[BrianOnHN]

> countless hours looking at the data

Will you provide that data for independent review?

Edit: it's not that you shouldn't be trusted. The issue is the old “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” For example, what if a large segment of the user base, that regularly contributed extraordinarily positive engagements, existed solely for the opportunities to frame certain conversations, even in the slightest, or even in preparation for something in the distant future.

[dang]

No, for the privacy reason pvg mentioned (edit: since deleted, but he made the simple point that it would violate users' privacy), and also for a different reason: it would convince no one. The only people with enough time and energy to bother looking at it would be people who already have strong views, and they would inevitably pull their preconceptions back out of the data and claim that they'd proven something.

And there's a third reason: sooner or later (maybe we're already there, maybe not yet) we have to assume a sufficiently smart manipulator (SSM) who's able to do whatever they want and be indistinguishable from a legit user. This is exactly what your phrase alludes to, I think: "regularly contributed extraordinarily positive engagements, existed solely for the opportunities to frame certain conversations". Once we're past that SSM threshold, all we can do is fall back on what the community ought to be doing anyway: answering false information with correct information, answering worse arguments with better ones, preserving community-ness without falling into war.

Since that's the only long term solution and it's what we want anyway, we might as well be practicing it now.

[BrianOnHN]

Dang, I think that's a solid response. Thank you.

The theory behind SSM seems well thought out.

I think it would be helpful to enlighten people about the SSM when noting that a response is breaking the rules for an accusation of astroturfing.

For me, I think a brief explanation that well formed arguments are the only defense against an SSM would have removed a feeling of helplessness derived from reading your initial comment. And instead, lead me down a path which could really be helpful.

[dang]

That's great feedback. I only thought of that "SSM" wording just now but will try to weave it into future explanations. You can see that this argument has been cooking for a while: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23839602. There are lots of other instances but I can't think of a search query to dig them up.

[pvg]

The theory behind SSM seems well thought out.

And it's fun to extend in the obvious ways. For instance, what if a SSM (an 'essessum', as they are often referred to in the technical literature) is orchestrating a campaign to write comments insinuating astroturfery into HN threads? After all, taken as a group such comments look very much like the kind of commentary a nefarious corporate or state actor might promote, as pointed out by the shillologists themselves! A curious and under-explored connection.

[shostack]

As someone looking to learn more, can you suggest any specific technical literature on the topic that digs further into this?

[pvg]

I'm just being overly self-satisfied with the idea a shadowy army of shillologists and astoTERFs are diabolically manipulating HN by darkly warning about shilling and astroturfing for unknown but definitely nefarious ends.

[iron0013]

It sounds like you’re saying you’re fine with users doing things like creating unlimited sock puppet accounts and engaging in vote manipulation (which is what the troll farms you’re describing as SSMs have been accused of doing)? I’m genuinely not trying to be snide here—I’m just reading “we won’t enforce the rules because someone’s probably smart enough to break them (i.e. ‘do whatever they want’) and get away with it”. Is it officially okay for HN users to engage in coordinated inauthentic behavior?

[dang]

Absolutely not. We're not fine with those things and we ban people for astroturfing and other abuses. I believe that is the one thing that's in both the site guidelines and the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. That's how important that is.

It's just that we need to have some evidence, something objective to go on, before we ban people. Absent that (<-- note that I said absent that), what one is encountering on the internet is a gigantic Rohrschach diagram, in which people routinely see the opposite of what they like or identify with. This internet experience is like being surrounded by demons of one's own creation: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

Sock puppet accounts and vote manipulation are not what I understood BrianOnHN to be talking about upthread. Maybe one could adapt the point to those cases though. Imagine someone who was coordinating inauthentic behavior so cleverly that we couldn't detect it at all. Fortunately I don't think we're there yet—but of course we wouldn't know it if we were. Either way, just imagine for a moment that this is the case. What are our options? The way I see it, we have two:

1. Go after each other based on subjective interpretations of whatever deviousness we imagine we see;

2. Have a functioning community with a healthy immune system based on clear thinking and responding to bad arguments with better arguments.

Surely we all choose #2, at least in our better moments. The key insight here is that #2 doesn't depend on what manipulators, even the cleverest manipulators, do. It depends on us. I'm not saying that it's the only defense we have against manipulation; I'm saying that if the day ever comes when it is the only defense we have, well, it's what we ought to be doing anyway, so we should work at getting good at it now.