Counter-Shill Info/Workshop Thread: Vidya-related Edition

It's cheap and anonymous, reason enough for any shill/shillbot to post here.

Obligatory

Emphasis on came, it takes a while before people learn their lesson.

It's cheap and anonymous to repeatedly bash your head against a wall, that doesn't mean it is of use to anyone

What gave that thread away of being a shill thread? The fact that the OP talked about a video game?

What the fuck, man? You people are willing to believe a claim of some guy on halfchan being part of a shilling firm without any kind of fucking source or evidence, but when I try to convince everyone that wizards and Hogwarts are real, for some reason people are not willing to believe that. I guess it has to do with a confirmation bias, people WANT to believe shills are real so their vigilante efforts are justified and to uphold a boogeyman, but for some reason everyone thinks wizards are friendly pointy-hat wearing people rather than the insane megalomaniacs that they are. You know what, screw this website. When the wizards come out of their holes to fuck us Muggles over royally, you ignorant bastards should lie in the beds you made. You could have stopped a wizard invasion, but you didn't, and you will pay the price.

ok, thanks user, please do actually leave

wew

Shouldn't you be cruising for cock on tumblr or something?

They do shill even on Holla Forums, keep in mind, it has both viewers and posters. If you can count the latter, it's unknown how many people just browsing Holla Forums, without posting.

Right now it has 2800 active users, if NMS was shilled as hell and wasn't such a disaster on PC, theoretically they could get 2800*60 bucks if you discount people who don't post and just browse, this is not just a few cents. It doesn't even take much effort to shill, make some shitty posts and threads and that's it, just look at NMS again, these threads are getting shitton of posts in few minutes, don't forget about FO4 and Overwatch too, the latter especially had big amount of threads constantly close to game release with OPs like "are you hyped v?", simply because Blizzard wasted insane amount of money on their marketing campaign, even more than Activision did on CoD or EA and Bethesda on their shitty games.

It's like saying that no one is doing insane marketing campaigns because it cost shitton of money and you will need to sell really insane amount of units to get your investment back. Companies want to Jew people as much as possible and 2800 people is still a decent number no matter how big your product is, not to mention that some of these people have friends, multiplayer game especially can benefit from this, all what you do is just tell your friends about Overwatch and that's it, even more money for Blizzard.

I think you mean well but I have identified numerous flaws in your attitude on this subject.

Without going into detail I think you should re-examine this poster's idea:

Specifically:

Keep in mind we are on an anonymous image board – a place that is especially susceptible to shill infiltration, for obvious reasons. Everyone who is a part of this community should possess a healthy (read: extra high) level of skepticism. It's for the best for the lifespan and quality of the whole community and in fact the entire vidya industry. All that's necessary for crappy companies to be successful making bad games indefinitely is for consumers to do nothing. Apathy and indifference on our parts won't be enough to affect meaningful change; a proactive approach is needed at this point.

One easy way all of us can participate in that is not letting their shills get away with it. If some newfag user with paper thin skin gets offended because based anons dutifully accuse him of being a shill, good – so be it – he probably deserved it anyway for acting like one and this experience might help him learn what went wrong with the way he presented himself, so that in the future he won't act like a useful idiot again. If he has a problem with that then he's a colossal faggot who would let his childish feefees take priority over what's best for all of Holla Forums, and it would be for the best if he wasn't a part of it so there's no reason not to B him TFO then anyway.

I'm not saying to be over zealous about it. Of course each post should be examined in context individually; of course not everyone who disagrees with you is a shill. But it's not hard to show a little self-awareness when composing a post so that you don't seem like a shill. If one gets triggered when others call one a shill, perhaps one should just omit that link pointing directly to a game's steam store page before informing everyone else that the game is on sale and asking if it's worth playing. That's just one hypothetical example off the top of my head.

The point is it's not a big deal if it does happen – if you do get erroneously accused of being a shill – in a certain way it's actually a good thing, a sign that Holla Forums is being duly diligent like it should be. Therefore it doesn't make sense to get rustled by it and anyone who does is automatically suspect – either for being a crybaby or a shill. Nothing of value would be lost by accusing the former, but with the latter a shill is exposed, publicly ridiculed, and fails in his objective. There's nothing to lose and something to gain through vigilantly counter-shilling Holla Forums, and if Holla Forums doesn't engage in that practice things on the board and in the gaming industry will not get any better and are guaranteed to continue to get worse.

I know that's harsh and it sounds really more dramatic than I wished, but that's the cold hard facts of reality in my view.

Go to hell Satan, you and your heretic witchcraft.

Wizards are REAL and they will come to FUCK us all. Just look at this picture of an excavation of a site where witches were burned. Bird embryos are an ingredient often used in many rituals, and there's no other reason why they would be dug in the ground if it weren't for the witches hiding their reagents.

You're not counting the fact that nobody is even talking about NMS itself, rather the drama of the surrounding trainwreck of a PC port. Even if the PC port didn't suck so much, everyone would be laughing at the intense buyers' remorse instead. Not to mention that even the curious few who would want to play NMS would rather PIRATE it (AFAIK NMS doesn't have Denuvo) than give the devs any cent. Just like most singleplayer games that get released today without Denuvo. FO4 threads actively told everyone to pirate it rather than buy the game, and anyone who posted proof of doing so did it just to try and rustle everyone's jimmies.

Overwatch and Siege have generals because they are multiplayer and not *entirely* shit, and because some anons bought it out of curiosity as a result of being a widely-talked about game outside Holla Forums rather than a focused shilling attempt on Holla Forums itself. If it weren't for all the outside attention to begin with, we probably wouldn't even have Overwatch threads, much like you don't see constant threads for whatever dead-on-arrival EA AFPS. The effort of going in Overwatch threads just to sage and post 'shill' is as pointless and undirected, as the real shilling happened elsewhere, what is happening here is just an aftershock of word-of-mouth popularity.

