And you all thought I was a psychotic bad-tempered paranoid.

Talliesin

It's been demonstrated that the best karma-rating system so far developped is the human subconcious.

To get it to work well here all we need to do is make it hard to change usernames, frown upon multiple accounts, and the rest takes care of itself.

Ebay differs because you have interactions with people you haven't encountered before that go straight into business dealings.

Of course, this is exactly the subconcious karma-rating system that shills are trying to subvert, but it's still harder to subvert than any explicit system (500 shills rating each other as great, and the system collapses).

At the end of the day, even if the Universal shills had been competent (they weren't) we'd have picked up on their slight fascination with various Universal-signed artists.

On the other hand if someone talked about "Walk The Line" in the films section and someone else came right out and said "well, I work for Universal, so I'm biased, but if you liked this film you should check out 'The Legend of Johnny Cash' which has a lot of the tracks from the movie and some of his later work", then grand - the post would have been on-topic, the conflict of interest stated, and it's a damn good album (can I have my cheque now ).

Of course now if someone says they work for Universal in the next year or so, I'm just going to site-ban them.

mountainyman

Just saw this thread this is awful.
I think the best way to combat this terrible attack on conversation is to buy from companies that don't do this like hodges figgis and eircom. If you are gay the front lounge is a great place to meet people and they don't do this either.

And vote for a political partty that won't tolerate this stuff:
sinnfein.ie


MM

mountainyman

This could be easily dealt with through a 'report shill' button. New poster moderation would be a pain in the arse but would make shilling impossible.

My sig is a shill.

rsynnott

mountainyman wrote:

And vote for a political partty that won't tolerate this stuff:
sinnfein.ie

They have a domain name as a name? How very 1999 of them! Do they have web-ready semtex?

rsynnott

Another lovely shill: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=51122133&postcount=13 (thread: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=51122133#post51122133, user: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/member.php?u=65611).

A little more subtle than the good folks from Universal, to be sure, but still a shill.

EDIT: And here's another site (possibly an actual client's site he's spam-vertising this time, but it's really not much better. Note whois: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=51082691&postcount=2)

Fighting Irish

DeVore wrote:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/2006/02/01

Read that. Read the 4th paragraph to the end. Read it and realise that everything you hold dear online means nothing to these f*cking parasites.

If you think it wont happen here, you are already wrong. We have discovered major Irish companies engaging in their own hamfisted attempts at this (IOFFL.... Esat and the April Fools day incident? They arent alone by any stretch of the imagination).

They destroyed Usenet. They have wrecked email. Complacency will allow them to insinuate themselves into our communities unless there is a strong negative, monetary-damaging response from the very communities they are seeking to weasel their way into.


7 years ago people thought I was a f*ckin' nut case because of my near pathelogical dislike of people just like that. Usually I like being right, this time I'm very very sorry.
In this case I really DO hate to say I told you so.

DeV.

ps: before someone points it out, yes this doesnt mean I'm not a psychotic bad-tempered paranoid.

Cliffs?

Karoma

Shill? [From comp/tech]
...too obvious perhaps?

failsafe

Karoma wrote:

Shill? [From comp/tech]
...too obvious perhaps?

This is what i was talking about, this thread is becoming a shiller exposé! A forum for such reports could work really well, because boards is a prettly informed and reactive community. It would be easier to start than incorporate a "report shill" button into the vB code (I presume!?)

John

Surely the report bad post button works as a report shill button?

Hagar

Why not do a trial run of a stickied thread in Feedback like the SigPo thread but without the "email the offender" bit? That's quite a sucess isn't it?


* sorry if this has been suggested before but I haven't the heart to read all 10 pages again.

Karoma

John2 wrote:

Surely the report bad post button works as a report shill button?

It should. The Report Post button works with obvious spam.
However, with shills it's just not as obvious and may require input from more than 1 person. If there was a seperate 'shill button' -> it should flag the username:: for review, and so that it may be added to a list. The list would be like the karma system but not made private (to discourage whinging and pettiness), and would cater for negative karma only. The end result would be that possible shills are identified quickly in the short term, and it's compelling evidence that the more subtle shills are indeed shills over the long term & it's a list compiled by human senses.

The one main thing that a Feedback thread is lacking, IMHO, is that it doesn't provide well for long-term tracking. And cases of shilling are not as clearcut as sig. rules - it needs more than one persons opinion. If the thread allowed for other users to give their opinions-then it may work, but again...over long-term - it'll become painful to thrawl through it.
Sorry if it's going over old ground, I've only skimmed through some of the last few pages

Cake Fiend

failsafe wrote:

This could be used on boards much the same way as the karma function on the Simple Machines Forums, whereby all users can "rate the poster".

