astroturf

By entities, you mean the Microsoft funded astroturf organization FairSearch and the hydra connected to it.

Stating that I feel a comment is astroturf is not a personal attack.

If the alternative is concrete or astroturf, please don't.

That's one datapoint, but overall, the debate on the topic smells of financed astroturf rather than genuine grassroots.

The only exception was here, and one place where there was a strong, clear, well-financed astroturf campaign.

So the web should be a place solely for advertisement, astroturf and ludicrous self-aggrandizement?

I doubt HN is going to have an astroturf quotient as high as someplace like reddit, though.

It's bad enough to run a voting ring and astroturf the comment threads, but abusing other users on top of that is right out.

They're either a troll or an account owned by an Astroturf network.

Do you find your knees get sore with the astroturf?

Weeding out astroturf is an entirely more interesting problem though...

Five-star ratings don't pass my astroturf gut check these days.

I'm in the camp that the astroturf is running high right now; but moreover, the claim that "we haven't seen it!!" is also, I think, meaningless and irrelevant.

It also brings up amenity buildings -- and they're novel, at first, but then you realize that nobody actually uses them: the laundry room is either packed or half the machines are broken; the gym is a graveyard of broken treadmills and old equipment; the "dog run" on the roof is a 20' patch of astroturf that never gets hosed off...

Astroturf-style posting is only one of the tools in their toolbox.

Astroturf of course, notice the conversations around the FCC ruling.