Hell fellow gamers! Fill out this super cool questionnaire! It'll be fun and spark so much discussion!

What're you
LISTENAN TO:
EATAN:
FAPPAN TO:
PLAYAN:
PAYAN:
SELLAN:
LIVIN IN:
LIVIN WITH:
FAVORITE [THING]:
DISLIKED [THING]:
MCDONALDS OR BURGERKING?:
STARBUCKS OR DUNKINS?:
FRONTWIPE OR BACKWIPE:

Remember, if you question this at all you're a tinfoil hat no fun allowed "faglord" as they say around here!

Have fun!

You are equating research to advertising. Between them is the difference between listening to people in a room talk and telling people in a room what to say.

Websites have far more lurkers than posters. An outsiders able to enforce a narrative on a place as contrarian as Holla Forums would have an incredibly powerful marketing implement.

I know right? I see threads like these all the time.

I mean maybe it's fun if you need to seek validation or something. I'll admit I don't understand the appeal. As such, and given my predisposition, I really can't see them being at least some of the time used for marketing purposes like described in OP.

Threads where anons are given a 3x3 grid and asked to fill it with their favorite games or whatever

I remember those threads happening fairly often back in halfchan, I wonder why they weren't carried over here.

Have you seen the Overwatch threads? Or the D44m ones we used to have? Anons aren't as smart as we like to think we are.

Oh really? Gee I wonder fucking why. Do you understand the difference between fiction and reality? I hope this is bait.

The nature of an imageboard is that the more often than not, the more popular the place gets, the trashier it becomes. Simply because it's an anonymous space, people consider that they can get away with anything because it's a space without any rules or norms. Being paranoid about shilling also means allowing this attitude to increase amongst new users as they breach rules simply to prevent the "evil shills". This will only eat away the board and make it worse. Half Holla Forums is full of garbage but how can you tell a person shilling the product and someone that's a genuine moron and likes the product?

Just talk about vidya and trash on shit threads and move on. These sort of threads are shit anyway and should be met with smug images and a sage till the thread dies. But with half Holla Forums there are way too many users and they end up bumping these shit threads to oblivion.

Now shills on other sites are a different thing. For instance, there will always be shills for new games. This is inevitable. Whether it's corporation or retarded hyped up people, I can't tell. The situation is similar with No Man's Sky. It will be the same with Battlefield One because it's "better than CoD xD". Ignore the hype. Ignore the marketing. Wait till the product is out. Pirate it, look up gameplay and then figure out if you'd enjoy it or not. Relying on reviewers is dumb anyway.

This place is a lot smaller. Maybe they figured it wouldn't be productive to use the 3x3 modus operandi here, if they were assigned here at all.

Who cares? Why would you want to?

Or maybe people will just build a high spec gaming PC for 100 dollars less than a PS4.

That's not the point of marketing. The point of marketing is making it visible and known. Not to discuss the actual product.

dont tell anyone but i work for a shill agency. i felt bad about it but i kept doing it anyone because it paid well and anyone would take the job if they were in my shoes.

anyway, our goal is to go on video game boards and talk about our company's video games. we can be saying good things or bad things, it doesn't matter. any discussion is free advertising to my company regardless.

honestly you all should think twice next time you think about talking about a new/popular game…it could be me for all you know.

...

This is actually pretty distressing. Obvious effects of shilling aside, it must be a hard to betray a community just because you can't get a better job.

At least you don't do it FOR FREE.

...

I'm more content with the notion that everyone around me is retarded until proven otherwise, rather than that they are paid or influenced to be retarded. Same goes with the idea that people who think fun automatically is good, or that people who talk about something I don't like are shills in some way. Because people never shill games you like.

The point is not 'if you like X you must like Y', but rather 'how can you believe X with just flimsy evidence and then dismiss Y as hogwash?'
Besides, who says wizards are fiction? The Jewish media we all so despise? The Jewish media who says shills aren't real? Go on, try and convince me in the face of meme magic that wizards are in fact a made up story and aren't hiding in their pocket dimensions plotting the domination of our world.

Oh, I see. So how do we combat this? Banning any mention of the suspected game? If I'm talking about the original DX, does that mean that by extent I'm still shilling Mankind Divided?

And the flaw is you're conflating something that is provably, demonstrably, obviously real with fictionalized events described in the pages of children's fairy tales.

>>>/x/

You figure it out. I just pointed out where you were wrong.

...

Get back on your meds Hillary, you have dementia.

I have personally never bought a game based on bad publicity. Especially on an internet memeboard.

The people who are doing that need to stop.
But first we need to understand why its happening.

What is their thought process?

Hillary has that guy following her around with her meds at the ready in case she short circuits and starts thinking Trump is her husband again. lol.

*Hitlery

good to see Holla Forumss paranoia has finally terminally infected Holla Forums

goodbye Holla Forums, it was fun while it lasted

Do you just go into every thread blaming Holla Forums for something?

Dont let the door hit you on the way out.

...

Oh, (((you)))!

The presence of wizards has been confirmed by many people and has also been recorded in books as ancient as the Bible. jesus-is-savior.com/Testimonies/witch.htm

Yet at the same time, despite the fact that you never saw a shill in the living flesh, let alone seeing actual shills recorded in action, you only use 'evidence' gathered by other anonymous as a means to support your beliefs. But then for some reason evidence which proves wizards are indeed real is nothing but mere hubris and fiction, perpetuated by the media which also denies the existence of the shills you so firmly believe in. And yet, you have never even disproved the actual existence of wizards, only dismissing it as mere fairytales because they must be fairytales if everyone else is saying it.
But shills, they ARE real. They are proven to be real! And so are wizards, just look at the meme magic!

If shilling was all about generating attention, the ideal solution is to prevent video game discussion entirely. Think about it, any time you are talking about a game, you are shilling it! Which leads me to ask the question why shilling, something that is entirely inevitable for Holla Forums, is so frowned upon.

