[hackuser]

dang: It's a bit shocking to read this, and it's disappointing too.

I hadn't heard of this policy until now. I've seen very many comments make similar claims in many discussions and I didn't see this response. I just checked the Guidelines and it's not discussed there. Please consider how a user would learn about it - I'm pretty active and I haven't seen it. One possible source of miscommunication: Users probably see only a tiny fraction of what you do, and you could make this comment 100 times and maybe only a fraction of users would come across it at all.

But it's especially disappointing to read the accusation, which has no basis as far as I know. I've always been respectful of the mods, other users, the forum, and its rules, even when I think they aren't great ideas (inevitably, nobody will agree with everything). If I had known about this policy, I would have respected it too. I don't know how I was cast into the role of an antagonist. Like anyone, I don't appreciate loose allegations about me.

...

> You can't make insinuations of astroturfing or shillage on HN without evidence

I don't quite understand the policy as stated. I understand not accusing individuals without evidence, but I certainly didn't do that even by implication. Half my comment was a question asking if there was evidence that it happens in other places, not HN. I also raised the possibility of it happening here, but clearly was unsure and 'insinuated' nothing; I meant simply what I said. If not even that is allowed ...

But to be clear, my concerns don't mean I won't respect your forum's rules. (However, uncertainties will make it more likely that it will happen unintentionally)

EDIT: Moved paragraph with questions of general interest to your post at the top of the discussion.

[dang]

If we haven't discussed this before, I must have confused you with someone else and apologize.

I've posted about this countless times: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix=true&page=0&dateR....

There are several ways you might have actual evidence that someone was astroturfing, but they're rare, and overwhelmingly less likely than people just making such accusations up because another user's comment pisses them off. The "you must be a shill" trope is pretty much the most popular internet cheap shot out there, and based on everything we know, it's a far greater threat to this site because it's so common and degrades discussion so quickly. Indeed it's a bit like antivirus software in causing the very problem it claims to combat.

So, unless you have more evidence than someone being wrong in your opinion on the internet, you bet it's inadmissible here.

[hackuser]

To be clear, I agree that it's very often a cheap shot and I'm glad such things are not generally part of HN.

> I've posted about this countless times

Everyone needs to know policy, but I think few see your comments. You see all your posts and feel you are repeating yourself; users see a tiny fraction of them and may never read about any particular policy. I'm pretty active, but most days I see zero comments from mods - I see a few discussions and a minority of comments in each. Consider even your 'sticky' post at the top of this discussion - what tiny fraction of HN users will see it? Few will see this discussion, and even most/many commenters on this discussion will have moved on or will be reading their comment histories to see responses.

> unless you have more evidence than someone being wrong in your opinion on the internet, you bet it's inadmissible here.

To be clear, that's not at all what I did, as I described above. I'm still not sure if what I did say - pointing to a strong pattern of the same arguments repeated in angry posts, both hallmarks of astroturfing and propaganda - is admissible, since it seems to both meet your standards and yet was rejected. Moving on ...

[dang]

No, it's not admissible to see arguments you disagree with and make posts "wondering" if state actors are astroturfing HN. That's just another variation of the same insinuation, so please don't do it here.

[hackuser]

Again, that's not what happened, and not what I described several times even though you can see it for yourself. I'm not going to repeat myself to describe it again, but this is absurd. It represents what you suspect in your mind - motives and intent - not the words on the page, while it overlooks half the actual text (the second paragraph, which contains the evidence). What defense is there from mind-reading? The baseless allegations are not welcome, even from moderators.

EDIT: I don't even disagree with the alleged astroturfers; I've known about Aadhaar for a long time and think it probably is a good idea on balance. This really is a ridiculous situation.