Ok. Let's try again.
I will admit that I had a bit of a knee-jerk reaction after noticing messages popping up out of order, and maybe I shouldn't have posted my suspicions on other fora.
But I will insist that the forum etiquette here is very poor and if people here decide to behave as if they were shills they should not be surprised if somebody eventually does call them shills
- or in the terms it was discussed here previously:
If you don't want to be mistaken for a duck, then don't quack like a duck!
Just to be clear what type of behaviour I am talking about - here's a list of typical strategies that internet shills would apply (eg on the topics of pesticides and GM):
Strategy No. 1: They write nonsensical or distractive posts in order to make a thread that is critical about pesticides or GM boring and uninteresting to any genuine beekeeper. - Please notice that shills usually work as a team, boosting each other and driving the thread away from its original intention.
A second strategy is to make the pesticide or GM sceptic look ridiculous, foolish, fanatical, an outsider or - a favourite - calling him a conspiracy theorist. They will also try to associate him with unpopular persons or movements.
A third strategy is to baffle the genuine reader with science: they claim that if you haven't read certain scientific papers from beginning to end you can't take part in the discussion, they make you feel inferior. - Not-so-subtle psychology being used here in order to frustrate you and to scare you away from the real issues.
Typically, posts sent by shills appear very quickly after any concerns about pesticides or GM are raised as they are using the search facility all the time just to track these topics!
If I notice this kind of behaviour here again I will not hesitate to point it out and initiate steps to curtail it.
I am very interested to continue our debate about pesticides, but it has to be done in a civil way. I will start a new thread shortly, to which all concerned beekeepers will be encouraged to contribute.
Best wishes, Doris