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gzt

gzt

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#153680 4-Oct-2014 18:52
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Currently states: "Astroturfing is not allowed and posters will be banned. If a company IP address is identified we may block that IP address from accessing Geekzone."

Suggested amendment:

"Astroturfing and sockpuppeting are not allowed and posters will be banned. If a company or political party IP address is identified we may block that IP address from accessing Geekzone."

The rawshark dumps prior to the election contained the revelation that a prospective political party candidate was regularly sockpuppeting on internet forums. This revelation activated my nerdrage severely. The party is unimportant but it was basically a refined form of trolling. In that case the guy was presenting opinions that were not even his own, possibly with multiple users. Now I have expressed my nerdrage I feel better already.

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freitasm
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  #1147333 4-Oct-2014 18:56
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Sounds good. Added.





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nakedmolerat
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  #1147384 4-Oct-2014 20:49
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But how are you going to figure out who has been sockpuppeting? What will be the difference between that and someone who is expressing their opinion (political)?

freitasm
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  #1147386 4-Oct-2014 20:50
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This is where the community comes in. If someone notices a person posting some commentary similar to what's been discussed somewhere else, if posts are reported and we investigate then we can find those.





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  #1147403 4-Oct-2014 21:47
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To be honest you might as well say sock puppets aren't allowed accounts. No-one reads the T&C, and since it's your website you can do whatever you want, whenever you want anyway.

gzt

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  #1147451 5-Oct-2014 01:20
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This isn't really the point. The T&C FUG sets an expected standard of behaviour.

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  #1147541 5-Oct-2014 10:28
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nakedmolerat: But how are you going to figure out who has been sockpuppeting? What will be the difference between that and someone who is expressing their opinion (political)?

I think it is worth noting that the wikipedia description of sockpuppeting does not include politics at all. There is far more about politics in the description of astroturfing. Also, sockpuppeting is different from simple anonymity:

A significant difference between the use of a pseudonym[3] and the creation of a sockpuppet is that the sockpuppet poses as an independent third-party unaffiliated with the puppeteer.

Personally it does not bother me if a user wants to create a discussion based on their own opinion - even if it is identical with that of a political party they support - if that is their own honest opinion. Sockpuppeting is very different:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockpuppet_(Internet)

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