As Christian correctly pointed out, my reason for thinking that Squidley is a shill have far less to do with devotion to 1 Microsoft Way than it does with posting patterns.

The only times I remember Squidley showing up here are during major Microsoft controversies, at which point this ID posted in the Microsoft forum and got a long flamewar going. This pattern is rather suspicious. A real person would be liable to show up in other forums. One would expect someone who is really that devoted to Microsoft and is technically competent to, for instance, post in the Windows forum, or the .NET discussion in the programming forum, etc. A real person would also not only show up when the stakes are high for Microsoft for external reason. (And never show up just because we are having a good row about Microsoft.)

So what does fit?

Well we have here a fairly small and isolated community with a large number of people known to post cogent and persuasive anti-Microsoft comments in a variety of online forums. I submit that if Microsoft has a strategy of trying to manipulate the display of information in public forums, it makes perfect sense at key points for them to tie up the energy of this group by involving the most vocal of us in a pointless, content-free little flamewar with limited public visibility. In other words while an independent person, no matter how devoted to Microsoft, doesn't fit what Squidley does, a shill definitely does.

I also have one more tidbit for people who think I am spinning a paranoid fantasy. Take a look at the [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=28979|response] to my accusation that Squidley was being paid to post here:

Unlike me, you are paid to carry on this discussion at length.

Why would you say that? Is it inconceivable that we could simply disagree?

Note that Microsoft has been burnt several times by having shills claim outright that they weren't Microsoft employees. As a result they have become more careful about that particular lie. As you see, Squidley is careful to dodge the point and avoids saying one way or the other whether I am right. I submit that the reaction that I would expect from a normal person to an accusation that far out of left field would be something like, Huh? The reaction I would have expected from a shill is..exactly what I got.

Now I might be right, and I might be wrong. But as long as I believe that Squidley is a shill, I am going to call a spade a spade. (And even if Squidley isn't a shill, the effect has been the same. Squidley long ago passed the point where I care about giving the benefit of the doubt. This isn't a court of law.)

Ben

Put out minimal energy at points where you are afraid that contrary public discussion would be strongly detrimental to your interests to sap as many opposing resources as you can.

Disingenuous questions here is a rather effective way to execute that strategy, don't you think?

I invite everyone to take a look at the flamewar in the Microsoft forum, look at how much energy went on our part into that, and ask what some of those people, if they had been involved in other discussions on other forums, might have done. Thin in particular in terms of arguments advanced for throwing the book at Microsoft, which might be picked up by reporters and then find their way back to a certain judge.

Hell. There were arguments that appeared in that discussion which might have done damage elsewhere! But it didn't. All of that knowledge and perspective was bottled up here where it was safe (for Microsoft.

Not a bad investment...

Ben