Assuming that you know you're full of shit (and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt), your statement above is a lie. However, it does not constitute fraud.
Perhaps not in a legal sense but in a broader sense it does actually.
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The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Yes it is. It's called fraud. And as part of their education children are taught that lying has consequences. When they reach adulthood the consequences may be more severe.
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The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Do you actually have any evidence beyond wishful thinking to support such a claim?
You're in fantasy land. Just look at the numbers on any P2P service and think how much easier and safer it is for most people to copy media privately.
In addition, I've known a lot of people. Almost all know nothing about slashdot. Not a single one who knows how to has not copied repeatedly and many who don't know how to have asked their friends to show them how to do it. My girlfriend for one keeps pestering me to copy media I have no interest in.
Or are you just hoping that if you state it as fact often enough with a sympathetic audience on Slashdot, it will become true?
I don't care. You're the one that's stretching. The onus is on you to show that most people take copyright seriously when anecdotal evidence shows the complete opposite. And that's not even including the third world where piracy rates approach 100%. I've seen that with my own eyes.
I've travelled a fair bit and sharing is common everywhere I've been. Not surprising, it's human nature to share things with friends.
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Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
Given the fact that the vast majority of the population that can't pay, doesn't pay, particularly in the third world, it's pretty clear where the bias is here.
Doesn't change the fact that the majority of the population the first world pirate. I hope you're not going to claim the majority of people in the first world can't pay? The third world is just a more extreme example. The GP was dishonestly claiming that most people support copyright. That's biased and you're biased for not recognizing that.
Most people, when they think about copyright at all, have complex ideas that the law doesn't reflect at all. They certainly don't allow the law to interfere with sharing with their friends.
Legal terms often have different meanings in general parlance. Lawyers really need to come to terms with the fact that most people's lives do not, and should not, revolve around the law.
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A neurotic is the man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent. - Jerome Lawrence
Though there is a market for products that give you the warm fuzzies (fair trade, etc), the vast majority of consumers will buy the cheapest product available, even if the price difference is only a few pennies.
That's because in the complex modern world and the deceptiveness of modern mass marketing it's impossible for a customer to have expert knowledge about the majority of products they buy. They simply don't have the time. In the absence of such knowledge (e.g. how long it'll *really* last) the sole criterion left is price. With more honest marketing (if only truth-in-advertising laws were actually enforced!) that would be less true. e.g. people often buy carbon batteries because they don't know alkalines are much better value. They also buy cheap light globes because they have no way of knowing whether "long life" light globes really are long life.
In other words with good information people will buy more expensive, better value products. The problem is getting that information reliably to them in the face of bad faith actors who will lie through their teeth to make a sale, including pretending to be those more expensive, better value products. cf. The market for lemons.
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Anonymous company communication is unethical and can and should be highly illegal. Company legal structures require accountability.
Which doesn't change the fact that the view on copyright and media sharing presented on/. is massively biased, and doesn't reflect the general consensus of the wider population, which is exactly what the OP was saying.
Given the fact that the vast majority of the population that can copy, do copy, particularly in the third world, it's pretty clear where the bias is here.
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It's not piracy, it's sharing. Didn't your parents teach you to share?
What few studies there have been that might realistically indicate the views of a whole population mostly don't support your implied position about what the majority of people support.
Actions speak louder than words. The vast majority of people pirate/share, particularly in the third world, despite the incessant propaganda from vested interests. Most people have absolutely no problem sharing.
Of course, if you get all your news on a controversial subject like this from heavily biased sources like Slashdot, you probably place a lot of weight on the one or two headline-grabbing stories about exceptions to this, and overlook everything else.
You're either a lying astroturfer or incredibly naive. Almost the only people who haven't shared media are those who don't know how to. And the only bias around here is from the zealots like yourself who are dishonestly trying to pretend that isn't true.
While I certainly and severely disagree with cliffski on his views on copyright, I would like to note that he is most certainly not a MAFIAA shill, but he is a content creator. Specifically, he makes indie games, mostly of a simulation sort, DRM-free. They're not my cup of tea, but I do suggest you check them out.
I was peripherally aware of that when I wrote that but was in a bad mood and on a roll. As you imply, more likely he's simply spamming repetitive, controversial messages to market his software.
