> You sound upset about the accusation. What if it were true though?

If it were true, that would be bad and a problem. We crack down on such misuses of HN in every way we know how. As a matter of fact, we take them personally as an attack on the whole community.

But making such accusations indiscriminately is a sure way to poison the very same community. We don't want that to happen either. That means we all have to be disciplined about this and not just cry "NSA Shill!" (or whatever) out of frustration at wrong or contrary opinions.

The truth is that opinion is divided on this, as on most other issues, among legitimate community members. That alone means that ipso facto accusations of astroturfing aren't legit here. Without evidence, it's just a personal attack, and those are not ok.

Comments like this are what make musings about astroturfing so toxic.

I don't know what it is about us message board nerds that makes this so hard to grok, but you cannot suggest that someone is a shill without overtly calling their integrity into question. Questioning someone's integrity is intrinsically uncivil. Don't be uncivil.

What I'm hearing is you'd like to make the topic of astroturfing "off-limits", because you feel its discussion is "toxic".

That's exactly what "message board nerds" do: focus on the gestalt rather than the substance. Call people out as not p.c. to silence an opinion.