On the matter of sock puppetry

The Internet is a wild and wooly place where people often use bad words and say mean things about others. Some of them are even on the CL payroll.
That said, there still are rules of semi-civilized cyber behavior. And, as silly as it may sound at first, one of our favorites basically comes down to this: Thou shalt keep it real. Let's face it, one of the prime selling points of the Internet is that it's supposed to be a place where you can find out what other people really think — from the citizen reviewers on Yelp! to your local neighborhood listserv to former Mayor Shirley Franklin's late-night blog comments.

But what if you learned that people were getting paid to post good reviews to Yelp!? Or that someone else was using Shirley's name to post her characteristically prickly missives? Or that half the comments in an online discussion on a particularly contentious Fresh Loaf blog item were written by the same person using different web handles?

Yeah, we're getting pretty tired of that shit here, too. Unfortunately, some folks over at City Hall have been spending quite a lot time in recent months on some heavy-duty sock-puppetry — typically taking the side of the Reed administration against some perceived adversary (the Council, then-school board Chairman Khaatim El and Council Prez Ceasar Mitchell, pension-reform opponents, etc.). (It should also be noted that there was online astroturfing aplenty during the 2009 mayoral race and that all sides appeared guilty.)