Yay, bring back Karma!

Also: drink Pepsi.

DeVore

An Anti-Shiller forum might be the way to go.

Oh and see my sig and I'm not done with Universal by a long shot, anyone know if they have a field office in Ireland?

DeV.

Gordon

Maybe a visit to the IRMA is called for, they must be good for something.

IRMA: Acting as the voice of the industry at all times.

Karoma

Oh and see my sig and I'm not done with Universal by a long shot, anyone know if they have a field office in Ireland?

Universal Music (Ire) Ltd
9 Whitefriars,
Aungier Street,
Dublin 2

T: + 353 1 402 2600
F: + 353 1 475 7860
W: www.umusic.com

From: http://www.irma.ie/listmem.htm

It's right next to DIT - look for a small little sign on a small, crappy building.

If you want physical violence- count me in. Damn 'em. Damn Busted. Damn 'em all!

Crash

Aye, i pass it every day on the way to college. want me to nip in DeV?

Karoma

crash_000 wrote:

Aye, i pass it every day on the way to college. want me to nip in DeV?

I volunteer you for suicide bombing duties!

Crash

Bags not it!

Karoma

crash_000 wrote:

Bags not it!

Damn!
I'm tempted to start a thread in Legal Discussions checking the validity of Bags' ...

stormkeeper

Shame it wouldn't be possible to orchestrate a mass boycott on Universal (Music) products (or would it?). Why not hit them where it hurts; in the wallet? Would make them think twice about doing it, right?

Freelancer

Gordon wrote:

Maybe a visit to the IRMA is called for, they must be good for something.

Did someone say Roadtrip?!?!?!?!?!

DeVore wrote:

Oh and see my sig and I'm not done with Universal by a long shot, anyone know if they have a field office in Ireland?

They also own an disused cinema in the Northside. A friend used to work for em a shower of bastards to their staff is what they are.

amazingemmet

Yeah they have a place in 9 whitefriars, aungier street dublin 2 ph 4022600 ct maureen.

John

Kennett wrote:

Shame it wouldn't be possible to orchestrate a mass boycott on Universal (Music) products (or would it?). Why not hit them where it hurts; in the wallet? Would make them think twice about doing it, right?

I already avoid most major label releases because of their bollocks. Vampires the lot of them. Of course some releases I'll just have to buy but I'll try and buy direct from the artist in that case so more money goes to them.

CuLT

DeVore wrote:

Oh and see my sig and I'm not done with Universal by a long shot, anyone know if they have a field office in Ireland?

Universal Music have offices on camden street next to DIT.

Mercury_Tilt

This post has been deleted.

rsynnott

Mercury_Tilt wrote:

This post has been deleted.

You're missing the point. Shilling is advertising disguised as genuine enthusiasm. It is misleading, it doesn't LOOK like advertising, and it is sometimes surprisingly difficult to find; some of those PerfumeIreland shills were in place for a year or so. Would you like your laptop recommendation to come from someone who sells poor-quality laptops but fakes testimonials.

Actually, you've given out about the anti-shill crusade a good bit. Do you work in the lying industry, at all?

oscarBravo

rsynnott wrote:

Do you work in the lying industry, at all?

Merc works in the trolling industry.

intheknow

DeVore wrote:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/2006/02/01

Read that. Read the 4th paragraph to the end. Read it and realise that everything you hold dear online means nothing to these f*cking parasites.

If you think it wont happen here, you are already wrong. We have discovered major Irish companies engaging in their own hamfisted attempts at this (IOFFL.... Esat and the April Fools day incident? They arent alone by any stretch of the imagination).

They destroyed Usenet. They have wrecked email. Complacency will allow them to insinuate themselves into our communities unless there is a strong negative, monetary-damaging response from the very communities they are seeking to weasel their way into.


7 years ago people thought I was a f*ckin' nut case because of my near pathelogical dislike of people just like that. Usually I like being right, this time I'm very very sorry.
In this case I really DO hate to say I told you so.

DeV.

ps: before someone points it out, yes this doesnt mean I'm not a psychotic bad-tempered paranoid.

lostexpectation

CuLT wrote:

Universal Music have offices on camden street next to DIT.

oh did this real happen recently? wheres a thread to track it being spotted

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/member.php?u=55994

ah can't find it

The_Conductor

Sean_K wrote: »

Could boards not look out for single IPs from which large amounts of accounts have been registered and keep an eye?
I certainly wouldn't have a problem with such measures and i don't think many others would either.

That wouldn't work where a large number of people all work in the same company that uses a gateway for internet access- so you could have hundreds of legitimate people all registered with the same IP address. E.g. where I am at the moment there are over 5000 employees, all using one or the other of 2 internet gateways for security reasons.......