Just so we're clear on this, I asked Alex to post the above. He's just pretending to be upset.

Oh, you asked 'Alex', huh? Come on, we know that you and he are one and the same.

Somehow I still feel cheated. I'm working on a social news site, and we do not use ghost accounts or fake stats. People still suspect us doing it anyway :( Now I know - they have a good reason to suspect everybody.

For a site like jaanix or reddit (or news.yc), there's no implicit fraud in having lots of ghost accounts, as long as you don't include them in stats to advertisers or whatever. People come for the content, not because others are there.

Unlike reddit or news.yc, jaanix has a recommender that is based on implicit trust between the users. Sock puppets destroy this trust.

Hm. It still seems like consistency would fix that. It would make "doing it right" a little harder, but it could be done with no loss for normal users, I think.

> every website that depends on community activity, starts as a ghost town, with fictional accounts

Apparently, this is very common practice on dating websites.

Yes, dating websites have that, but there is clear maliciousness in that, as they try to make you think somebody is interested on you, so you can fork money. News.yc is not trying to bilk money out of you, or try to play with your emotions. PG using nickb's name (if it is so), might be similiar to countless of writers that user pseudonims on their work. I doesn't make them worse people for doing so.

Anyways, all web 2.0 have gohsts, or test accounts, youtube, friendster (used to have them marked as test), facebook, you name it. and of course, we have Tom of myspace, the most profilic account ever (who lied about his age too). So, what? The value of news.yc is the great submissions and comments comming from everybody, and not just pg, nickb, or whoever else.

I used to make and sell software for classified ad management, including personals. There is a loose code of ethics for newspapers: they will post "filler" ads if there aren't enough paying customers, however they never pretend to contact a customer and they maintain custoemr privacy.

For example, one client had filler adverts in their personals section. There was a box number for snail mail replies, and their strict policy was that all replies to the fictitious ads were shredded unopened and unread.

Just an anecdote, no opinion on what is and is not legitimate business...

Another difference is that dating sites typically "borrow" the images of very hot young ladies. That's certainly a much greater level of deceptiveness.