answers to your questions about sponsored communities

[burr86]

Some of you might be interested in more detailed explanation of our stances on various issues surrounding sponsored communities. The previous post described what we're going to require of our sponsors, and we wanted to make those points clear without bogging them down in explanations and justifications. If you're interested in reading some more of

Comments

[burr86]

I've actually looked into the cases where people are claiming that there are sockpuppets in that community, and I can verify that they actually are legitimate users. (Albeit accounts that haven't been around for too long.) We'll look into every complaint we get, though, and we'll be aggressive about following up on them.

[christine]

I think that people are assuming that most newer accounts are sockpuppets... but It kinda makes sense that they aren't. Most new LJ users are the ones that don't care about sponsored communities and are the ones that are seeing the advertising for the community and don't know/care about the "politics" around it.

[lucy_u2]

It's not only because they are new. Some of them are, let's say, weird and even have copyright lines on their userpics. *laugh* But who knows? Maybe we are wrong. *shrugs*

[archangelbeth]

Hey, I've got a copyright line on one of my userpics! Carefully pixilated it in m'self, even.

[beckyzoole]

What about varnishedjeans? She's not a sockpuppet -- her journal's been around for a couple of years now -- but she sure sounds like a plant.

Ugh. I can't stand the atmosphere of suspicion created by these "sponsored communities". Anyone is suspect now.

[okelay]

a lot of the people in the SOS comm look like sock puppets and except for a handful, most of the accused have not defend themselves which only confirms suspicions.

[idonotlikepeas]

People have accused me of being a sock puppet or plant before. I didn't defend myself; I just ignored them. What is there to say? "Yes, I'm a real person?" Exactly where does the argument go after that? There's no way someone on the Internet can prove they're a real person in any meaningful way without giving you access to things most people wouldn't want to give you access to.

[okelay]

some people in the SOS comm have replied with just that
and the fact that they reply, even if it's not assurance of them being real people, it's at least enough to create reasonable doubt.
but when they don't say anything that just leads me to believe they are indeed sock puppets, especially when ive taken a look at their journals and profiles

[persnickety_pru]

In the past, LJ community moderators/maintainers were able to log on as the community and make posts and comments under the community name, using the community icons.

Might LJ consider permitting that again *only* for these sponsored communities? That way, companies wouldn't need sockpuppet accounts at all, and we could all easily track posts from sponsored comms if they showed up elsewhere.

Companies might like it as well, as their staffers wouldn't feel pressured to post in their personal journals and could just deal with their comms.

[lucy_u2]

but I'm skeptical of the practicality of enforcement
corporate sponsors could make themselves into a big nuisance without consequences.

I'm pretty sure it's impossible if the "user" is smart. The staff said they have these tools, but they can't find anything in scienceofsleep for example. But what can we do? Nowadays these things happens. *shrugs*

[polyfrog]

You are the second person I've seen making this sort of "That's life these days..." comment

I agree that that is indeed life these days. But I disagree with the fatalist attitude. "what can we do?" we can complain to the people in charge. Consistently. Every time.

We can try to think of ways to better police this sort of behavior.

Think about it; you are basically "they suck, and they're breaking the rules, but we can't catch them at it easily. Oh Well. They win. *shrug*"

Only if you let them.

[lucy_u2]

nono, don't get me wrong, I'm all about complaining. I'm doing it the past few days, in fact. But I think it's almost impossible this control over fake users IF these people are smart. Right now we can try, but if sponsored communities get popular, it would be pretty hard.

[lissiel]

which is why the concept of a paid community for people to talk about products they love is a dumb idea- people will never be sure that what you're saying is for real.

Think about it: even people with real journals, legit users, can still be "encouraged" to generate hype.