Dilbert creator outed for using sock puppets on Metafilter and Reddit

http://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/gqzgx/dilbert_creator_outed_for_using_sock_puppets_on/

by Flemlord • 15 years ago

40 36 15 years ago

slapshot2• 15 years ago

tl;dr: An innocent MetaFilter user posted about Scott Adams's writing. A flame war broke out about whether Adams was right, is self-promotional, is a nice person, etc. One of the users defending Adams was "plannedchaos." After a series of increasingly bizzare statements ("How many people think I'm actually Scott Adams writing about myself in third person?" and "Is it Adams' enormous success at self-promotion that makes you jealous and angry?" among them), an administrator of Metafilter (cortex) emailed "plannedchaos" and asked him to own up to it. Scott Adams did so.

Metafilter traditionally has been good at rooting out sock puppets when they become relevant; no surprise here. (PayPal verification is useful for that)

The original metafilter thread: http://www.metafilter.com/102472/How-to-Get-a-Real-Education...

Direct link to Scott Adams owning up to being Scott Adams: http://www.metafilter.com/102472/How-to-Get-a-Real-Education...

jerrya5• 15 years ago

Regardless of whether Adams should have posted as plannedchaos or not, it feels a bit icky and privacy violating to me that an administrator of Metafilter knew and acted on it.

As examples, if you work at the Social Security Administration, you are not supposed to look up Scott Adams and find out his information. And if you work at American Express, you still are not supposed to look up Scott Adams and tell people what he buys.

How did cortex know plannedchaos was Scott Adams, and what tools did cortex use? (and okay, when did he know it.)

For all the weirdness in that thread, that's the part that bugs me.

teraflop• 15 years ago

Cortex didn't out him, he outed himself and cortex confirmed it. My assumption is that cortex asked for permission first. I'm not in on what happened behind the scenes in this particular case, but I've been hanging around MeFi for a while, and the mods are generally very scrupulous about privacy.

turbodog• 15 years ago

Do notice that a MeFite correctly called him on this way upthread. I don't think the mods got involved until Adams outed himself. http://www.metafilter.com/102472/How-to-Get-a-Real-Education...

TomOfTTB7• 15 years ago

What exactly is wrong with a famous person having sock puppets?

The opposition to this sort of thing defies logic to me. To quote a comment on Metafilter...

Scott, if you wanted to sign up for Metafilter to defend your writing, that would have been fine. If you wanted to sign up for Metafilter and be incognito as just another user, that'd be fine too. Doing both simultaneously isn't; pretending to be a third party and high-fiving yourself by proxy is a pretty sketchy move and a serious violation of general community expectations about identity management around here.

So he's acknowledging the value of being able to present opinions as "just another person" and acknowledging the value of the author being able to post as himself but then he says those two are wrong in combination? Doesn't really make sense.

As for being dishonest I don't see a sock puppet as any more or less dishonest as any other screen name.

And who exactly is hurt? At best a sock puppet makes it look like the author has one supporter more than he actually has. So what? No one's going to be swayed by one supporter. Moreover I think someone like Scott Adams should have the right to defend themselves without people automatically dismissing it as self preservation.

In the end a sock puppet is just a way for a famous author to present his ideas without bringing his fame into the conversation and I don't see what's wrong with that.

yuhong2• 15 years ago

It is called astroturfing and it is a bad thing to do.

TomOfTTB7• 15 years ago

Well no it's actually not. Astroturfing would be if he had 100 sock puppets.

slapshot2• 15 years ago

In the Reddit thread, another MeFi administrator sums it pretty nicely: MetaFilter has rules about that sort of thing because it wants to encourage a certain kind of community. Other sites may have different rules.

"On Metafilter, specifically, deliberately impersonating a disinterested third party to get in arguments about yourself or something you've got a personal stake in is a problem, yes. It's anathema to any kind of sense of community and continuity of identity. Other places can have their own rules or lack thereof. The heterogeneity of the Internet is part of what makes it interesting, and certainly no one is or should be compelled to be a member of Metafilter or Reddit or any other site the rules or community guidelines of which they don't like."

Direct link: http://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/gqzgx/dilbert_creato...

TomOfTTB7• 15 years ago

There's a difference between rules/law and morality. I don't dispute what he did was against the Metafilter rules but that doesn't in itself make it wrong from a moral standpoint. At least no more wrong than people who post off topic stuff on HN or any number of other minor infractions.

coderdude3• 15 years ago

It would be similar to Matt Cutts registering some username and defending Google's efforts at defeating webspam (or telling us that Matt Cutts is a pretty cool guy). Surely any opposition to this doesn't defy logic, so what is the difference? He didn't merely create a fake account and post under it. Scott Adams created a fake persona and used it to help persuade people when it comes to things related to Scott Adams.

TomOfTTB7• 15 years ago

I'm saying I think the fact that he defended himself is exactly what makes it moral. See here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2452634

firebones• 15 years ago

Scott Adams is both a brand and a public figure, and it seems as though he got confused about which of those two things he went onto MeFi to defend. In retrospect, being identifiable and defending himself from the start held the potential to increase the reputation of both his brand and his personal identity. But not only did he botch the defense of his identity, he harmed his brand, then compounded the damage by his comments after revealing his identity.