He just said was a shill with his first post, that's shill dementia for you.

Anyway lets get this thread back on topic…

What kind of meds do you guys think Hillary is on?
We know shes on Diazepam injections.

Probably the same meds Holla Forums and Holla Forums are on, but at a higher dose.

Pretty kooky conspiracy there m8.

I wonder if they have trouble climbing the stairs like Hillary?

Shills are in full damage-control mode

Codemonkey explicitly warned us about this and said some ominous shit on /sudo/

Keep an eye on the warrant canary and keep reporting shill posts

Wow you're butthurt.

He's a (1) so he likely just goes on Holla Forums to complain about Holla Forums and nothing else.

Butthurt about what?

Not sure if shilling or just trolling…

Maybe we could call it Trilling?

Are you the same user from last week that was tinfoiling about Dragonball Xenoverse 2 getting shilled on here despite there being literally no XV threads for months?

Go back to halfchan

So either you're paranoid or you're a complete newfag. Which is it, nigger? Because as it is your thread is literally nothing but not vidya /x/ and Holla Forums tier shit at worst and /metav/ at best.

You're the exact same kind of nigger that makes meta threads and then whines like a little bitch that there isn't enough vidya discussion.

It would be more helpful if we knew what the hell we were talking about.

If is right mother fucker.

Ok. I did and I have determined that you are wrong.

Now I really feel like you're purposefully perpetuating this meme, this narrative these shills try to push so hard:
Stop this nonsense. I believe you know better that you don't really need me to explain to you the many different issues with each quote I have highlighted so far. It would take me several paragraphs.

If you continue acting like this I will dissect your posts line by line throughout the day so that I can cite them as text-book examples in the next thread.

"Sholling" sounds better because it sounds like (((shoah)))

a problem with that is the enabling of low quality posts, instead of reporting, most anons reply to it in ways like "0/10" or "shit bait m8"

even trash threads should be reported or sage bombed past their bump limit by posting sah-gay in the email field

a good example of how Holla Forums has dropped in quality is the todd howard meme

actually on that subject, while Holla Forums despises normalfags, I notice from time to time, anons using normalfag jargon or memes

On the contrary, I'd say that 90% of shill accusations go straight towards the threads about the current hype games. The ones that are currently getting spammed all over every social media outlet, so it's obvious that this person is either a paid marketer or just an idiot who eats up marketing hype.

Making fun of these obvious shill threads strengthens a community. It doesn't hurt it. It makes this a fun place to be for people who share a desire to genuinely discuss their niche games and not get spammed by marketers and trend-followers.

There is no fear of starting a thread about one's favorite game except in those clueless newfags who play the latest games with the big marketing budgets and can't understand why Holla Forums isn't as excited about it as their facebook friends. The marketers are not afraid because they are just being paid and collecting data. The rest of us are not afraid because we freely start threads about what we are playing and enjoy the discussion and banter.

So, being "vigilant of shill" just creates a tone for this image board. It makes it attractive to a certain niche of people who avoid the AAA hype-fests while repelling the ones who love them. Without this hostile attitude towards shills and all those that resemble them, this place would become another reddit or facebook or 4chan, another generic social media forum with no unique personality.

In conclusion, fuck off back to reddit, shill.

What's to say there's actually shilling going on and this isn't just a ploy to play into people's suspicion and paranoia to create polarized board culture that destroys itself from the inside over dissenting opinions? (((inb4))))

You can't talk about games without the thread being bumped to the first page where it's visible to everyone, as curious people will more than likely check out the thread talking about the game. You said shilling is about generating visibility and popularity, as visibility and popularity is generated the more you talk about a videogame. Unless you know of some way to talk about videogames on Holla Forums without attracting said popularity, the quote '>talking about a game automatically means you're shilling it' falls under this definition of shilling.

It's true, because you cannot disprove not being a shill. It's a very easy way of shifting the blame on others. For example, try proving to me you're not a shill hired by SomethingAwful to sow the seeds of paranoia and misinformation in Holla Forums to the point where we eat eachother out alive.

I'm using this from now on.

Nobody fucking said this you goddamned retard.

By that logic everyone is a fucking shill if they can't prove they aren't user, You're a shill, I'm a shill, that guy over there is a shill, we're all shills shilling at each other for various products and services that we don't want or need because Holla Forums, collectively, just shills for a living

your logic is amazing user

What I find sad isn't the fact that companies send out shills and data miners to fuck communities up. What's sad is that they don't even try to take a hint when we say what kind of games we want. That would be the least you could expect.
We've had countless of ideaguy threads over the years or lament over the fact that a setting/genre is underused, yet they never deliver.

That's the entire point you retard.

Calling someone a shill is a lazy means of trying to shut down a discussion. No attempt at saying you're not a shill will ever be accepted. It's a very leftist way of trying to """""debate"""".

I lurked the site for about a year before starting to post so I tend to sage bomb what I consider shit threads for Holla Forums. There's a few autistic anons on some threads like that one that defended Evolve to death. I don't usually ignore posts but for that kind of person I do. Same happens with Holla Forums discussions.

Oh I see, misunderstood your post, my bad, now I'm the retard

Try hovering your mouse over the post number that was linked.

But for some reason, this does not correlate to ">talking about a game automatically means you're shilling it"?

Marketing is outsourced to marketing companies. Nobody from development or publishing companies are shilling.

Stating the goal of marketing =/= any other imaginary comments you can dredge up

Not even indie developers?

I suppose that's why. They're essentially trying to sell horse carriages to people who want cars, though.

You are constantly dancing around the issue.
The goal of marketing is to create visibility and popularity for a product, yet by discussing a video game on the internet we are already unintentionally doing that: creating visibility and popularity for a videogame. So if we were to shutdown marketing entirely, why not shutdown all forms of discussion as well? However, I've yet to see how these two do not equate.

