Seeing the same, generally weak talking points, angrily defending the Indian government, advocating nationalistic points of view, and repeated over and over - it all reminds me of threads critical of China and Russia.
You can't make insinuations of astroturfing or shillage on HN without evidence. Haven't we discussed this with you before? Please don't comment like this again.
I hadn't heard of this policy until now. I've seen very many comments make similar claims in many discussions and I didn't see this response. I just checked the Guidelines and it's not discussed there. Please consider how a user would learn about it - I'm pretty active and I haven't seen it. One possible source of miscommunication: Users probably see only a tiny fraction of what you do, and you could make this comment 100 times and maybe only a fraction of users would come across it at all.
But it's especially disappointing to read the accusation, which has no basis as far as I know. I've always been respectful of the mods, other users, the forum, and its rules, even when I think they aren't great ideas (inevitably, nobody will agree with everything). If I had known about this policy, I would have respected it too. I don't know how I was cast into the role of an antagonist. Like anyone, I don't appreciate loose allegations about me.
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> You can't make insinuations of astroturfing or shillage on HN without evidence
I don't quite understand the policy as stated. I understand not accusing individuals without evidence, but I certainly didn't do that even by implication. Half my comment was a question asking if there was evidence that it happens in other places, not HN. I also raised the possibility of it happening here, but clearly was unsure and 'insinuated' nothing; I meant simply what I said. If not even that is allowed ...
But to be clear, my concerns don't mean I won't respect your forum's rules. (However, uncertainties will make it more likely that it will happen unintentionally)
EDIT: Moved paragraph with questions of general interest to your post at the top of the discussion.
I've posted about this countless times: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix=true&page=0&dateR....
There are several ways you might have actual evidence that someone was astroturfing, but they're rare, and overwhelmingly less likely than people just making such accusations up because another user's comment pisses them off. The "you must be a shill" trope is pretty much the most popular internet cheap shot out there, and based on everything we know, it's a far greater threat to this site because it's so common and degrades discussion so quickly. Indeed it's a bit like antivirus software in causing the very problem it claims to combat.
So, unless you have more evidence than someone being wrong in your opinion on the internet, you bet it's inadmissible here.
> I've posted about this countless times
Everyone needs to know policy, but I think few see your comments. You see all your posts and feel you are repeating yourself; users see a tiny fraction of them and may never read about any particular policy. I'm pretty active, but most days I see zero comments from mods - I see a few discussions and a minority of comments in each. Consider even your 'sticky' post at the top of this discussion - what tiny fraction of HN users will see it? Few will see this discussion, and even most/many commenters on this discussion will have moved on or will be reading their comment histories to see responses.
> unless you have more evidence than someone being wrong in your opinion on the internet, you bet it's inadmissible here.
To be clear, that's not at all what I did, as I described above. I'm still not sure if what I did say - pointing to a strong pattern of the same arguments repeated in angry posts, both hallmarks of astroturfing and propaganda - is admissible, since it seems to both meet your standards and yet was rejected. Moving on ...
EDIT: I don't even disagree with the alleged astroturfers; I've known about Aadhaar for a long time and think it probably is a good idea on balance. This really is a ridiculous situation.
India hasn't banned DDT which has been banned for decades in every other country. We have crippled infrastructure, severe poverty. Yet India has time and money to implement one of the most ambitious Universal ID systems in the world.
And it makes sense. Would you want a private company like ApplePay/PayPal/AliPay control payments, and be able to block merchants at will like apple does, or a public agency you can drag to court.
Not a complaint, but it looks like the symptoms of what I asked about.
Instead if you want to blame some national party for it, it's you choice.
FYI I don't have downvotes powers.
Btw, I got donwvotes too. But I'm blaming anyone for it.
> unsubstantiated claims
I substantiated my hypothesis and acknowledged its uncertainty. Of course there is no clear proof of astroturfing, unless it's very clumsily done. The whole point of it is to look like legitimate users.
If you have concerns about abuse on HN you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it, but you're not welcome to dilute HN discussions with what amounts to nothing more than tedious fantasy.
There are more anti-aadhaar green accounts in this thread than pro-aadhaar. If your only argument is to bring thowaway statements like Nationalism/Russia etc into it, then it just reflects poorly on you.