"Make it look organic" is a lofty goal, but I don't think it's realistic. As Misery from Ruby Gloom says, you don't tell people you're starting a craze, a craze just happens.
Samsung agency is buying off StackOverflow users
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Re: Samsung agency is buying off StackOverflow users
#32Whatever. If you don't think this sort of thing isn't happening at EVERY web top-100 web site, you've got another thing coming.
Re: Samsung agency is buying off StackOverflow users
#33$500 to be a whore. No.
So is it just a matter of price? At which price would it be ok?
When you can enough for the community using the money you'll get to outweigh any damage this spam would cause.
Assuming these posts would be moderated fairly quickly and thus not have that much impact on the site, would it not be worth posting one of these if it means a $1k donation to stackoverflow.com? How about 10k?
Surely at some point the benefits outweigh the damage.
Re: Samsung agency is buying off StackOverflow users
#34The agency (FLLU) seem really small. Too small in fact, because most companies would engage a substantially larger firm and have account managers and would handle all of this stuff coherently from one place rather than use potentially hundreds of firms this size (3 people).
Before everyone jumps to conclusions... could it not be the case that someone with just a very small bit of budget said "Wouldn't it be great if..." and then hired this little company "I know a few guys who could..." to help promote it, failing to understand what form that promotion would take.
Of course, it can and should be argued that Samsung (and their many departments and entities) had a tighter leash for their managers and such "little" projects and initiatives... but I wouldn't argue that not having a tight enough leash is tantamount to Samsung consciously trying to bribe users.
This is where I long for journalists over bloggers... perhaps someone could find out who hired FLLU? Then perhaps someone could ask that someone the basis for the campaign and whether it was authorised by Samsung.
Re: Samsung agency is buying off StackOverflow users
#35$500 to be a whore. No.
So is it just a matter of price? At which price would it be ok?
looks like a significant overvaluation to me:
$2 is about right (http://www.thepricegeek.com/results/my+integrity?country=us)
Re: Samsung agency is buying off StackOverflow users
#36I try to refrain from being a spelling nazi here, but "So, I shot back this brisque email" made me laugh. It's like a portmanteau of "brusque" and "brisk."
I once tried to send a brisket email.
It... did not end well.
Re: Samsung agency is buying off StackOverflow users
#37$500 to be a whore. No.
Actually, I don't thing being a whore compares to this. Prostitution does not involve deceiving anyone and is not unethical.
What Samsung asked him to do is way worse than prostitution.
Re: Samsung agency is buying off StackOverflow users
#38Shame on them.
Re: Samsung agency is buying off StackOverflow users
#39So in the end you've chosen to advertise it on HN?
Re: Samsung agency is buying off StackOverflow users
#40They'd be better going after people who center themselves around Android dev and have a lot of followers on Twitter, G+, etc.