However, don't be surprised if he, and other posters, are much more than that. Astroturfers and assorted other lowlifes are much more active on slashdot than many people realize. e.g. When the RIAA/media sentry's "failing record store post" spam (sorry, tried googling it but it's usually mod'ed down heavily and is buried amongst numerous other piracy related posts) started causing more harm than good it's likely that they replaced it with equally fraudulent but more plausible posts. Wouldn't surprise me at all if the they set up a more fleshed out sock puppet looking like a cliffski. It's certainly true that every time there's a piracy related story on slashdot there's endless repetition of the RIAA's tired, simplistic line by posters pretending they haven't been on slashdot long enough to learn from the much more sophisticated understanding of the subject that most slashdot posters have. I also find a some of the mod's highly suspicious, with some repetitive, content free pro-RIAA posts being mod'ed up and thoughtful, key but anti-RIAA posts being mod'ed down. Those mod's have to be selective because they don't want to be blocked by slashdot itself. There's also mod'ing going on by slashdot staff but that's another story.
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Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
It is *not* your right to take them for free anyway whilst waving some crap about freedom.
Yes it is.
See how that works? A meaningless assertion is replaced by another meaningless assertion.
We're way past your simplistic view of the world. The fact that you spam your views continuously, have done so for a long time now and have not progressed in your views at all suggests you don't give a crap what anybody else thinks. Well guess what? Many of us now don't give a crap what you think. You're probably just a shill anyway given your consistent attempts to push simplistic and self-serving RIAA/MPAA propaganda.
---
Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
People buy based on perception not reality and M$ wants people to perceive M$Win7 as a must have, even if in reality for the vast majority of people it's pointless.
Like being an all around prick to complete strangers on Slashdot?
A content free post mod'ed up. I wonder how that happened?
Advising somebody to not waste their time on marketing drivel is not being prick. Whatever marketers might think.
More generally, just treating people who act like pricks as pricks. I'm more than happy to treat people who are civil to me civilly. Look at my previous posts for many examples.
Marketers as a general rule, and all astroturfers, are pricks. They reap what they sow. In addition if somebody is being suckered by their drivel then they need a reality check.
By some, maybe. Personally, I'm looking forward to upgrading my Vista Tablet PC to Windows 7. I hear it's faster and has quite a few improvements, like the new task bar. So some people -are- eagerly awaiting it.
If you make any decisions based on anything other than the final released product then you are a fool. Until then the marketing parasites are just wasting your time.
I'd suggest you find something more worthwhile to do with your life. Content free marketing drivel is a great way to waste a life.
I'm not talking about a matter of subjective tastes, but about what I consider genuinely a failure of logic and/or intelligence.
You're right but keep in mind that there are people of all ages on the net. Children are "in your face" on the net in a way that doesn't happen in real life.
Teens and even pre-teens discover these things and propagate them. For them it's all new and fun. Even if the 5 year older "old hand" is bored to tears with it.
And new children are born all the time. The best you can do as an adult is to educate them and encourage them to mature as quickly as possible.
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Advertising pays for nothing. Who do you think pays marketer's salaries? You do via higher cost products.
Corporations aren't really moral entities with benevolent scruples about freedom of the press, good vs. evil, etc.
Yes they are.
Companies are nothing more than collections of individuals working together and being an employee, director or shareholder of a company doesn't mystically give those people a get-out-of-jail-free card to act unethically or immorally.
Some sociopaths try to use the companies as an excuse to act immorally/unethically but then, they're sociopaths, and should be dealt with accordingly.
It'd be interesting to data mine how many are discussed for deletion to quantify that.
Yes, that would be an interesting statistic. It'd also be worth trying to mine the various reasons why an article should be included/excluded to find out what criteria people are actually using, as distinct from the formal criteria.
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A neurotic is the man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent. - Jerome Lawrence
I've personally had several well-researched, referenced articles that I regularly used for information removed due to people not finding enough hits on the subject on Google or similar sketchy criteria.
What? Give evidence for your assertion.
In any case, whatever the proportion is it doesn't imply that any article [not] found is controversial in the sense that the viewpoint is contested, just whether the information should be included is controversial.
Given the number of marketing parasites trying to use wikipedia as their private platform wikipedia seems to strike a reasonable balance.
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Marketing talk is not just cheap, it has negative value. Free speech can be compromised just as much by too much noise as too little signal.
The problem with patenting multi-touch gestures is it can lead to a huge learning curve challenge.
To put it another way user interfaces are simply the language that computers and people use to talk to each other.
By allowing patenting language elements the patent office are promoting language splintering and all the problems that entails. Progressing the state of the art my foot.
