Denial of productivity attack
A denial of productivity attack (DoPA) is an action or series of actions that prevents an individual or group from doing their jobs by diverting their time and effort.[1]
Climate change denier Steve McIntyre is an enthusiastic user of the Denial of Productivity Attack. Climate scientists Gerald North describes McIntyre's approach:
“”This guy can just wear you out. He has started it with me but I just don’t bite. But there are some guys, Ben Santer comes to mind, who if they are questioned will take a lot of time to answer. He’s sincere and he just can’t leave these things [alone]. If you get yourself in a back-and-forth with these guys it can be never ending, and basically they shut you down with requests. They want everything, all your computer programs. Then they send you back a comment saying, “I don’t understand this, can you explain it to me.” It’s never ending. And the first thing you know you’re spending all your time dealing with these guys. |
| —[2] |
Repeated FOIA requests are sometimes discussed as a hypothetical DoPA, and have been used as such at least once.[3]
For a cooler, positive example, Spamnesty[4] does this to spammers by using a bot to fake interested replies to the spammer for as long as possible. Example.
References
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