[pibaker]

This thread got only 6 upvotes as I am typing this comment and there are two replies from green accounts, both registered within the past few hours and show zero other activity on this website, both talking in the same positive tenor with exclamation marks. Surely I am not the only one finding this suspicious right?

Anyway, how exactly do you plan on deterring astroturfing and other sorts of public opinion manipulation? Heck, how do you convince us that you are not the one working on an influence campaign yourself?

[gucduck]

Totally fair to question it. I did ask a couple friends to go through the workflow of reading the post, trying the beta, and optionally commenting.

Astroturfing is actually one of the problems I’m trying to solve. Civie has optional identity verification (via Persona), and anonymous responses can be filtered down to verified-only. The idea is to make participation easier while still giving people a way to look at results that are harder to game, with everything aggregated and publicly inspectable.

On the “influence campaign” part, I’m honestly just trying to get feedback during an early beta, not shape anyone’s opinions. And for trust more broadly, you probably shouldn’t just take my word for it. The only real answer is transparency over time. That’s why I’m attempting to build this in public and gather as much feedback as I can.

[gucduck]

And for what it’s worth, I appreciate the skepticism and questions.