Unless they're legitimate indie devs who do it out of passion first of all things, no. I recall that STRAFE game had a shill who made a fool of himself here.

Isn't this exactly what MS tried to do with xbone until they realised no one was buying their shit

No you are creating imaginary shit because you're autistic or just a shitposter.

You forget that 99% of this shilling is done on places like reddit who thinks horse carriages are the new hotness.

This sounds like the concern a marketer might have. I can see why a marketer's first instinct would be that fear of shilling is bad. From a marker's perspective, in general they want a board to function healthily to a certain extent to foster a growing and ongoing community of regular users to make their research more comprehensive.

Anyway ,
thoughtful post. I enjoyed.

user, please.
I still don't understand how talking about vidya is not the same as unintentionally shilling it, aside from something being imaginary. I still don't know what exactly that imaginary thing is, and I doubt any lurkers here do too.
You have the chance to make me look like an absolute idiot in front of everyone else, yet you only resort to just using buzzwords and let this discussion die in a ditch. How exactly am I wrong?

Lets start simple since your shitposting is so thought out. Listen to this:

Stating a definition is stating a definition.

Do you understand?

But I'm only basing my posts off of your 'point of marketing', e.g.

Maybe that's not the actual definition, but they're your words, not mine.

I need an answer.

Stating a definition is stating a definition.

Do you understand?

Yes?

Okay so with that in mind. If I state a goal for something. What does that mean? Does it mean that I am stating a goal or something else?

You're stating a goal.

Meat pie, Sausage Roll.
COME ON ENGLAND
STATE A GOAL!

So if I state a goal of something relevant to the thread and you fill out some meaningless bullshit that has nothing to do with stating that goal (such as arguing my statement is wrong), who is shitposting?

Can I just say that if some kind of threads are fun and enjoyable, then it doesn't really matter if they're made by shills?

I mean, look at the pic related in OP, would anybody fall for that? I mean really? I think every single thread I've seen here about a new release had some actual discussion going about its flaws and problems, I rarely, rarely, ever see anyone flat out defend a game or a platform for no reason.

And let's say 3x3 threads are made by shills to survey people, wouldn't that mean that we would've seen more titles like the ones that are usually posted there?

I don't disagree that there are shills anywhere on the internet, but should we really make the site less enjoyable because of it? People that fall for shills are retards anyway, they'd fall for some other retarded marketing ploy if not this one.

Dunno man

That's exactly what a shill would say

Right on the clock
People calling other shills for having wrong opinions is killing most of the discussion in this place

We'll have to define the definition of shitposting first before we can answer that question.
Not to mention, you only got pulled into this because you claimed I was putting words in your mouth. Your intentions behind your original posts had and have nothing to do with anything. If anything, I used your post as a base, not as a means of proving your post wrong or anything like that. As in 'here's the goal this guy stated, and if we take this goal in mind, we can conclude Y'
In what aspect that conclusion is wrong or has nothing to do with anything remains to be seen. As far as I know, the only thing that's wrong with it is 'meaningless bullshit that has nothing to do with stating that goal', but to what extent I do not know.

You don't get the mindset of the poeple who are obsessed by shills. Videogame discussion and fun threads need to be eradicated if there's evidence of shilling. And sometimes the only evidence they need is the subject matter of the discussion.

I feel like its important to be wary, but that the same time I'm pretty sure its anons yelling shill at each other for the most part.

You seem to have some issue with longer posts, let us try again:

So if I state a goal of something relevant to the thread and you fill out some meaningless bullshit that has nothing to do with stating that goal (such as arguing my statement is wrong), who is shitposting?

user, consider:
You stupid son of a bitch, you can't unintentionally shill something. Actual shilling requires deliberate intent; anything else is useful idiocy at best. Do I have to explain to you what a useful idiot is? Are you going to pretend not to understand?

How can someone with such limited knowledge as you hold so strongly such decidedly apologetic attitudes and opinions about the subject of shills?

You have repeatedly demonstrated precisely the type of shortsighted arguments and circular reasoning that shills are known to employ. Nearly every sentence you write presents conceptually flawed ideas masterfully crafted to mislead spectators down the path of your narrative, which follows exactly the same narrative as that of a shill. You have been proven wrong again and again yet you willfully ignore that and steadfastly maintain your original overall position with dogged determination and detached impartiality.

Are you watching everyone? Is anyone lurking seeing this? These are all telltale signs of a disinformationalist, a forum spy, or a shill. This is what it looks like, anons. He will never admit it but I hope you've better learned how to spot them.

...

It IS what a shill would say though, to be fair.

Me?

I guess you have a point, as unintentional murder is classified as manslaughter.
So then, suppose I am talking about video games, I am still unintentionally achieving the goal of that of an actual shill who is shilling a videogame, which is creating visibility for that game.

Perhaps that makes me an useful idiot, but on screen by behavior does not differ much from an actual shill, the only difference between a retard and a shill being intention. And to think that since the dawn of the internet there have always been retards with shit opinions, which brings me back to my original point that people conveniently like to confuse an idiot with a malevolent shill just to win the argument by accusing the other of a shill without having to put any effort into it.

That's a whole lotta words without anything to back it up, let alone meaning anything. This isn't Creative Writing 101. Once again, everyone calls and treats me a fool, but nobody actually bothers to point out and explain why.

So you understand you're shitposting, yet continue? Fuck off shitposter.

How exactly am I shitposting? If I'm shitposting, how come I haven't been reported and banned yet?
I was only looking for serious discussion but nobody seems to be really willing to engage me, or perhaps everyone is just taking the piss out of me.
I mean, I still don't get how saying that the goal of marketing is to create visibility and talking about that some something does not correlate in any way.

So what the fuck is the magical solution to shilling? Not talking about video games?