Of course, the patent office claims that they don't allow the patenting of language elements but that's only their arbitrary definition of language. Another example of their almost complete inability of the patent office to distinguish words and ideas.
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The patent system. The whole edifice is based on handwaving.
Do it when you want, not when they want: Select Edit/Preferences/Advanced/Update/Automatically check for updates to:/Installed Add-ons unticked. Do an update: Select Tools/Add-ons/Extensions/Find Updates. Works for me.
Almost always, it's not "enhanced", it's braindead.
Usually breaking all sorts of user interface guidelines such as interface predictability and breaking everything from mobile devices to blind screen readers to user style overrides such as font size to screen sizing to back buttons. It's usually a pretty strong sign of incompetence when a web designer does a web page (as distinct from a web application) in javascript/flash etc.
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Don't be a programmer-bureaucrat; someone who substitutes marketing buzzwords and software bloat for verifiable improvements.
Hulu so far has kept the total amount of adds and their length to what I find reasonable.I too hope they don't go over board.
You're living in a fantasy land. Over time, just like every other solely "ad supported" service in history, they will increase the ad's until the net value to the viewer is just marginally above zero. Sure, it's "worth it", just, to watch the video. Problem is, there is no significant value for the viewer, it's all going to hulu. And another broadcast television style wasteland develops.
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"Advertising supported" just means you're paying twice over, once in time to watch/avoid the ad and twice in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad.
Lying is one of four factors necessary to comprise fraud.
By who's definition?
Lying, in itself, is not a crime.
Not always. Often however lying, particular for personal gain, is fraud in the broadest sense and has consequences, either socially or legally.
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The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Fraud is deception motivated by the intent to damage another party or for personal gain.
"In the broadest sense, a fraud is a deception made for personal gain or ...". Straight from wikipedia at the time I wrote this. Sounds about right to me as the student was lying for personal gain.
Assuming that you know you're full of shit (and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt), your statement above is a lie. However, it does not constitute fraud.
Perhaps not in a legal sense but in a broader sense it does actually.
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The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Lying is not a crime.
Yes it is. It's called fraud. And as part of their education children are taught that lying has consequences. When they reach adulthood the consequences may be more severe.
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Do you actually have any evidence beyond wishful thinking to support such a claim?
You're in fantasy land. Just look at the numbers on any P2P service and think how much easier and safer it is for most people to copy media privately.
In addition, I've known a lot of people. Almost all know nothing about slashdot. Not a single one who knows how to has not copied repeatedly and many who don't know how to have asked their friends to show them how to do it. My girlfriend for one keeps pestering me to copy media I have no interest in.
Or are you just hoping that if you state it as fact often enough with a sympathetic audience on Slashdot, it will become true?
I don't care. You're the one that's stretching. The onus is on you to show that most people take copyright seriously when anecdotal evidence shows the complete opposite. And that's not even including the third world where piracy rates approach 100%. I've seen that with my own eyes.
I've travelled a fair bit and sharing is common everywhere I've been. Not surprising, it's human nature to share things with friends.
---
Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
Fair enough, sounds like we're talking a little at cross purposes.
Given the fact that the vast majority of the population that can't pay, doesn't pay, particularly in the third world, it's pretty clear where the bias is here.
Doesn't change the fact that the majority of the population the first world pirate. I hope you're not going to claim the majority of people in the first world can't pay? The third world is just a more extreme example. The GP was dishonestly claiming that most people support copyright. That's biased and you're biased for not recognizing that.
Most people, when they think about copyright at all, have complex ideas that the law doesn't reflect at all. They certainly don't allow the law to interfere with sharing with their friends.
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Adopt an astroturfer. Make their life hell.
"Ex post facto" has a specific legal meaning,
Legal terms often have different meanings in general parlance. Lawyers really need to come to terms with the fact that most people's lives do not, and should not, revolve around the law.
---
A neurotic is the man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent. - Jerome Lawrence
Though there is a market for products that give you the warm fuzzies (fair trade, etc), the vast majority of consumers will buy the cheapest product available, even if the price difference is only a few pennies.
That's because in the complex modern world and the deceptiveness of modern mass marketing it's impossible for a customer to have expert knowledge about the majority of products they buy. They simply don't have the time. In the absence of such knowledge (e.g. how long it'll *really* last) the sole criterion left is price. With more honest marketing (if only truth-in-advertising laws were actually enforced!) that would be less true. e.g. people often buy carbon batteries because they don't know alkalines are much better value. They also buy cheap light globes because they have no way of knowing whether "long life" light globes really are long life.
