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I did a small search and added a couple links as a starting point if you really want to go that route.
Quote:
Originally Posted by redwood66
And you think you will get an honest answer? Seriously? I wish I were a paid poster. How do I sign up for that?
I would hope that since they post anonymously anyway they might bring themselves to actually be honest about it. Might do themselves a favor by being open and honest, behind a curtain of course.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Magnatomicflux
How this goes:
Many "yes" votes for Conservatives - Cons claim Liberals are voting in that spot.
Many "yes" votes for Liberals - Libs claim Conservatives are voting in that spot.
They're doing that anyway. Again, I'm hoping that maybe they could place their bias on a shelf for just a moment and give us a clue as the reality of paid posting.
I'm not trying to make hay out of this, I'm simply curious.
I'm not one, and I don't think any of the long-time regulars here are, but I believe there have been some here in the past.
Like any other job that involves a lot of writing, the more words written, the more money is made. Most writing jobs pay by the word, so the more words, the more money. In a job like forum posting, the quantity would be more important than the quality of the writing; forums don't have all that many dedicated members who read everything on it every day.
I recall several brand new members who arrived, posted a flood of topics during an election, and then disappeared forever once the election was over. Most of the newbies were typical forum members, but some sure looked like they were professionals.
I could spot their posts more by the sheer repetition of the subject matter more than the words used. The topics were always designed to be slightly inflammatory, as that draws attention to them, and the same topic, slightly rephrased in the headline, would appear over and over. The text would be the same for a while, then differ a bit, or be changed in very minor ways.
That makes sense- if someone was assigned to post on one political subject and was being paid by the word, as is the usual practice, the writer would get his word count as high as he possibly could, and multiply it by posting the same topic on as many forums as could be found.
A clever writer would change the headline a little on each forum, but wouldn't have the time to write something different under the changed headline.
Back in 2012, I was convinced there was a team who were all posting under the same user name. 3 people. Each has his own writing style, and the posts under that single name were staggeringly high. Far too much for a single person to be able to write in a day, and too fresh to be all cut and paste.
After a while, I could spot who was who by the way they wrote. It was like they were a tag team. One would take a break and another would take over.
After the election, that user vanished and never came back again.
It would be very difficult for a moderator to stop this from happening on the forums I visit- almost all the mods on those forums are volunteers, and if a pro is careful, the posts may not have anything that could get them banned for the comments contained in them.
I'm sure most of have seen spam on forums like this; a pro can log on with a user name and can post a topic that is all about how much money they made doing something on the internet. Often the headline has nothing to do with the spam- it's just a come-on to draw eyeballs.
It's not so hard to imagine a well-funded political group with an agenda to promote wouldn't use the same device to further their goals.
Last edited by banjomike; 05-13-2017 at 03:35 PM..
And you think you will get an honest answer? Seriously? I wish I were a paid poster. How do I sign up for that?
I know, right? It would be my dream job.
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