From the nature of his comments, though, it doesn't seem likely he could have managed the finesse of a defense of both himself and his brand had he came out identifiable from the start. The best choice in his personal case may have been to ignore the criticism and if he really felt the need to respond to the barbs, respond from the bully pulpit of his media empire. You know, something like Catbert pointing at his bank statement and saying "Scoreboard!"

bpeebles• 15 years ago

There's nothing wrong with a famous person having psudeo-anonymous accounts that aren't tied to their real identity, but to then defend themselves as if they were not connected... Well, that's just not cool.

Cortex, who posted what you quoted, was drawing that line. Be anonymous and on Metafilter, but avoid commenting on yourself as somebody else. Or he can be himself (which lots of "famous" people have done both on Reddit and Metafilter, and HN for that matter.)

At best a sock puppet makes it look like the author has one supporter more than he actually has. So what? No one's going to be swayed by one supporter. Moreover I think someone like Scott Adams should have the right to defend themselves without people automatically dismissing it as self preservation.

I'm actually kind of confused why you think it isn't a problem to use dishonestly, since speaking as if you're not person X is dishonest, isn't "harmful" in a community or to a discussion. And, honestly, I can't think of many reasons I'd want the famous person to lie to defend themselves. If it's defensible and they're famous, lots of intelligent and well-spoken people will be there to their defense.

See John Lott/Mary Rosh and other cases where people have been found out. (Or authors using fake names to give 5-star reviews on Amazon; or game devs posting reviews with fake names on metacritic.)

TomOfTTB7• 15 years ago

First on the whether it's wrong I wrote a whole big thing here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2452634

But on your point about letting other people jump in and defend him I don't agree with you. When Scott Adams posts something I assume he's thought through what he said. So while a bunch of people might agree with him they won't have thought the issue through as well as he has. So it's entirely plausible that he could defend his ideas better than other people could.

As far as things like Amazon reviews or Game reviews that's a completely different thing because the person doing that is trying to get money out of other people. So if they are wrong and the game/book/whatever doesn't deserve a five star review they'll have caused harm to the purchaser. Adams is just defending ideas which doesn't do such harm.

MaysonL• 15 years ago

What do you think of authors going pseudonymously onto Amazon and posting 5-star reviews of their work? Of companies doing that for their products? Of political astroturfing?

Sock puppetting by a famous author is toward the least slimy end of a pretty slimy continuum.

moron4hire• 15 years ago

hmmm, ammonia is good, so is bleach, put 'em together and noooooo

tzs• 15 years ago

Let's say someone posts something that says "Scott Adams opinion on X is stupid", and that person is misunderstanding what Scott Adams said.

I see no fundamental difference between me posting something saying "No, what Adams meant was Y" and Scott Adams posting under a fake name saying "No, what Adams meant was Y", other than that if he posted under his real name it might shorten the discussion as there would be less grounds for people to say the poster is misunderstanding Adams' position.

As far as I can see, he didn't use his pseudonyms to do things like post positive reviews of his work (which would be wrong because it would imply that the review is from a third party). All he seemed to be doing, at least in the Reddit threads he participated in, was to explain Adams' positions and debate Adams' critics.

This doesn't seem like sock puppetry to me.

nhangen• 15 years ago

1. Am I the only one that was expecting a video with real sock puppets? I'm feeling behind the times.

2. I thought it was great. He was articulate and mostly transparent, and more importantly - I got the sense that he was able to repel the onslaught without becoming an asshole.

I'm not necessarily an Adams fan, but in this case, I see no evil.

giberson• 15 years ago

I would argue you can have a more honest discussion in the shoes of a bystander than in the shoes of the author.

jerrya5• 15 years ago

Isn't that a common theme in many works of fiction?

statictype• 15 years ago

I looked at his comment history on reddit.

I don't see him doing anything shady. He's defending his arguments while referring to himself in the third person.

He's not using it to promote his books or other products.

mdpm• 15 years ago

This wasn't an issue of morality, or even of rule-breaking; rather one of community standards (for mefi). Not too much integrity was on display here by Adams. They simply asked him to either operate as himself, or cease the pretense of being someone else.

I think the most illuminating comment of of the thread was the rephrasing made here: http://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/gqzgx/dilbert_creato...

He wasn't using anonymity for the sake of interacting or learning, while negating the effect of his 'fame' on discourse. He seemingly joined to leap into the fray in his defense, quite aggressively. I guess the admins at mefi weren't quite wanting this sort of thing: http://www.reddit.com/user/plannedchaos to happen.

moomin• 15 years ago

Is it just me, or was Scott Adams channelling Dogbert?

warmfuzzykitten• 15 years ago

More like, metafilter outed as tedious cesspool of uninformed opinion and snark.

Dilbert creator outed for using sock puppets on Metafilter and Reddit

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