Every time an user attempts to expose and call out shilling he is indirectly providing a service to the entire board, and only because he is passionate about his hobby and the community behind it and wants nothing but the betterment of it. These people are doing you a favor whether you realize it or like it or not. If you don't appreciate it, fine then, go to a thread you do enjoy. You don't have to read this one since it offends you so much, and you shouldn't want to be here in the first place if that's the case. What, are you so immature that you prefer to stay here, in a thread you don't like, so you can truly become an ungrateful, disrespectful nuisance who contributes nothing while smearing shit all over the walls so that the few of us that do wish to seriously discuss this most important issue can never get anything accomplished? No? Then you must be a shill, for there's no other explanation for such shitty behavior; it can only come down to either immaturity or profession.

We literally just went through this in 3 easy steps. Don't go into denial. You are too smart to say you didn't know. So its obviously denial if you pretend not to be just plain shitposting.

All I can think of is talking about old games or mechanics/ideas and completely disregarding new releases. But good luck with that.

Nice try somethingawful shill.

Try to embellish it all you want, whenever an user tries to call out shills %98 of the time it's a butthurt faggot that doesn't like the videogame the thread's about, and instead of hiding it he must post in it and tell everyone else how they're shills. Seriously though if this is bait this is some really convincing shit

"witches" were just European pagans practicing their traditions, they had no concept of satan or any of that shit, it's just you christians were too stupid to understand that and forced your own narrative on them

Essentially. If nobody talks about video games, nobody can accuse you of shilling.

Firstly, I don't know with what definition of shitposting you are going by.
Second, if I were shitposting, I'd be reported and banned.
Thirdly, the only person in this thread to say my posts were meaningless bullshit is you. What exactly that meaningless bullshit is is unknown to me or everyone else. Your entire case of considering me a shitposter rests solely on the idea of my posts being 'meaningless bullshit'. I do not understand what you mean by this because you did not go into detail what this meaningless bullshit was. Ironically, this loops back to my position about the issue of shilling where people use a grand assumption as some kind of argument. Maybe I'm wrong, but you should be at least kind enough to quote the part in your posts which you intended to be the reason for my identity as a shitposter.

As before, what is the point of reading any of that? We just went through it in 3 easy steps. You are a shitposter. Do you just want replies? Do you not get enough attention in real life?

I literally just spent 3 paragraphs explaining in great detail exactly why. You even quoted one right above you. For any skeptic who has done his homework your actions here provide further confirmation of my point. Nobody is that stupid. It's impossible.

This poster is a witch and is not to be trusted or taken seriously.

That self-gratifying way of thinking practically eliminates the need for moderation if all you need is people yelling shill to keep the board clean. "Dear diary, today I did a great job, I entered a shit thread, saged, and posted 'shill'! Now the streets of Holla Forums are slightly cleaner!" If you consider the miniscule effort that goes into 'keeping Holla Forums safe', we wouldn't live under such constant paranoia. It's like saying that clicking the like button on Facebook does anything but gauge popular interest for marketing firms and corporations.

If I think somebody is an idiot or not worth listening to, I'll do it the old-fashioned way. Not just calling them a shill, but instead explaining why their posts are rubbish. How deep have our standards fallen if the effort and time that goes in a post refuting one's faulty argument is now considered on par by calling someone a shill? Are future generations supposed to look after the latter as an example?

Look at yourself, you could have called everyone who disagreed with you a shill, but instead you took the time to write out a post on why you think shillcalling is necessary. Do you think that calling people shills is what convinces people, or if writing a proper post detailing your reasons and arguments for doing so is more convincing?

In the words of Stefan Molyneux: 'using flowery prose to describe the stupidity of your opponent without examples is not an argument'.

Here are a couple articles I've been considering. One is confessions of a paid shill, the other is a university study on cuckchan Holla Forums. It shows how they collect and catalog and organize hundreds of thousands of post information gathered over a 2 week period. They were able to form charts and graphs showing the percentage distribution of all topics created among several categories, peak posting hours and other details. It doesn't matter on what specific site or board the study was conducted. That it happened at all proves that it can and has happened – outside entities can and have data mined communities on one of the most popular image boards. Therefore there is no basis to deny that it can and may be happening again right now on any other board.

veteranstoday.com/2012/10/12/diary-of-an-israeli-shill/

projects.csail.mit.edu/chanthropology/4chan.pdf

test

I don't think this is all fair game. Your establishing of me being a shitposter is based under the assumption that my posts were 'meaningless bullshit' unrelated to anything, but I was never allowed to challenge this definition of 'meaningless bullshit' you have. I could also disregard your posts as meaningless bullshit, but I do not think actions like that have a place in meaningful discourse. You never gave me any time to challenge your position line by line, and have instead established a position you never have to bother defend because you are so confident in your conviction.

Crying little bitch shitposter.

This thread is tl;dr. Be less gay next time, faggots.

You don't think you are shitposting right now? Is it okay for you to shitpost?

We already went through this. 3 easy steps. Fuck off shitposter.

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They've been a thing since cuckchan era you fucking newfag. They were done here fairly often too at the time of the first exodus.

It really is summer

If people didn't believe in a third party trying to start board drama before they surely do after you guys come here and post.

That is such an egregious, obviously deliberate misrepresentation of my argument. How you or anyone of average intellect could ever think that's what I meant is inconceivable. You're caught red-handed committing a textbook example of a strawman. Next.

It sure is a lot of fucking effort arguing with a fuckbag like you all morning. It's harder than you would like to let on, for sure. Especially for regular users, who don't receive any kind of compensation for their efforts.

There you go again whining about paranoia – AKA cynicism, skepticism, key components of all anonymous culture since the very beginning, in many ways. I have already explained why having healthy doses of these traits is especially vital in a place like this, on Holla Forums.

As if you even give a shit about discussing vidya you disingenuous fuck. You have spent hours unproductively shitposting in a necessary, well-intentioned meta thread and the only time you have mentioned anything outside of this topic is to talk about your stupid /x/-tier bullshit and your harry potter novels; clearly there's only two things on your mind and vidya isn't one of them.

