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Topic Date User

Werribee Gorge Nobs 3-Aug-2006 At 5:17:39 PM bluemeanie

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On 3/08/2006 Richard wrote:
>So they can just get aonther one, .. time may tell if such users have
>the time to waste creating bogus accounts...Or prehaps their are other
>ways to identify genuine users I have not thought of...

In the past I have seen the following work effectively in removing astroturfing and anonymous trolls. Every time some makes a post record the IP address (probably already done) and maybe the same with logins. Then make it possible to see which other posts where made from this IP address / which other users have posted logged in from this address. So if someone is astroturfing or trolling they have to do it from a different address than the one they usually post from otherwise it becomes easy to correlate the troll account with the "real" account. No privacy information is leaked (except perhaps who live in the same house) if you never actually expose the IP address. Trolls either have to go public or give up.

This does not stop abusive or infantile behaviour and unfortunately there will always be those who feel the need to abuse others. In this case then a way to combat this is to let the "community" rate each other. Those who have higher status have more weight in rating others. Then if you don't want to see posts by those who are unable to contribute anything positive without being abusive you just set your own filter level high enough.

Both systems can be hijacked but it is better than having to read the posts that sometimes appear here.