x x

[Psylo]

x

Edited March 23, 2013 by Psylo

[Torsten]

are you looking at broadening your repertoire?

[Psylo]

x

Edited March 23, 2013 by Psylo

[Torsten]

When can I become a moderator? Let's make it in October, after daylight savings. New beginnings, and all that jazz.

 

bwahahahaha. October 2025?

[Psylo]

x

Edited March 23, 2013 by Psylo

[whitewind]

Interesting reading, I have seen a lot of these ploys used on The Guardian environment pages, especially the disinformation campaigns regarding climate change. You get the same people repeating the same stuff almost no matter what the original topic is about, and the first page is quickly filled up with utter drivel that has been debunked thousands of times. Often they get in really quickly with a post and recommend each other so their posts get really high scores, occasionally to the point of absurdity. Sometimes they get banned, and come back again - obviously posting the same disinformation in the same manner. They have largely destroyed any sane discussion in one of the few mainstream forums for discussing what to do about climate change, which is a major disaster for the environment.

I haven't seen anything much like this happening on the Corroboree, but it's a very good thing to watch out for.

[Torsten]

I haven't seen anything much like this happening on the Corroboree, but it's a very good thing to watch out for.

 

haha, seriously? that's why we have banished all climate talk into a single thread.

It's amazing how scientific discussions can get derailed by people who don't have the capacity for scientific though and method. As long as there is 1% evidence against they are happy to dismiss 99% of the evidence that is for. And I am not referring to any particular topic here as it is far wider than climate change.

I know a few people who use these methods, but to be honest i don't think they use them with the big picture in mind. They really are so obsessed that they will post in every thread and on every topic. It kinda gets funny on facebook when you have one set of friends who are into the zionist conspiracy, another into chemtrails, fluoride and government mindcontrol, a third into climate change denial, and a fourth who is a religious nutter. In the early days of FB I thought that was funny to watch, but then I realised how corrosive it is. Almost like reading tabloids or watching FOX news.

[WoodDragon]

No comment.

Except an emphatic "what Torsten said".

[whitewind]

LOL yes there are the nutters, but I thought the pastebin thingy was about deliberate, concerted efforts by organisations to undermine and infiltrate, and gather information on people within a forum? Is your attempt to divert the subject deliberate manipulation for a specific agenda (removing Psylo's tattooed balls, for example?) with WoodDragon as your unwitting co-conspirator?

[Kee]

Hey man, if my boy C Palmer is worried about infiltration and disinformation I reckon us here at the corroboree should be too!!

[Marcel]

Who's C Palmer?

[Torsten]

LOL yes there are the nutters, but I thought the pastebin thingy was about deliberate, concerted efforts by organisations to undermine and infiltrate, and gather information on people within a forum?

 

There's a fine line between an organisation and a movement. So while it might not be official policy by the climate sceptics to use these tactics, the foot soldiers apply them anyway either because it is their only outlet or because it is suggested to them by their luminaries.

Is your attempt to divert the subject deliberate manipulation for a specific agenda (removing Psylo's tattooed balls, for example?) with WoodDragon as your unwitting co-conspirator?

My agenda is plants. If I have to step on psylo's tattooed balls to make my point then so be it!!

Speaking of testicles: C palmer I would presume refers to Clive Palmer the Qld mining magnate LNP fruitloop who likes his CIA conspiracies.

[WoodDragon]

My agenda is male...

[8145]

Wow ! It is scary how simple it sounds.... Post a pic of your gun so other members will post theirs and then you calculate averages. It is so true too you see it at Shroomery all the time.

Poster 1 - Here is my monotub (Pic)

Poster 2 - Your is too small check out my shit (Pic)

Poster 3 - You guys are noobs check out my garage set up (Pic)

[Psylo]

x

Edited March 23, 2013 by Psylo

[DarkSpark]

Seems more like a guide to making yourself appear cooler and smarter than you really are, once i get into it theres a few good point sbut overall...

Edited October 2, 2012 by DarkSpark

[whitewind]

I've been thinking about this, and I have seen how easy it is to manipulate the comment section on internet mainstream media if you really want to, I'll outline a few methods I have come across below. I don't think they apply in quite the same way to forums like this with a hardcore crew of moderators on the lookout for dodgy, illegal and anti-social behaviour. I would say, if I was worried about something I would let Torsten (or any of the mods) know. Via PM so covert monitoring of said dodgy individual could be undertaken. Saying that, the paranoia here is so great that it doesn't take much to shake the community up a lot - like when the forums when down recently (as it has done so before). I just hope the info here is useful enough to keep it going for a long time to come, and so far it proves invaluable to more and more people.

One of my main, lets say hobbies, was posting environmental information on the comment sections of The Guardian - I guess campaigning in my own way, but also trying to explain why environmental protection is so important. Apart from having carefully thought out and written posts pre-moderated and never published by other online newspapers which quite happily allow Alan Jones style rants and conspiracy theory nuttery free reign, there are ways of manipulating debate which aren't so obvious to the casual reader, but if you spend enough time in one place the patterns become quite clear. Over time, the online stuff has become more readily accessible to more and more people and after a forum upgrade for accessibility suddenly the quality of comments went down - while actual number of comments went through the roof (they tried a 20minute repost wait but it was extremely unpopular so they abandoned it). One of the methods used by anti-climate change groups (this was discovered by someone who got thoroughly hacked off with derailed debates and went searching to find out what was going on) was to use a private forum like this one to work out strategies and plans of attack, it appeared that someone would always be monitoring the environment pages for certain subjects and then they would Twitter a group of people who would then jump on to the relevent page and they would all comment. Within 10 to 20 minutes of a new article appearing, the same people would fill the first page (50 comments) with pre-planned and quickly written denialist nonsense, littered with comments about greenie fascists and sandal monkeys. The more thoughtful comments came on page 2, after the the flurry of the usual suspects subsided and they had finished recommending each other (they even wrote scripts to make it look like their comments were incredibly popular; sometimes these would go wrong and you could watch someone get 500 recommends in 20 minutes while other similar comments might only get 2 or 3). It was weird to watch, and the moderators just let it happen - I guess they are too busy with other stuff they couldn't keep up with the sheer volume of posts. Sadly also, more hits on a page = more advertising revenue so there can be other interests at play on the side of the newspaper.

So it's safe to say, that all you need is a very small group of people focussed on the subject to totally derail any sensible discussion, unless there is extensive moderator influence to keep things on track.