This sounds really paranoid. Do you have some concrete evidence? What does "coordination on a scale of a nation state" even look like with respect to a subreddit?
I'm a reasonable person of sound body and mind and very well socialised (I'm certain that I don't have a mental illness). I've been on the sub since there were 20k users, there are now 120k I've helped countless newbies and formed relationships with other long term users of the sub who also have a high reputation. I've made many high quality posts on bitcoin data analysis (and a few crappy memes along the way).
Something is definitely different in the past few months, and a lot of the other old timers would agree with me, the subject matter is not normal. I have loads of anecdotal "Wait a minute, that not the way things are meant to work" situations, where some comments are being downvoted and upvoted abnormally. Some comments are meant to only confuse you or deride the conversation and bring it off topic. Some threads are calling into question the Mods and their motives. Some comments on threads are pushing the traditional banking system benefits. There has been an influx of 0 day users who seem to speak on authority about financial instruments. These are not trolls. Some users will reply with what seems like a positive post and then flip completely 180 degrees by the end of their reply.
What I'm trying to say is that the human neural network pattern matching machine is incredibly good at finding inconsistencies, my alarm bells are ringing, there is some organisation at work in the sub.
I would like to start gathering data on the extend of this by comparing users account age, their topic of conversation and the techniques they use. I'll need some help from my trusted friends on /r/bitcoin and I'm still coming up with the process on the best way to collect information to prove or disprove my hypothesis.
It also doesn't take a small nationstate to stir shit up, it just takes a vocal determined minority; or a bunch of noobs; or a bunch of trolls. (And when I say "bunch", I mean a number that's in the double-digits.)
Very true. It doesn't really take many upvotes to make it to the front page of a sub-reddit, just a high up-to-down ratio. Reddit would be an easy target for manipulation by a small group if they really wanted to.
My idea: have a default post sorting algorithm, but create an add-on that allows users to create their own sorting algorithm. Most likely users will find the best algorithm, share it, and spread it, but their would also be many algorithms in use, so you have multiple systems you would have to game.
Only comments are ranked by upvote to downvote ratio. Posts are ranked by total upvotes plus the time.
I saw a comment here the other day about how "Bitcoin old money" was actively trying to keep altcoins down and came to a stark realization (again) that there's really nothing new under the sun.
Here is a classic guide to "forum spies":
http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm
The tactics are well known to the financial system. Penny stock boards, for example, are full of engineered disinformation because all participants are competing to manipulate the market. I believe the sockpuppets used for reddit are directed in some more autonomous fashion, though.
Malcolm Gladwells Blink dealt with the issue.
Wouldn't that give you a lot of false positives?
Perhaps you could first try finding accounts with similar writing style. Though I'm not sure about the accuracy of such algorithms.
This will go on for about a day, then a couple days later the exact same topic will come up again, and the response will be completely normal and the shill brigade obviously absent.
See this for example, shill brigade in effect; http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/22zl2w/bitcoin_amon...
And a day later, same subject, shill brigade absent; http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/23495x/reddit_mods_...
This is not the only time I have seen this happen there, just the most obvious instance.