to the Wikipedia article because according to the usual use of the term 'astroturfing', it doesn't really make sense to accuse someone of astroturfing and yet deny that they are working as an agent of an organization of some kind. Again, we could easily resolve all this with a phone call, if you were actually interested in the truth of the matter. But I guess you'd rather hide behind your online persona and cast false accusations around.
dang 6y ago
You also can't break the site guidelines like this, so please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stop. All you need to do is look at the public 11-year history of the account you're complaining about to get an idea of how ridiculous this is. The bar for serious comments here is incredibly low—but it needs to be higher than that. I'm sure you can do much better if you want to, and if you don't want to, please find another forum that's better aligned with what you do want. All of this holds even if foldr is completely wrong. I'm not making any claim about their views—I don't even know what their views are, nor care. The moderation issue here is that on this site, people can't issue the garden-variety internet insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, spying, etc., that the internet loves to generate ad nauseum. As the guidelines say, if you have evidence you should send it to hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate. In this case you could simply have done the "investigation" yourself. There's reams of previous explanation at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=astroturf%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme..., for anyone who wants to understand why we have this rule. The short version: because insinuations of astroturfing are poison to community, and because they nearly always collapse under inspection, usually trivially, as in this case.
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  I very sincerely and respectfully disagree. foldr’s comments here are very out of line. They are seeded comments copy/pasting the same smearing of Craig Murray’s alleged bias on every post about the Assange hearing. It’s unconscionable to me that you would think the guidelines rule out my comment but wouldn’t find deep, inarguable cause for more concern over foldr’s comments. I cannot see any way the account age or comment history bears relevance. Being a commonly-seen community member for years, then suddenly deciding to spam smear comments about Craig Murray’s alleged bias on posts about the Assange hearing still is quite flagrant.
  - dang 6y ago
    There are two separate issues: 1. Posting repetitively on flamewar topics is against the site guidelines. 2, Accusing other users of astroturfing is against the site guidelines. foldr did #1. You did #2. You both broke the site guidelines so I replied to both of you.

foldr 6y ago

I was wondering how long it would be before someone would accuse me of being a disinformation agent. You seem to have a real HN account. I tell you what, why don't you phone me and we can talk about this like adults? I'm actually fascinated to talk to someone who thinks that I'm not just some random guy on the internet posting my opinion. And if we're still on the subject of the guidelines, making baseless accusations of this nature is certainly in violation of them. To downvoters: if you're really concerned about shills or astroturfing, why don't you take me up on my offer? I mean, what are you actually objecting to here? Is it not ok for me to refute allegations that I'm a shill?