Interesting Read take it for what you will Confessions of a basher
I copied and pasted this, it's a good read...
"There are three types of bashers
Advanced, Intermediate and Beginner. An Advanced-level basher (also
known as a Silver Tongued Devil) would spread false or misleading
information about the company.
They would deal in facts, countering every longs post with articles,
news reports and opinion surveys that gave a negative impression about
the company.
An Intermediate-level basher (also known as a Serpent) would try to
weasel their way into the confidence of longs and create doubt using
rumor or innuendo.
Finally, a Beginner-level basher (also known as a Pitchfork) would
attempt to create confusion in the room by distracting other posters
with satire, name calling and pointless arguments. The idea was to
make sure no serious discussion of the stock
could take place. A Pitchfork was usually a basher, but not always.
Sometimes, we would throw in a hypster Pitchfork such as MONEYMADE and
laptop and a pumper like Datatech to create the illusion of an
argument going on. What was really funny (in a perverse way, I guess)
was that Datatech and I sat next to each other, laughing the whole
time.
I was a Serpent basher, because I am known for effective bashing based
on solid facts and truth. I was paid a base wage of $18 an hour for my
services. I was given a $1.25 bonus for every decent quality post over
100 per day as well as a monthly bonus of $100 for every penny the
stock had dropped from the previous month. I was also paid a bonus for
bashing on weekends. While this may not sound like much, I made a
decent, though dishonorable, paycheck plus a nice Laptop with free
wireless internet connection.
Each of us sat in a small half-cubicle in a cluster with our
teammates. Each group (usually five people) was made of three
beginners (two who would bash and one who would hype), one
intermediate and one advanced level basher. Occasionally for some
of the hotter stocks, one of the beginners would be replaced by an
intermediate depending on how much the stock was rising. IDWD was a
low-level stock, meaning it got the 3-1-1 configuration.
Honestly though, somehow, I get the feeling that WV Hillbilly may have
worked for a basher company or knows someone who does because the fund
websites he occasionally posts is eerily similar to our employer's
websites. While not exact, I'd say it is about 90 percent the same. We
do have certain rules that we follow.
First, we have to develop a character and stay within that character
in order to build a "following." My character, "FogOfWar," was a
humorous, sarcastic, obnoxious supporter of free speech and loved to
portray himself as a truth-telling superhero, but only when it came to
bashers.
Next, we had to follow certain guidelines on what we could say. We
were urged to have an "answer" to every long's question, but we were
to frame that answer in a way that ridiculed the questioner for asking
such a question. However, we were never to use profanity or vulgarity
because that would cause people to ignore us. We were to make fun of
people, but in a civil way. The idea was to get "play," i.e. reaction
from other posters. The more play we got, the more the room would be
disrupted. Ignored posters get no play. One exception would be the
hypsters since they were "defending" the stock against our onslaught,
they got a little more leeway. People would side with the hypster
because they thought he was real since he appeared to be on their
side, but was really on ours, setting us up to disrupt the room.
MoneyMade was quite good at this and gets paid very well.
I've worked on IDWD, VLO, AGII, QBID, BKMP for a few months now. In
addition to the FogOfWar alias, I've used a few others on several
other boards as well. I've used so many aliases that I can not
remember the monikers or the passwords. I honestly lost track of
everything. I stuck with FogOfWar because it was the one that got the
most play from other posters.
In closing, I feel absolutely terrible about this. It's just awful how
I've been part of a scam designed to cheat honest, hard-working people
out of their investments all for the
benefit of a few wealthy people who already have enough money to last
a lifetime.
These greedy people MUST be stopped. That's why I'm posting this
before I leave. I want to make up for some of the damage I've done. I
can't live with this lie anymore. You can't imagine how hard it is to
look at myself in the mirror each morning knowing my job is to cheat
and lie
You may all draw your own conclusions