Grim's Hall

A case of verification. Or sock puppets. Or both.

In this post, Karrde muses on basically "How do we know what we know and how do we know who to trust?" (Or something like that).

An interesting example of trust and credibility has occurred, dissected at great length by Eric Scheie of the blog Classical Values.

Starting here, (actually that may not be the start, its just where I picked it up), and continuing here, and here and here and finally (as of my posting), here Mr Scheie starts digging into the people supposedly working at (and others quoted by) a site called Capital Hill Blues, which is supposedly a sort of newsletter site covering Capitol Hill. Or something like that.

It appears that the whole site may be the work of one guy, constantly inventing new people and quoting non-existant scholars, doctors and so forth, none of them real. Or not real in so much as Google can reveal.

This has affinities with a phenomenon called 'sock puppets' --usually referring to the antic of defending or supporting oneself with a different screen name or email address---for a classic example of sock puppetry, see Ace of Spades HQ and this post on Glenn Greenwald. Actually, there's plenty more there on that affair, and it makes for curious reading.

So, reader beware. If such things are happening, they are happening everywhere.