> promoted by HN users I know we have a strong faith in being surrounded by serious people here on HN, but I'm sure there are at least a small percentage of ac

> promoted by HN users I know we have a strong faith in being surrounded by serious people here on HN, but I'm sure there are at least a small percentage of accounts who are people with a desire to influence the crowd (whether paid shills or not). Seriously, what does it cost a manger at RagingBull or anywhere else to have 2 or 3 accounts with enough karma not to get flagged as new, to chime in on some thread about trading? They could easily have a well-seen comment (comments here number in the hundreds, not tens of thousands like on Reddit) and influence a fair number of wealthy tech people. Heck, if I saw three different users agreeing with each other on an HN thread about some product, I'd definitely be curious. I have to remember myself how much of what I see is manipulation, even on a site like HN.