Quite some time has passed since I actively posted on the CDU forum. That, however, does not mean I have divested my holdings of CuDeco, in fact I have added 20% since August last year.
While now infrequent, my visits to the HC CDU forum are noting an increase in activity of a nature commensurate with the doings of Sockpuppets and Trolls.
Trolling is a game about identity deception, albeit one that is played without the consent of most of the players. The troll attempts to pass as a legitimate participant, sharing the group's common interests and concerns; the newsgroups members, if they are cognizant of trolls and other identity deceptions, attempt to both distinguish real from trolling postings, and upon judging a poster a troll, make the offending poster leave the group. Their success at the former depends on how well they and the troll understand identity cues; their success at the latter depends on whether the troll's enjoyment is sufficiently diminished or outweighed by the costs imposed by the group.
Trolls can be costly in several ways. A troll can disrupt the discussion on a newsgroup, disseminate bad advice, and damage the feeling of trust in the newsgroup community.
A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception within an online community. In its earliest usage, a sockpuppet was a false identity through which a member of an Internet community speaks with or about himself or herself, pretending to be a different person, like a ventriloquist manipulating a handpuppet. In current usage, the perception of the term has been extended beyond second identities of people who already post in a forum or blog to include other uses of misleading online identities. For example, a New York Times article claims that "sockpuppeting" is defined as "the act of creating a fake online identity to praise, defend or create the illusion of support for one's self, allies or company.
The key difference between a sockpuppet and a regular pseudonym is the pretense that the puppet is a third party who is not affiliated with the puppeteer or acting under their control for their benefit.
In the case of online share forums, it is common enough to see up and down ramping, and these posters are easily identified, with exuberance and despair often being misinterpreted as ramping.
Sockpuppets and Trolls are less easily identified, as their true persona is carefully disguised in such manner as to be aligned with the persons whose thinking they are trying to influence with their posts. Of the two, Sockpuppets can cause the most angst and may well be supported by a group of advisers, and if so supported, the sockpuppet persona may appeal to numerous members of a forum through careful psychological manipulation and presentation of their posts, a common ploy being to present posts containing (say) 10% provable/truth as an adjunct to 90% downramping conjecture. The truth encourages the reader to believe the other 90%, this being the object of the Sockpuppets post. (Reader: I know that is correct so I guess the rest is).
The purpose of this is well documented. Wherever there is money to be made, there is skulduggery afoot.
I have made it clear to all of the older posters of this forum that I support the Company, and its executives 100%, and that I am more than content to go mining to collect dividends at some future date. I am a true believer, and I have made careful assessments of the core samples analysis - I find no reason to consider some of the extraordinary remarks occasioned here other than to note that those remarks originate from posters who I would categorize as a Troll or a Sockpuppet.
Take care who you believe in an internet forum - these people will have you selling your stock at open regardless of the price.
I will not enter into any discussion as to whom I refer.
text in italics provided by Wikipedia
LYC Price at posting:
$2.45 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Not Held
(20min delay)