Anti-Progressive Troll Turns City Council Campaign Dirty
By
Howdy Hooligans,
I wanted to let everyone know that there were some comments left here over the last few days that weren’t what they appeared.
You may have seen the commenter “Dave” in this virtual salon over the last little while. Well someone from his IP address left comments using the identities of Bruce Mulkey and Cecil Bothwell. The IP address has been banned, and the impersonating comments have been deleted.
There’s likely to be a lot more of this sort of thing over the next several months as the forces of the status quo go all out against the progressive candidates in this race. If there is more of it, we may have to turn to full comment moderation or even registration. We’re not ready to take that plunge yet, but we want you to know that it’s possible if the misrepresentations continue.
Here’s hoping it’s an isolated incident, but trolls ought to know we’re watching. IPs will be banned if people abuse this forum, and if we can figure out who the trolls are – we’ll make it public.
Know that a lot of folks are cooking up schemes to tear down this grassroots effort. If you want to give ‘em a poke in the eye, you can donate or volunteer for my campaign. I’ll let the trolls know how many of you were motivated by their actions. When folks stoop so low as to impersonate honorable people in an attempt to tear down their characters, they need to know we’ll use their hunched backs as a stepstool.
23 Comments
June 21st, 2009 at 6:49 pm
My apologies for any inappropriate remarks to Bruce or Cecil.
MM
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June 21st, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Wonder is that is the “Dave” that posts under multiple names over on Topix…
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June 21st, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Pity about Dave. For a while it looked like he might give Thunder Pig a run for his money.
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June 21st, 2009 at 9:13 pm
I hope you find out who it is and can let us know!
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June 21st, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Very wise and honorable move, Gordon. While all of us are human and don’t always operate from our best and highest selves, it’s nice to see boundaries being set for what is and what is not “acceptable behavior.” To me, having the courage to draw such boundaries w/o making character assassinations is part of the progressive way to do things! Bravo.
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June 21st, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Comment moderation/registration is a swell idea.
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June 21st, 2009 at 11:53 pm
“w/o making character assassinations”
Oh, Shonnie.
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June 22nd, 2009 at 12:58 am
We can police ourselves. We don’t need to go Kos commando. They banned swaths of users for perceived conspiracy thoughts on H1N1. If we find ourselves in a kerfuffle going forward we can simply ask the poster before jumping to conclusions. imho.
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June 22nd, 2009 at 3:34 am
During the WPVM controversy, we had someone named ‘Dave’ trying to punk us. He made claims to the press that he was the leader of distraught ‘PVM listeners willing to take to the streets in support of the volunteers, only to do a complete 180 the very next day & fully side with Wally Bowen. When questions arose about who he really was, he disappeared.
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June 22nd, 2009 at 6:14 am
Gordon,
I’d tend to agree with randallt. Part of what makes this blog so brilliant and compelling is its free exchange of ideas. I’d hate to see that curtailed in any way, despite the misadventures of a few assholes. I think your response was appropriate and effective. Thanks for excising my comments on the other thread.
MM
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June 22nd, 2009 at 6:43 am
It’s really a shame that some folks are unwilling to argue their cases on the merits and instead resort to sabotage. During the 2008 primary I discovered that someone was using my name on Topix. I joined Topix at that time in order to make it clear which comments were my own (registered users appeared as such). (and Topix demise is unlamentable)
This once again reinforces the argument that anonymous posting should be eliminated from any serious blog. (With an exception for whistle-blowers who are reporting illegalities, safety violations, environmental hazards, and such that might result in threats to their jobs or their lives or their families.) Those who are unwilling to take responsibility for their ideas and opinions are not worth anyone’s time or attention, and those who pose as others are hopelessly lame.
I’m impressed with the quick response from the Hooligans. The fine reputation of this site is well deserved.
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June 22nd, 2009 at 9:13 am
Thanks for handling this matter so promptly and so thoroughly, Gordon.
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June 22nd, 2009 at 2:27 pm
There is rumor that the Twitter account of MayorBellamy is in fact another troll / spy account.
I emailed her office this morning to ask for them to confirm the handle. No response as of this afternoon. Will get back to folks when the official word comes down.
Don’t you love how politics brings out the best in folks?
Sheesh.
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June 22nd, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I can confirm that https://twitter.com/MayorBellamy is in fact the mayor’s twitter handle that she manages. The Mayor is just getting started with using social media and is already ahead of others that have been playing for a while.
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June 22nd, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Bryan…. so, how come the account is suspended?
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June 22nd, 2009 at 9:19 pm
I had no idea that the Mayor had (or didn’t have) a Twitter account that she updated (or didn’t update). Am I the only one who doesn’t care either way? Personally, I’d like to see a candidate distinguish herself or himself by *not* having an account with a social networking site. I mean, really, who gives a shit?
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June 22nd, 2009 at 11:06 pm
I will amend my statement do information recieved tonight. Had reliable and solid confirmation twitter handle was her. Full details to be released by campaign via press release. Social media and politics make for great theater.
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June 23rd, 2009 at 5:35 am
Sorry, Bryan – if you think that social media and politics make for great theater, then you have lousy taste in theater. This is probably the biggest non-issue I’ve ever seen anyone mention in the comments here at ScruHoo, and I’m sure that most reasonable folks really don’t care. Seriously, cut the bullshit, and stop using ScruHoo as a platform for telling the world what a “social media expert” you are.
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June 23rd, 2009 at 8:13 am
Arratik…You are right on two fronts. I have lousy taste in theater and this was a big non-issue. However, the traffic on twitter and facebook yesterday was enough to prove that there is enough hunger in the community for the Mayor to use social media to communicate with citizens beyond some one way campaign trick.
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June 23rd, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Bryan – I’m sure you realize that the “social networking community” in general has the attention span of a gnat. This includes me.
And I’m sure you also realize just how pathetically low the “signal-to-noise” ratio is on social networking sites, particularly Twitter, and because of this no matter how awesome their open API is and no matter what kind of awesome homebrew datamining script people use, it’s an intangible and unreliable metric. For example, how much of that traffic was from knee-jerk re-Tweeting from people who don’t post anything of their own (cough*Mountain Xpress board mods*cough)? Did any of that traffic actually make it over to Mayor Bellamy’s website? How much of that traffic actually stayed to read her issue positions instead of being distracted by something shiny? How much of that traffic actually showed up to a campaign event? Volunteered? Donated? How will this translate into votes? You’re never going to know this just from typing in “Terry Bellamy” into a Twitter search, and even with numbers that correlate x-amount of Twitter impressions vs. y-amount of website hits, you’re still going to be looking at unreliable data.
I remain skeptical and unconvinced, but I am willing to be proven wrong. I’m hoping to be proven wrong, actually, but after gathering enough info about the Terry Bellamy Twitter Debacle (as it came to be known), I don’t think I will in this particular case.
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June 24th, 2009 at 5:30 am
Arratik sure is a smartypants.
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June 24th, 2009 at 9:58 am
But I’m not wearing any pants!
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June 25th, 2009 at 9:52 am
ugh, blah, vomit, …. Arratik put you pants back on! no one needs to see that!
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