If you would like to nominate (or accuse) some user of astroturfing, reply here.

If you are here because you were accused unfairly, feel free to post your defense here, as well.

Some guidelines:

• Don't nominate ordinary trolls
• Don't nominate someone just because they post a pro-Company or partisan political comment, or even a series of them. We're looking for people who exhibit a pattern of behavior, not a particular point of view.
• It's possible to be an astroturfer without even knowing it. You may be one yourself. It's a gray area, since the line between guerilla marketing and simply defending something you like is often hard to place.

The Astroturf Alert is intended to be a signal to Slashdot readers that a user has been seen posting what looks like astroturf.

Make the Astroturf_Alert your Friend, and the posts of any suspected astroturfers will be flagged as "Foe of Friend" when you read them. If you are moderating, you will be able to consider the astro-status of the poster before you moderate.

If the astroturfers themselves befriend the Astroturf Alert, that will just alert you even more to their status.

(Astroturf_Alert is modeled on, but unrelated to, the Profanity Blacklist).

Astroturfing is the process of laying down a false appearance of "grass roots" support for something.

Unethical companies have used the practice to pollute Usenet, message boards, and anywhere else they can pretend to be a casual user who is a fan of the Company's products.

Astroturfers sometimes work in teams, carrying on conversations. One of them may appear to be a pro-Company zealot (or even an anti-Company zealot), and the other(s) on the team respond in a way that the casual observer sees as positive. That generates a positive view of the Company.

I've got a confessed SlashStalker:

"[...] the first thing i do when i get mod points is browse over to slashdot.org/~doc%20ruby and randomly mod down the crap you post"

It's nice to be needed, but a good metamod system would keep modpoints out of the hands of abusers.

Please leave a message at the tone.

TONE...

[continued from "Re:NYC: you tawkin' ta ME?"]:
Where have you deployed WMANs?

In defense of my provocative posts, censored as "trolls", here's the difference:

From The Jargon File
"troll

        1. v.,n. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbies" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. See also YHBT.

        2. n. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that they have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he's just a troll." Compare kook.

        3. n. [Berkeley] Computer lab monitor. A popular campus job for CS students. Duties include helping newbies and ensuring that lab policies are followed. Probably so-called because it involves lurking in dark cavelike corners.

        Some people claim that the troll (sense 1) is properly a narrower category than flame bait, that a troll is categorized by containing some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial. See also Troll-O-Meter.

        The use of 'troll' in any of these senses is a live metaphor that readily produces elaborations and combining forms. For example, one not infrequently sees the warning "Do not feed the troll" as part of a followup to troll postings."

[continued from "NYC turf wars" comment "Re:UK OK"]:

  Here in NYC, the police, fire, EMT and every other emergency responder under the Sun has carved out their own protocols and equipment for communications, few of which interoperate. Even after the WTC collapse, which cost so many lives (including NYC's Finest and Bravest), the "brass" are defending their communications "silos" from interoperability at the cost of efficiency. Reliability is paramount, so the leaders don't trust "foreign" tech, especially if it's fairly new, and outside their traditional operations.

In NYC, we stay on top by picking winners. Whose municipal communications have recently been revamped in the public interest, which NYC could use as a model? Where can I find a good example of transcending organizational barriers, especially in the area of "wireless" (digital and analog radio) networks? I am due to deliver such info to the Mayor and City Council during 2004Q1-2, so Slashdotters have an opportunity to really make a difference here.