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About the author

JR Hoeft

Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.

Comments

10 Responses to "Astroturfing will not be tolerated"

1. 

   Mitch October 18, 2009 18:38 pm

   Ya. Come on folks. Stand up and be counted on. Besides it’s way too damn early to be talking about a congresisonal campaign since there’s two weeks left to go in this election. Get your priorities straight.

2. 

   RightsideVA October 18, 2009 22:50 pm

   Gee, makes you wonder how often these people vote on election day?….

3. 

   Eric Dunn October 19, 2009 09:59 am

   So actually I was going back and forth with just one person?! And here I thought many people liked wrong facts

   Glad to know that isn’t the case!

4. 

   Gary October 19, 2009 21:15 pm

   J.R.- I would just like to say that a server can have many accounts running on the same IP address-like office servers. Our office server is set up this way and I would guess the bearingdrift.com server is set up the same way. Much due diligence would be required to prove or disprove that these posts were made by the same person.

5. 

   JR Hoeft October 19, 2009 21:58 pm

   Absolutely, Gary. That certainly must be the case. Certainly two groups of five comments in fifty minutes from the same two IP addresses must have been running off of an office server. What could I have been thinking.

6. 

   Gary October 19, 2009 23:22 pm

   No need for sarcasm JR. The time frame of the comments proves nothing. Actually, the lack of time (1 min between two of the posts- example given) could be used to argue against your theory. You may be right JR. I respectfully submitted previously that you have based your assumption on speculation and conjecture. Your sarcastic, yet eloquent explanation of the logic used to formulate your theory, most assuredly fortifies the foundation of my submission.

7. 

   J.M. Ripley October 20, 2009 12:22 pm

   While I admit that I drew the same conclusion about the multiple users on the same server (my situation at work), what are the odds that 10 different people in less than 2 hours (5 coming from one server – compnay A and 5 from the other – company B)read BD and posted a comment? Not very likely.

8. 

   J.R. Hoeft October 20, 2009 12:35 pm

   Gary,
   As Ripley said, maybe it’s my feelings of inadequacy or low self-worth, but I don’t see people flocking to BD to comment in a rapid-fire manner under normal circumstances as they did in the post in question.

   So, this screamed “anomoly” to me and I checked it out.

   The comment you mentioned one-minute apart could easily have happened.

   For one, they used the same email address and only changed the name. For two, the second comment was four words long.

   Look, I’m not saying you couldn’t be right. I understand the server concept. However, the evidence points to that not being the case.

   Sorry for the sarcasm and I appreciate your comment.

9. 

   Gary October 20, 2009 12:38 pm

   Maybe one at each company is passionate about the subject and rallied support at the water cooler? It could happen. The point that I am trying to make is that theories should be left to the Mathematicians, Scientists and Attorneys. Journalism should be based on fact not speculation. Does BD subscribe to the reporting tactics of most tabloids? I would think not.

10. 

    Gary October 20, 2009 12:45 pm

    JR- your last message hadn’t posted when I was drafting my last message. If the person in question used the same email address for every account as you state, then I would agree that it is most definately the same person. Maybe they have multiple personalities