Battlefoam Brigade and Special Ops Brigade Website Similarities–A Concerted Attempt at Astroturfing
I hate astroturfing. Astroturfing, for those that do not know, is an act of media manipulation where a party tries to stimulate a grass-roots community response. Usually by dropping hints in the ears of people respected in the community about a given topic or trying to steer conversations in forums with sock-puppet forum posts. I believe someone is trying to astroturf me, but I cannot discuss the issue without mentioning the topic the astroturfer wanted me to post about. After much thought, I decided to post the astroturfed topic with the following disclaimer: I want to make it very clear that this information came from a source I believe has an agenda hostile to Battlefoam. The issue is a similarity between a Battlefoam website and a paintball website.
I do not buy or use miniature transport cases, so I have no personal interest in the Battlefoam v. Outrider case. It is just a noteworthy legal issue in the gaming community, so I write about it. I bear no particular malice or even interest toward either party. I have more important things to do with my life than fret over the behavior of some game accessory makers. I really strive for fair and accurate information when reporting business or legal issues (see my rant posts for my opinion) on Livingdice. For as much as I do not care, I know some people do care and bear real malice towards Battlefoam. I had to shut off comments to extinguish flame wars that rarely break out on LD. Apparently one of these zealots decided to take action using my site as a weapon, so on to the astroturfing!
Two days ago, I received an email from “Mark” through the LD contact form informing me of a similarity between two web sites. One is the new Battlefoambrigade.com website and something called “Special Ops Brigdade,” a site for paintball enthusiasts. I took a look and they indeed did look similar, but so do many web sites, so I did not consider it newsworthy. Here is a side-by-side image of the two sites to save you some time.
Though I thought it a trivial issue, someone believed it worthy of my attention and tried very hard to interest me in the topic.
A day passes and I get another email from someone named “Doug” about the same issue and a link to a Special Ops forum discussion. (Update: the forum is no longer available, not sure why.) I took a look at the forum and noted the first poster was a new forum member with only a single post to his name. At this point, I grew suspicious. I smelled an astroturfing attempt.
A quick check of the two IP addresses provided by my contact form revealed both initial emails came from the same general location (a town north of Atlanta, Georgia). I also responded to both emails and they bounced as invalid.
Do I have direct rock-solid proof of astroturfing? No, but there is enough evidence for me to believe there is and since it is my site, that is enough.
So, I have a message for potential astroturfers out there seeking to use Livingdice.com as a forum for your propaganda. Keep your petty flame wars on the forums. I want no part of it. Oh, and go straight to hell.
Trask, The Last Tyromancer
IIRC, when the BF fansite was announced on DakkaDakka about a month or so ago it was mentioned that they had gotten the same coder as the paintball/airsoft website to do theirs, and that he basically just reskinned it.
if only the coder changed the texts… they are exactly the same and it looks silly one next to the other… I suspected that was the case, but it should be more personalized, at least from a PR point of view, they are trying to sell a community service, catered to wargamers with a standarized discourse…