Sorry for a relative newbie to be doing meta, but this has been really bugging me:
I would like to draw attention to a possible trend on DailyKos that I find troubling. I have seen posts on this web site that look like they could be part of an organized propaganda campaign. I want to admit up front that I have no real evidence of this, it is just a concern I would like to make people aware of. Insiders have probably already discussed this sort of thing, but I'm curious to hear what people think. If no one else is worried about it, then I'll drop it.
I am not talking about honest "cheerleaders" for candidates. "Cheerleaders" may get a little over-zealous at times (OK, sometimes really annoying), but they usually write substantive diaries and often on other subjects. As long as they are honest and civil, we should probably just "let be." Much annoyance for everyone might be avoided if people just keep in mind these "Rules" of primary campaign blog discourse posted by kos.
I'm talking about something potentially a little more dishonest:
It would be very easy for campaign volunteers, either on their own or as an organized effort, to bombard this site with talking points or positive polls or whatever else is coming out of the official campaign. (In fact, so easy that I would almost be surprised if they didn't do it.) The dishonesty comes in when it is intended to look like a "groundswell" of support from regular readers when it is actually an organized campaign. Another dishonest tactic would be for one person to do this on more than one account ("sock puppets" I believe is the term for this). I bring this up because I have seen some examples on this site recently that look like they could be part of such an effort.
These are the diarists who come in every day to put up a diary on their candidate, usually not very substantive (mostly block quotes or poll results), play up every little thing they can think of about the candidate, often very similar to other such posts, and write about nothing else. Often they stick around for comments (of varying civility), but some don't even do that. Clearly, they are here only to punch up a particular candidate. It is especially bad if they are also using the opportunity to "punch down" other candidates as well. Maybe these are just really annoying people, or maybe they are campaign volunteers (or worse, paid staff) trying to game the system. NOTE: I have seen this type of thing associated with several candidates, so I am NOT pointing fingers at one campaign.
I assume it is best not to name names, especially since I have no proof, although I have collected some possibilities. I was going to include one particularly egregious diarist as an example of the kind of thing I am talking about, but fortunately TheBlazhas thoughtfully provided an example diary to demonstrate (his rather colorful objections could apply to both cheerleaders and propagandists - but check out the comments section for an even better laugh).
Now, it can be almost impossible to tell if a particular diarist is a cheerleader or a propagandist. And I'm sure there are some "grey areas." As is pointed out at the end of the Rules of primary campaign blog discourse, not everyone who is for another candidate or critical of yours is a campaign shill. But cheerleaders might want to take note: You may not be a campaign shill, but if everyone seems to think you are, you might want to re-examine your approach.
Does it matter? Even if it is organized propaganda, it's an open forum, so anything goes, right? Maybe. (If it is actually a paid staffer, that's a more serious ethical violation). And I'm NOT suggesting that anyone be banned; I'm just pointing this out for others to come to their own conclusions.