> You have now posted accusations/assumptions of astroturfing and manipulation at least 15 times, without ever providing any evidence.
I tried to point out the upvote speed and age-to-comment ratio for this thread look anomalous to me, and that it being posted within the Opus 5.5 release hour was further reason for skepticism. Circumstantial, sure, but I see very little ways to gather hard evidence of astroturfing without being a mod.
> when users and moderators simply uphold the guidelines, staging a protest by demanding your account be deleted.
You're right this was a little dramatic. I think it is just annoying though when two times that I have posted about astroturfing, it has been the most upvoted comment only to get flagged. I guess this is a self-fulfilling prophecy though, as you are right that other human commenters are abound and tend to flag people complaining about astroturfing.
Anyway thanks for the reply. If your read of my account is that I'm more-often-than-not a bad actor, then I will stop commenting here. Seems like it is for the best. :)
> Hopefully it is clear from my other comments that I do try to provide value too.
I agree that you provide value in plenty of your comments, which is why we don't just want to ban/lose you.
> I have posted about astroturfing, it has been the most upvoted comment only to get flagged
People love a conspiracy theory, and on a site like HN that has many people looking at it at once, it's easy to get a large number of upvotes in a short amount of time if enough people find it exciting. We often see off-topic, titillating one-liners or ragebaity comments at the top of threads, and we always have to downweight them to keep the discussion on-topic and healthy. We'll put the [flagged] tag on if the comment has been flagged by several users and/or if it is a clear guidelines breach, even if it has many upvotes, to signal to the author and the community that the comment is inappropriate.
> Anyway thanks for the reply. If your read of my account is that I'm more-often-than-not a bad actor, then I will stop commenting here. Seems like it is for the best. :)
It seems like you're well intentioned. You have your concerns about A.I., as many do and that's fine. You're still very welcome here. Just please try to believe that many or most of the people who are enthusiastic about A.I. are as sincere in their positivity as you are in your concern.