Sock-Puppetting and the Current Affairs Forum

Beasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118456135#Comment_118456135

If someone abandons one account and opens up a new one that will normally not be an issue so long as the poster does not go back to the first one. That's even more relevant now that posters do not yet have the ability to close accounts themselves

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118456122#Comment_118456122

If you take a look at the Biden/Trump threads OP messages, most of the bans in there resulted in the poster disappearing and a similar "brand new" poster showing up a few days later. They weren't even site or forums bans, but if they can't bash Biden or laud Trump, what's the point of the site.

I only discovered this thread yesterday and read it all last night

Its been an eye opener but not surprising

The McMurphy account said a number of times in the CA threads that he was a long standing mod on the site and the admins will tell you who

Was that a lie ?

Was the person behind the McMurphy account a Mod here ?

Full disclosure: like one or two others in this thread,I am a retired mod here

One of the reasons I quietly stepped down was because, the mod forum at the time had a sub forum called the reported posts forum

I thought this was a really bad idea because every reported post generated a thread that all 600 plus mods at the time could see

Previously only the mods of a forum and admins Could see a report

I believed because of the number of mods,information was leaking to posters in fora about their posts being reported and who reported them

It was inevitable

Does this sub forum still exist ?

Beasty

The McMurphy account was never a mod. That account was created in 2017.

I have no idea if they were under a prior existence. If so they would have lost access to reports when they ceased to be a mod.

All current mods can see all reports. That was also the case on the old platform, although on that platform it was clear which forum specific reports related to as it was stated in the thread title in the reported post forum. The thread title is shown.

There is no such wording on the new platform and we actually have to guess which reports relate to forums we mod. It's relatively easy for the two of us actively modding CA and Coronavirus forums as reports across those two forums are more voluminous than for any other. Equally I will read reports from a couple of other forums where I know there are no active mods around and indeed will pick up reports of spammers and the like. Indeed it's only reports from forums such as Soccer where there are unlikely to be any spammers and certain other sports forums where I will typically ignore reports as they are very easy to spot

blackwhite

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118462815#Comment_118462815

He/she posted under Alf Stewart. prior to the McMurphy/Johnny Dogs account, and as Banjo String for a number of years before that one. No doubt there were others as well

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118463074#Comment_118463074

I think the poster is confusing accounts.

There was a mod - For Real or For Reals - of that political persuasion who is still around in a different guise but it is not linked to my knowledge to those accounts.

Beasty

I've been able to track back around 16 years and am fairly confident the person behind the McMurphy account has not been a mod during that time

It was a lie so,like so many other things

I wouldn't blame anyone for looking back thinking they were involved in a farce posting in those CA politics threads

I certainly do

EmmetSpiceland

Just for clarification, should we be reporting the, extremely, pro SF users who’ve recently “sprung up” in the SF, or anti-FFG, threads with, previously, dormant accounts and a couple of hundred posts or are the mods and admins checking themselves?

There are also some fairly new accounts singing from that same hymn sheet. My “concern” with these is that they are sock puppet accounts who managed to avoid the cull.

Furze99

Had a few 'run ins' with McMurphy but it was very obvious that s/he was a SF mouthpiece and best viewed/ ignored in only that way. There's more of them and not just confined to SF, though I reckon they are the most organised in this regard.

Beasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118476512#Comment_118476512

Please report any suspicious activity

Thanks

gozunda

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118438550#Comment_118438550

Thanks for the detail beasty on this. You just got to love political shenanigans.

Out of interest on the whole system change on accumulated points - does that mean accumulated warnings / infraction points on the old system have effectively vanished into the ether?

Beasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118478359#Comment_118478359

Points only lasted for a set period, and they were pretty irrelevant on the old platform. They are much more relevant on the new platform as 5 "active" points result in a system-generated siteban

But yes, we do not currently have any of the "old" records of yellows, reds and bans against users. I don't know if we'll ever get that back. We do have some discussions which highlighted issues from certain posters, but even they are not so easily searchable

I've generally taken the approach of assuming a clean slate when applying sanctions since the platform changeover, except in certain cases where posters had proven themselves problems in particular forums which resulted in permanent bans from those forums. If I am aware a poster was permanently banned from a forum I will re-instate that ban if I see them posting there again (for the forums where I have mod responsibilities)

rdwight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118426377#Comment_118426377

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118426406#Comment_118426406

Not sure it stinks but certainly very curious.

I seem to remember Francie posting that the Feb 2020 election was when the scales fell from his eyes and he voted Sinn Fein for the first time. Now it turns out that he has basically been in the boards.ie equivalent of witness protection because his posting history under his previous identity was such as to draw accusations of being a shinnerbot.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118456135#Comment_118456135

From best of my knowledge,his sock-puppeting wasnt even in current affaird forum

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118497512#Comment_118497512

The current affairs forum didn’t exist back then.

do you think it matters where he was sock-puppet img?

Beasty

To be clear FB's sock puppeting was very limited. He is no here to respond to anything so can we drop further discussion of him

Jinglejangle69

Wow.

I knew it.

Was banned numerous times for the smallest of things on the SF thread.

I knew it stank. What a joke.

EmmetSpiceland

It doesn’t seem to have done much to limit their “presence”. Seems to be a number of, prominent, SF posters, both new and recently dormant, going at it all day and night.

Not sure there’s much can be done against such a, mobilised, online force.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118601609#Comment_118601609

The government parties have plenty of them too, who circle the bandwagons to defend every lie, leak, cronyism and lockdown party!

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118604960#Comment_118604960

There have only two incidents of sock-puppetting identified.

One was quite serious, involving ten accounts over a period of nine months, directly supporting a Sinn Fein agenda. The second was relatively minor in comparison, but involved a long-time SF supporter, who had some minor sock-puppetting around a decade ago.

Neither of them involved government parties. Take from that what you will.

blackwhite

McM and his multiple accounts were only caught out by him using one account to reply to a post addressed to a different account.

That sparked an investigation by Beasty, and credit to him for then unravelling as much as he did, but it does highlight the worrying point that unless the multi-accounters trip themselves up then there's not really a whole lot happening to prevent it.

There's a fairly obvious case of a poster who rage-quit with a previous account at the start of last summer, then returned with two accounts later in the year. One of those appears to have stopped posting in the last 2/3 months - but they spent 6 months happily running 2 accounts, sometimes on the same thread, and nothing ever done about it.

It'll continue ad infitum because those co-ordinating it know exactly how hamstrung the mod/admin teams are in terms of tools available to catch this sort of stuff

If a lad is used to spending 17 hours a day on this site, Twitter, and the Journal comments section then a ban is going to hit them hard. Strong chance of a relapse by signing up again.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118610108#Comment_118610108

JohnnyFlash passed away?

Brucie Bonus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118609415#Comment_118609415

No i didn't.

I'm declaring that there are rabid government party supporters posting. I don't see why we should only be wary of those critical or alledged shinners.

Brucie Bonus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118609420#Comment_118609420

We don't know unless the mod tells us. I do not believe it would only be government critics. Do you?

CrookedJack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118611293#Comment_118611293

So you've clear evidence of pro-SF sock-puppeting, no evidence of pro-gov sock-puppeting (presumably, otherwise you'd have presented it), and the point you think is important to make is we should be wary of pro-gov actors?

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118611298#Comment_118611298

what we do know is that the only people caught were SF supporters. While there are no doubt many shills for all parties it is only SF supporters that have been caught sock-puppeting. that is all we do know.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118611293#Comment_118611293

you're the fifth or sixth poster to muse this on this thread.

(well- the fifth or sixth login, I guess I should say)

Brucie Bonus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118611374#Comment_118611374

So the discussion stops there? No worries. All I know is we still have tag teaming accounts mostly in the SF thread. But they are critical of SF. Lots and lots of people have issues with government policy.