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David_Gerard comments on [meta] Policy for dealing with users suspected/guilty of mass-downvote harassment? - Less Wrong Discussion
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?? Such as?
Presumably p-m primarily means the neoreactionaries.
I don't think that's astroturfing; I think it's just that Scott's one of the few semi-prominent writers outside their own sphere who'll talk to NRx types without immediately writing them off as hateful troglodytic cranks. Which is to his credit, really.
That's fair, but I think it was probably what paper-machine was referring to.
More or less. They're not the only ones, of course, but perhaps they're the most obvious.
I wouldn't call that astroturfing, I'd say that's more wanting anyone to talk to. The lack of a rating system means people don't get downvoted to obvlion, instead they get banned if they break the house rules badly enough. (I'm surprised James A. Donald lasted as long as he did there.)
I don't know what "that" you and Nornagest are referring to, so I have no way of knowing if "that" is really astroturfing or not. On the other hand, six comments about the appropriateness of a single word seems like overkill. On the gripping hand, it appears the community wants more of it, so by all means, continue.
I meant that I haven't seen any strong evidence of astroturfing on SSC (by the conventional definition of "a deceptive campaign to create the appearance of popular support for a position, usually involving sockpuppets or other proxies"), and that the presence of an unusually large and diverse neoreactionary contingent is more easily explained by the reasons I gave.
What did you mean by it? NRx, sure, but what about them, and who're the others you alluded to upthread? If we're just arguing over definitions, giving them explicitly seems like the best way to drive a stake into the argument's heart -- and if you've noticed some bad behavior that I haven't, I'd like to know about that too.
I appreciate your skepticism, but I doubt I can find enough evidence to convince you that NRs do this intentionally. Most of the trouble comes from not being able to find tweets from months ago unless you know exactly what you're looking for, provided they still even exist (e.g., Konk). I'm looking into the PUAs for examples, but I don't know their community as well.
If it's the word you object to, perhaps "meatpuppetry" is better? I don't really see much of a difference, as they both involve manufacturing the appearance of support through multiple accounts.
So, uh, sorry. I really thought this would be easier to show than it turned out to be.
So if I'm following this correctly, you think that the neoreactionary activity on SSC is thanks to an organized effort to create the appearance of support, but not by deceptive means? That is, Scott posts something relevant to their interests, the first neoreactionary to find it tweets "hey, come back me up", and suddenly half the NRx sphere is posting in the comments under their standard noms de blog?
I'm still not convinced, but I'd find that more plausible than astroturfing by my understanding of the word. Not sure what I'd call it, though; "brigading" is close, but not quite it. And I'm not even sure where I'd draw the line; the distinction between "check out this cool thing" and "help me burn this witch" is awfully fine, especially when the cool thing is (e.g.) an anti-FAQ.
I mean the neoreactionaries on SSC.