So if I’m following this correctly, you think that the neoreactionary activity on SSC is thanks to an organized effort to create the appearance of support, but not by deceptive means? That is, Scott posts something relevant to their interests, the first neoreactionary to find it tweets “hey, come back me up”, and suddenly half the NRx sphere is posting in the comments under their standard noms de blog?
I’m still not convinced, but I’d find that more plausible than astroturfing by my understanding of the word. Not sure what I’d call it, though; “brigading” is close, but not quite it. And I’m not even sure where I’d draw the line; the distinction between “check out this cool thing” and “help me burn this witch” is awfully fine, especially when the cool thing is (e.g.) an anti-FAQ.
So if I’m following this correctly, you think that the neoreactionary activity on SSC is thanks to an organized effort to create the appearance of support, but not by deceptive means? That is, Scott posts something relevant to their interests, the first neoreactionary to find it tweets “hey, come back me up”, and suddenly half the NRx sphere is posting in the comments under their standard noms de blog?
I’m still not convinced, but I’d find that more plausible than astroturfing by my understanding of the word. Not sure what I’d call it, though; “brigading” is close, but not quite it. And I’m not even sure where I’d draw the line; the distinction between “check out this cool thing” and “help me burn this witch” is awfully fine, especially when the cool thing is (e.g.) an anti-FAQ.
“Dogpiling” is the word I’ve seen.
Swarming?
As an aside, I have doubts that the neoreactionaries are *that* interested in gaming Yvain’s blog...
They’re massively interested in controlling their presence on the Internet.