By the way what are the effects of living under such paranoia? That when people act like marketers they rightfully get accused of acting like marketers? Ok, but how does have a negative effect on you? How can you even claim this is a problem when you yourself – apparently, judging by your heavy participation in this thread, specifically your role in performing the exact action you pretend to cry about – are one of the prime examples of a user who engages in this behavior in the first place?

Your position makes no fucking sense. Unless you are a shill.

Fuck you. You don't know the nuances of how Kikebook harvests their data. Why would you assume you do? How could you possibly?

Once again you're exercising carefully but deliberately flawed judgement and disingenuously presenting a false comparison as if it's fact.

There.

Now consider yourself BTFO'd forever.

My post wasn't even about Holla Forums you nigger, but about the quality of the board in general. It's just that you niggers are one of the main reasons the board quality is worse. But let me rephrase my statement.

All political boards, including Holla Forums, Holla Forums, /liberty/ etc, who can't keep their shit on their own boards are fucking cancer and should fuck off back to where they came from.

Again trying to create a strawman. I don't even go to Holla Forums. And you're falsely accusing Holla Forums of constant political shitposting. Utterly pathetic.

You'd have to be blind to deny that we have political threads here every single day.

And is it Holla Forums or is it some really low hanging fruit that easily gets replies so trolls do it a lot?

I don't care who it is, I want it to stop.

That's understandable, but not what was being discussed. Its really retarded to assume its Holla Forums doing it. They're busy discussing how to holocaust jews and hang blacks.

You should at the very least know that merely asserting the fallacy and using it as an argument is a fallacy in itself. You should be using that fallacy as a means to refute my original argument, rather than yell 'Strawman!' (and further conceal it within flowery prose) before moving on to the next point.

Did you miss the lines where I suggested we instead put some effort into explaining why a user is an idiot or a shill, in order to pose a good example to the rest of the community rather than posting 'shill' and being done with it? Do you think anyone looks at those kind of empty purposeless posts and thinks 'that user did a good job'?

The mods do it for free too, but I don't see them groan about how hard their job is.

Paranoia is skepticism taken to the extreme. Rather than encouraging users to think for themselves and be wary of their surroundings, this paranoia suggests we are under a constant threat by intangible malevolent beings, which only brings the worst out of people. We already had a good status quo going when the boogeymen were gaiafags, redditors, and basically newfags who didn't fit in at all. By suggesting you are posting with malevolent intent rather than just being new, it only creates an adverse effect. With redditors as the boogeymen it was clear: don't behave like you're on fucking reddit. With shills, undesired behavior is harder to define. How exactly is one not supposed to behave like (((them)))?

I don't see the necessity of talking about video games in a meta thread.

Can you not name one adverse effect of the rampant paranoia of shills on Holla Forums? That people do not come in your threads to talk about the subject at matter, rather to just sage and contribute absolutely nothing of value? What kind of ideal Holla Forums is that, where your definition of shit threads and shill threads are filled with nothing but people snidely dismissing you as a shill while your definition of good threads are free of such behavior? Is a Holla Forums where we encourage users to dismiss posts based solely on assumptions of the users intentions rather than actually debating them your kind of ideal Holla Forums?

Skepticism is healthy in doses. But the mindset of globally skimming over one's post and just dismissing that person as a shill is an irrational and poisonous one at best, because once again: how can you prove to me you're not a shill? Instead of focusing on whether one's a shill or not, you should be focusing on the merits of one's posts. I don't want people to snidely dismiss me as a shill just because they think I am, without giving me a chance to properly explain myself.

To be honest, I was getting sick of the political shitposting 2 years ago back on 4chan. Imagine my surprise when it flares up back here once moot shoah'd Holla Forums.

You are aware that its Holla Forums that lead 90% of the posters here due to Gamergate right?

What kind of low-life scum frontwipes?

I'm fairly sure at least more than half originally arrived from Holla Forums, the rest of Holla Forums came during the second exodus. Now it's hard to measure the amount of actual Holla Forums immigrants considering the r/the_donald crossposters which accelerated Holla Forums into its decline.

I don't fucking care, you could even be Holla Forums if you wanted. I only use Holla Forums because it's the most popular political board, and because of that, shitposting most often seems to come from Holla Forumsfags. All other political boards are equal cancer.

>Galactical Salt Party thread That was a /liberty/fag's doing, but the Holla Forumsfag is equally guilty because he decided to take the bait I'm still really angry about that one

(checked)
Explain to me then, why is the derailment almost always connected to opinions most commonly held by Holla Forumsfags? Why is there ALWAYS a Natsoc involved. Yes commies and lolbertarians are involved as well, but not as fucking often as Natsocs. I don't care if they are just too retarded to not take the bait or just feel that they have to bring everyone to their side, the fact is that they can't keep their shit to themselves.

Maybe I'm actually wrong, but it seems always be Holla Forumsfags who stir up unnecessary shitstorms

Fuck off shitposter.

Nice retort, nerd.

See

I know you linked to it, but you obviously didn't read it.

Actually I also have to say
What? Even when I see political trolling its never "x ideology was here everyone else is a faggot". I don't see how anyone could ever say it was a specific ideology instead of just "le Holla Forums boogeyman".

And I also want to give Holla Forums an honorary mention of having a board literally for the sake of creating board drama between Holla Forums and Holla Forums. So if you want to ask yourself why trolls are targeting exactly this angle you already have a good reason why in that.

And you obviously didn't read my post. That changes fucking nothing. Holla Forumsfags are still guilty of taking the bait and aren't able to keep their shit to themselves.

And as I've already fucking said in my other post, my point is that unrelated political discussion on Holla Forums is cancer no matter where it stems from, because it derails the thread. I only said that it most often involves Holla Forums as they are the biggest political board.

