I'm certain I've come across these incidents, but the one thing they and the SO recruits will have in common is that they don't understand what makes a communit

I'm certain I've come across these incidents, but the one thing they and the SO recruits will have in common is that they don't understand what makes a community[1]. That is still their biggest weakness. Also, from what I've seen, astroturfing for ideology is far more effective than for products since often that's something the participant believes in. And it's easier to elicit emotions over ideology than products (unless we're talking programming languages, but then that's sacred ground to begin with). [1] SO is most certainly not a "community".