In other words with good information people will buy more expensive, better value products. The problem is getting that information reliably to them in the face of bad faith actors who will lie through their teeth to make a sale, including pretending to be those more expensive, better value products. cf. The market for lemons.
---
Anonymous company communication is unethical and can and should be highly illegal. Company legal structures require accountability.
Which doesn't change the fact that the view on copyright and media sharing presented on /. is massively biased, and doesn't reflect the general consensus of the wider population, which is exactly what the OP was saying.
Given the fact that the vast majority of the population that can copy, do copy, particularly in the third world, it's pretty clear where the bias is here.
---
It's not piracy, it's sharing. Didn't your parents teach you to share?
What few studies there have been that might realistically indicate the views of a whole population mostly don't support your implied position about what the majority of people support.
Actions speak louder than words. The vast majority of people pirate/share, particularly in the third world, despite the incessant propaganda from vested interests. Most people have absolutely no problem sharing.
Of course, if you get all your news on a controversial subject like this from heavily biased sources like Slashdot, you probably place a lot of weight on the one or two headline-grabbing stories about exceptions to this, and overlook everything else.
You're either a lying astroturfer or incredibly naive. Almost the only people who haven't shared media are those who don't know how to. And the only bias around here is from the zealots like yourself who are dishonestly trying to pretend that isn't true.
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Adopt an astroturfer. Make their life hell.
While I certainly and severely disagree with cliffski on his views on copyright, I would like to note that he is most certainly not a MAFIAA shill, but he is a content creator. Specifically, he makes indie games, mostly of a simulation sort, DRM-free. They're not my cup of tea, but I do suggest you check them out.
I was peripherally aware of that when I wrote that but was in a bad mood and on a roll. As you imply, more likely he's simply spamming repetitive, controversial messages to market his software.
However, don't be surprised if he, and other posters, are much more than that. Astroturfers and assorted other lowlifes are much more active on slashdot than many people realize. e.g. When the RIAA/media sentry's "failing record store post" spam (sorry, tried googling it but it's usually mod'ed down heavily and is buried amongst numerous other piracy related posts) started causing more harm than good it's likely that they replaced it with equally fraudulent but more plausible posts. Wouldn't surprise me at all if the they set up a more fleshed out sock puppet looking like a cliffski. It's certainly true that every time there's a piracy related story on slashdot there's endless repetition of the RIAA's tired, simplistic line by posters pretending they haven't been on slashdot long enough to learn from the much more sophisticated understanding of the subject that most slashdot posters have. I also find a some of the mod's highly suspicious, with some repetitive, content free pro-RIAA posts being mod'ed up and thoughtful, key but anti-RIAA posts being mod'ed down. Those mod's have to be selective because they don't want to be blocked by slashdot itself. There's also mod'ing going on by slashdot staff but that's another story.
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Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
It is *not* your right to take them for free anyway whilst waving some crap about freedom.
Yes it is.
See how that works? A meaningless assertion is replaced by another meaningless assertion.
We're way past your simplistic view of the world. The fact that you spam your views continuously, have done so for a long time now and have not progressed in your views at all suggests you don't give a crap what anybody else thinks. Well guess what? Many of us now don't give a crap what you think. You're probably just a shill anyway given your consistent attempts to push simplistic and self-serving RIAA/MPAA propaganda.
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Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
I still cannot fathom why people scramble to get the latest copy of a Windows OS way before it's really even declared "ready."
Most of them are probably astroturfers and sock puppets trying to drum up buzz.
People buy based on perception not reality and M$ wants people to perceive M$Win7 as a must have, even if in reality for the vast majority of people it's pointless.
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Adopt an astroturfer. Make their life hell.
Like being an all around prick to complete strangers on Slashdot?
A content free post mod'ed up. I wonder how that happened?
Advising somebody to not waste their time on marketing drivel is not being prick. Whatever marketers might think.
More generally, just treating people who act like pricks as pricks. I'm more than happy to treat people who are civil to me civilly. Look at my previous posts for many examples.
Marketers as a general rule, and all astroturfers, are pricks. They reap what they sow. In addition if somebody is being suckered by their drivel then they need a reality check.
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Adopt an astroturfer. Make their life hell.