Sounds like you're doing some heavy projecting there user.
And nobody said otherwise. The only point of contention is that you blame Holla Forums for something you cannot in any way prove that Holla Forums does. Something that easily makes you angry, which trolls love. Something that there was a whole board dedicated towards creating this false Holla Forums boogeyman.

But for some reason you insist it has to be Holla Forums. Even though there are so many reasons why it doesn't have to be Holla Forums.

The WH40k thread went down because an user got triggered over the game containing niggers. Then other anons started posting pictures of nazi officers.

The police game thread went down because of a similar reason.

In the Galactical Salt Party, one of the fags admitted to being a Natsoc and second to being a libertarian.

Gee, I wonder what ideology they identify with

This is the reason why I insist it is most often Holla Forums, because every time I saw a tread derailed.

it was fucking Holla Forums

I've held the belief for quite a long time that most of the people posting the most obvious stereotypical Holla Forums-type behavior isn't actually Holla Forums, but folks trying to shit up both Holla Forums and Holla Forums in one fell swoop.

Threads get shit up here, resentment is fostered, and anyone who is actually into that kind of edgy shitposting will think that's what Holla Forums is about, and will move there and start acting in exactly this way over there.

Seeing as Holla Forums has been openly scheming about such plots involving other boards, I'm inclined to believe this might be the case. Either them, Holla Forums or opportunistic trolls getting their jape on. And, you know, the occasional actual Holla Forumsack who really doesn't know how common decency works.

Ah and here is the double standard. /tg/ shit is okay but Holla Forums shit isn't.

So yeah a guy came in and said "hey im totally Holla Forums guise" once and you got butthurt forever. I get it.

You ignore all possibility of being trolled or fucked with because you got butthurt forever over one thing. That's braindead and pathetic.

Aside from involving Holla Forums material in the thread, posting Holla Forums memes, derailing the topic to Holla Forumsitics and whining about niggers. And no, not every time a thread is derailed is it the result of a troll pretending to be Holla Forums.

I'm trying not to blame Holla Forums because its such an easy and common thing to do. It might as well (or more likely in fact) be just trolls or Holla Forums.

But you're right Holla Forums do a lot of insane shit, they literally rewrote anime episodes and released subs for the purpose of communist propaganda one time.

Shitposter go away.

It was a thread about WH40k VIDEO GAMES you nigger.

Yeah, and magically, a guy comes in and says "hey im totally Holla Forums guise" argues for his "fake ideology" making arguments and shitting up Holla Forums almost every single day.

Yes I'm sure its also one person like you say. You're such a good detective. Dude you're becoming more and more pathetic and all your shit is falling apart. Just stop, take a breath and try to consider if you may be wrong and got fucked once.

What I saw in that wh40k thread was a libtard getting triggered over anons not liking niggers while bitching about Holla Forums.

I remember that. That's autistic enough for me to believe they're on the right website.

I think we need an archive so settle the score. Surely since it was such an important and eventful thing to f31eff that he complains about it now he must have an archive.

I'm not arguing that Holla Forums doesn't have retarded spergs. I'm arguing that not all the shitposting that looks like Holla Forums is in fact Holla Forums. So it might be that f31eff is correct and that it was a sperg from Holla Forums. His argumentation and posting style just makes him look like a retarded child fishing for excuses.

I asked if it might be. I'm not claiming that it definitely is; I'm here because I'm trying to determine that. Is that really that paranoid? Not when there were on average four 3x3s per day, every day, day after day for months – user – months. Just stop and think for a second about how many potential replies could've been generated – how many units of individual user data could have been mined – in total from those threads if they were, in fact, a part of some kind of sentiment analysis operation. In case you don't know, each 3x3 image contains nine of the respondent's favorite games, and may include textual ratings of each game depicted in the 3x3s posted by one or more respondents. You can see this system is conveniently designed so as to facilitate rapid, exponential data growth depending on user turnout and participation. Each thread can theoretically generate well in excess of 500 responses before it finally autosages its way into the archives. Of course, that won't always happen; not all 3x3s get that many replies; and there's no guarantees as to how much worth, if any, a particular reply might hold for potential marketers. Feel free to do your own math, but my conservative estimate is that a three month survey could be expected to yield roughly 100,000 total units of data in the form of pictures of Holla Forums's favorite games, not including data from text rankings. Yes, there would be many duplicates; and yes, it would be hard to gleam personal details about the posters behind the samples. And it might not sound useful to laypersons like us, but I don't doubt that it has value to someone, somehow.

Tell us, could some unknown force be gathering data from LOL threads and WEBM threads for some nefarious purpose too?

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Looks like one guy made a low effort shitpost and the whole thread devolved into shitposting when people couldn't leave the troll alone. On the whole the thread seems to be 10% complaining about niggers. 20% complaining about the Holla Forums boogeyman and responding to an obvious troll and 70% Warhammer. Feel free to refute.

The stuff about Detroit and such is probably Holla Forums though, but that's already after the thread derailed itself and so minor its not really worth complaining about. The biggest problems in that thread are the two (22) posters who can't leave the trolls alone.

Oh no, you're right assuming that.

If there's any shilling going on here, it's false-flagging.

ITT: Shills

In the good old days it was trolls trolling trolls. Now it's shills shilling shills. Marketing really does ruin everything.

Yes, they exist, you'd have to be stupid to think they couldn't possibly exist when astroturfing is a thing. Anonymous imageboards are an easy platform for them to do it on because of the accountless system as well as no permanent thread ID, unless you're enough of an attention whore to keep a persistent tripcode sheerly because you feel like being special.

Yes, attention whatsoever given to "omg shills!" is still a job well done and money in their pocket, don't respond at all if you think they're a marketer instead of saging and insulting the game or the suspected marketer you fucking dolt. You're not making a good case against the joke that it functions as a downvote.

No, they probably don't give a rat's ass about Holla Forums because of its small userbase and hence turnout even if they do convert people as well as the site's inherent paranoia.

