Re: On PR and 'community building'

2006/2/1, Andrew Suffield <[email protected]>:
> So I consider: how can you tell that a given person is *not* employed
> by such a company?

Well in theory you can't, of course, but in practice, I think it's
pretty hard to do a believable job without a lot of effort (humans are
pretty good at detecting the sort of subtle inconsistencies that
result from a half-assed job), and I don't know if they're really
getting paid enough to put in that much work.

Of course they may be convincing enough to fool the gullible, but
then, well, pretty much everything is. :-)

Perhaps more damaging is the sort of suspicion and paranoia that may
result from knowing there _could_ be astroturfers around...

-Miles
--
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.