By some, maybe. Personally, I'm looking forward to upgrading my Vista Tablet PC to Windows 7. I hear it's faster and has quite a few improvements, like the new task bar. So some people -are- eagerly awaiting it.
If you make any decisions based on anything other than the final released product then you are a fool. Until then the marketing parasites are just wasting your time.
I'd suggest you find something more worthwhile to do with your life. Content free marketing drivel is a great way to waste a life.
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Adopt an astroturfer. Make their life hell.
I'm not talking about a matter of subjective tastes, but about what I consider genuinely a failure of logic and/or intelligence.
You're right but keep in mind that there are people of all ages on the net. Children are "in your face" on the net in a way that doesn't happen in real life.
Teens and even pre-teens discover these things and propagate them. For them it's all new and fun. Even if the 5 year older "old hand" is bored to tears with it.
And new children are born all the time. The best you can do as an adult is to educate them and encourage them to mature as quickly as possible.
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Advertising pays for nothing. Who do you think pays marketer's salaries? You do via higher cost products.
Corporations aren't really moral entities with benevolent scruples about freedom of the press, good vs. evil, etc.
Yes they are.
Companies are nothing more than collections of individuals working together and being an employee, director or shareholder of a company doesn't mystically give those people a get-out-of-jail-free card to act unethically or immorally.
Some sociopaths try to use the companies as an excuse to act immorally/unethically but then, they're sociopaths, and should be dealt with accordingly.
---
Adopt an astroturfer. Make their life hell.
It'd be interesting to data mine how many are discussed for deletion to quantify that.
Yes, that would be an interesting statistic. It'd also be worth trying to mine the various reasons why an article should be included/excluded to find out what criteria people are actually using, as distinct from the formal criteria.
---
A neurotic is the man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent. - Jerome Lawrence
I've personally had several well-researched, referenced articles that I regularly used for information removed due to people not finding enough hits on the subject on Google or similar sketchy criteria.
What? Give evidence for your assertion.
In any case, whatever the proportion is it doesn't imply that any article [not] found is controversial in the sense that the viewpoint is contested, just whether the information should be included is controversial.
Given the number of marketing parasites trying to use wikipedia as their private platform wikipedia seems to strike a reasonable balance.
---
Marketing talk is not just cheap, it has negative value. Free speech can be compromised just as much by too much noise as too little signal.
The problem with patenting multi-touch gestures is it can lead to a huge learning curve challenge.
To put it another way user interfaces are simply the language that computers and people use to talk to each other.
By allowing patenting language elements the patent office are promoting language splintering and all the problems that entails. Progressing the state of the art my foot.
Of course, the patent office claims that they don't allow the patenting of language elements but that's only their arbitrary definition of language. Another example of their almost complete inability of the patent office to distinguish words and ideas.
---
The patent system. The whole edifice is based on handwaving.
Do it when you want, not when they want: Select Edit/Preferences/Advanced/Update/Automatically check for updates to:/Installed Add-ons unticked. Do an update: Select Tools/Add-ons/Extensions/Find Updates. Works for me.
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Adopt an astroturfer. Make their life hell.
I'd rather take the ads, and get my entertainment for free.
It's only free if your time and attention is worth nothing.
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An unobtrusive ad is a non-functional ad. It is a non-sustainable business model.
retaining the "enhanced" behaviour
Almost always, it's not "enhanced", it's braindead.
Usually breaking all sorts of user interface guidelines such as interface predictability and breaking everything from mobile devices to blind screen readers to user style overrides such as font size to screen sizing to back buttons. It's usually a pretty strong sign of incompetence when a web designer does a web page (as distinct from a web application) in javascript/flash etc.
---
Don't be a programmer-bureaucrat; someone who substitutes marketing buzzwords and software bloat for verifiable improvements.
Hulu so far has kept the total amount of adds and their length to what I find reasonable.I too hope they don't go over board.
You're living in a fantasy land. Over time, just like every other solely "ad supported" service in history, they will increase the ad's until the net value to the viewer is just marginally above zero. Sure, it's "worth it", just, to watch the video. Problem is, there is no significant value for the viewer, it's all going to hulu. And another broadcast television style wasteland develops.
---
"Advertising supported" just means you're paying twice over, once in time to watch/avoid the ad and twice in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad.
Don't exaggerate. ... they are partially responsible for the content.
When you look at at a youtube web page you are seeing content from several sources. There is joint responsibility.
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Adopt an astroturfer. Make their life hell.