No, Holla Forums having a tin-foil hat about their latest Trump maymays getting forum-slided doesn't mean marketers are here at all hours to hawk [flavor-of-the-month game], Holla Forums does a good enough job entirely on its own of getting a buzz going about [flavor-of-the-month game].

Yes, false flags happen fucking constantly, both jokingly and not, leading those deluded to self-validate and continue screaming about shills at any and all hours. Sometimes it's even the people screaming about shills that do the faux-marketing so they can screech about how necessary it is we keep a vigil against the vague, omnidirectional "shill" that keeps them up at night.

No, it's not worth worrying about. That "Vigilance" link at the top of the board a day or two ago was fucking embarrassing to read through, and getting paranoid about something as inconsequential and foregone as "omg there's a marketer somewhere on the board" is a waste of time and energy that could be put towards actual posts (or actual moderation, on the part of the dopes that put that up across several boards).

They way you phrase that it's like you think it matters whether we ignore the game or talk shit about it.

If we ignored it, they'd just make the thread themselves and screen cap it.

I know this, because they've already done that a couple times, and this could be observed back when they didn't know how ID's worked.

commiesubs?
Fuck I downloader from them a series.

There are 14 3x3s on cuck/v/'s archive right now. I have spotted multiple patterns in the OPs. I think I'll a collage and post it here, if you guys don't mind, so we can analyze them together. If you don't think 3x3s are being used for informational or financial purposes, you will when I'm done.

Here it is. The goal is to identify patterns. Then we can consider the nature of their origins – is a given pattern more likely a natural occurrence by users, or is it more likely not. Things to pay attention to in the OPs:
Keep count of each.

[spoiler]>tfw I know I will be the only one doing this but bothered making this post anyway.

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>>>/reddit/

Something I've noticed is that redditfags make the same threads over and over again in hopes of getting replies regardless of their quality. Sometimes they'll even wait until the thread has 404d (or in worse cases, hit bump lock) and instantly post a new thread to keep the reply train going. More often than not these threads are the ones with minimal input from the OP or ones that don't require any discussion but instead function as intended even if everyone in the thread is (1). Examples: those two lines of greentext about non-specific things in games that rug likes posting, template threads, hunger games threads, what is a game that has x threads, those 3x3 ones, some viral tangentially video game related video, consolewar threads, sales threads, LOL threads, "I don't care if you're shitting on it, I'm getting paid to viral it everywhere so here's x game with y clickbait bullshit about it/the devs"…

I don't know if this means redditfags are mostly marketers or if they really are soulless and can't make original content or discuss anything.

Forgot to add, the sure fire sign it's a shit thread, it starts with "does anyone else…"
Almost as bad as "I saw/posted this on 4chan and I'm a huge faggot so please rape my face" (paraphrasing).

So you think these threads come from reddit? I dunno.

Here are my findings:
Reminder to rate: 8
Link to bighugelabs: 6
"Post 'em": 2
"You know the rules": 2
3x3 in subject: 6
3x3 in body: 8
Spoilers: 2
Total posts, counting OPs: 306
Total image replies: 158
Estimated total game images: 1422
8/14: 10:56
8/13: 15:08; 1:17
8/12: 17:53;
8/11: 17:08;
8/10: 19:49; 17:18; 2:37;
8/9: 21:51; 17:17; 18:59;
8/8: 20:07; 18:36; 17:24;

I seriously suspect the proprietor of the mosaic making website at this point. He could be pulling in 4,000 hits a month in traffic just from Holla Forums alone. And these threads get posted on other boards besides Holla Forums. I don't know which ones or how often, exactly, but for example I have seen them in the past on /mu/ and /lit/. Probably anywhere the subject permits it.

Also my results are probably incomplete – they only included 3x3s which were posted with the string, "3x3" somewhere in the OP. But I know from experience they frequently neglect to say that; they'll just post their template and some comment along the lines of, "haven't had one of these in a while" (a huge lie). So all findings are probably unrepresentative of actuality.

Note no other mosaic making website is ever posted. Only that one.

Over 50% of the OPs urged people to rate. Thus they all, in general, seem to share this especial interest in generating dem ratings.

Most threads occur in the evening, primarily around 17:00. This may coincide with a general spike in traffic to the board around that time and could be due to that.

Been lurking 8ch for weeks, but I just dropped by to say I'm impressed with the effort you've put into this. Nothing conclusive obviously, but you're doing God's work. Good job man.

Undertale is shit and anyone who says otherwise is brainwashed

Real Hitler

Fake Hitler

Bump for interest

"As a bastion of free speech, it is our duty to suppress speech we do not like."

just do what i do and approach every situation and person with ample distrust and outright hatred.

that way you're never, ever wrong.

Say what you want; know that we will also say what we want, and what we want is apparently less faggots like you.

no, it's our duty to explain to people why the things that they say are fucking stupid. that's how you reach the most correct conclusions about things, via rigorous contention.

it's called 'debate'.

Fuck you.

Whats it like living with legitimate autism?

i implore you to remove your head from your ass

wow, look at all those fresh opinions, conspiracy theories, and armchair psychology
truly riveting evidence for your position

This is Holla Forums fucking levels of paranoia.
So now you think it is uncommon for regular anons to be curious about what other user's think of x/y/z games? or to post what you liked?
You are also bitching about 3x3 threads on 4chan, well i don't know you but i'd say you spend too much time here maybe you should go back
And last do you even have an idea of how much would it cost in time or money to develop an algorithm that can identify correctly 3x3 threads, identify each game, parse the replies, correctly interpret what people is trying to say and generate a consensus ?
I think you are full of bullshit

Anyone has noticed this "we are being overrrun by shills!" atmosphere being created with little seeds here and there? now this is something very destructive, this is the equivalent of going to a psychiatric hospital and telling each patient that they are the only one who is sane.
Someone is turn Holla Forums's stupidity and fears against itself.

this is a good post