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Ask HN: If there was a bury/upmod brigade on HN, how would we know?

10 points by osipov 17y ago

Has anyone reviewed HN Arc source code to check if there is any log data of up/down mods? Is there a way to perform analytics to look for a HN equivalent of a "bury brigade"?

jacquesm 17y ago
I've definitely seen evidence of 'upmod' brigades, if you refresh the 'new' page with a relatively high frequency (say once every two minutes) every now and then you pick up a new article that is complete nonsense but that already has 3 or 4 upvotes in less than the minute that it is alive. Bury brigades are less common, but there are definitely people that have a 'fanclub' that will downmod whatever they write no matter how on topic or good the contribution is. Usually this corrects itself after a while though.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
messel 17y ago
1) crap articles rise only as large as the brigade. If they have hundreds or thousands of coordinated voters, they'd be better off at bigger audience sites 2) they'd leave a clear repeat user ID/IP trace. So moderator can automate detection of anomalous upvote coincidences 3) if they faked new IPs while upvoting and rotated user IDs we'd have a more difficult detection problem. We can look at growth trends of upvotes for derivatives that are anomalous. Coincidental upvotes would show up. 4) if the upvote gang rotates IDs, IPs, and upvote intervals the HN team is faced with a fun challenge. Something Digg, Stumbleupon, etc have likely faced in the past. Chances are, your attention isn't worth it. But a dangerous piece of malware may be. Interesting question. What if they faked credentials from low activity members that were compromised?
- messel 17y ago
  Downvote for sharing opinion? Huh
  - mbenjaminsmith 17y ago
    I've been down-voted enough recently that I've considered not coming back. One time I feel I added a comment that wasn't helpful or necessary, but the rest was all my honest / best opinion on whatever was being discussed. I don't know, unhappy people with too much time on their hands? Laid off coders maybe? If it's a trend it's a shame.
    - mbenjaminsmith 17y ago
      ...and I get down-voted for that?
      - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
        I didn't downvote you, but word to the wise: complaining about getting downvoted without anything of larger value to add to the conversation almost always gets you downvoted more (and any parent comments as well that you made in that thread) When I first started I spent one thread basically telling the rest of the room to go jump in a lake for downvoting me. I lost about 7 karma points that day, so I don't do that anymore. :) A more reasonable question is: I do not understand what I said that was so bad. Would somebody please take the time to explain to me why you think I was downvoted?
        jacquesm 17y ago
        He's right though, look at his comment history.
        DanielBMarkham 17y ago
        Not any more. Got to do my good deed for today. Now back to work.
        plinkplonk 17y ago
        I think (in this case) whining provokes downvotes. As simple as that. This is just a discussion forum for $Diety's sake. Getting downvoted to -4 isn't the end of the world. It is just a number on a webpage which has no impact on your success in the real world. Just try to improve your points/writing. That's what I do when I am downvoted to oblivion and I care about upvotes.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  4 or 5 is plenty, once an article hits the front page even if it is rubbish it tends to pick up enough upvotes to stay there for a long time. The dynamics of the 'new' page and the 'front' page are completely different.
ratsbane 17y ago
Hacker News source: http://github.com/nex3/arc/blob/master/news.arc http://github.com/nex3/arc/blob/master/news.arc Check out vote-for at line 1351. I'm looking at the code and wondering how it keeps users from up/down voting for the same article more than once.* It must be there but I'm not yet following how this works. Interesting code, though. I wish I understood it better. *[edit] as this implies that it's keeping a list of votes as article-user records somewhere.
rms 17y ago
PG says that his best software for checking this is not in the public source code.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

10 points by osipov 17y ago

Has anyone reviewed HN Arc source code to check if there is any log data of up/down mods? Is there a way to perform analytics to look for a HN equivalent of a "bury brigade"?

jacquesm 17y ago

I've definitely seen evidence of 'upmod' brigades, if you refresh the 'new' page with a relatively high frequency (say once every two minutes) every now and then you pick up a new article that is complete nonsense but that already has 3 or 4 upvotes in less than the minute that it is alive. Bury brigades are less common, but there are definitely people that have a 'fanclub' that will downmod whatever they write no matter how on topic or good the contribution is. Usually this corrects itself after a while though.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

messel 17y ago

1) crap articles rise only as large as the brigade. If they have hundreds or thousands of coordinated voters, they'd be better off at bigger audience sites 2) they'd leave a clear repeat user ID/IP trace. So moderator can automate detection of anomalous upvote coincidences 3) if they faked new IPs while upvoting and rotated user IDs we'd have a more difficult detection problem. We can look at growth trends of upvotes for derivatives that are anomalous. Coincidental upvotes would show up. 4) if the upvote gang rotates IDs, IPs, and upvote intervals the HN team is faced with a fun challenge. Something Digg, Stumbleupon, etc have likely faced in the past. Chances are, your attention isn't worth it. But a dangerous piece of malware may be. Interesting question. What if they faked credentials from low activity members that were compromised?

messel 17y ago
Downvote for sharing opinion? Huh
- mbenjaminsmith 17y ago
  I've been down-voted enough recently that I've considered not coming back. One time I feel I added a comment that wasn't helpful or necessary, but the rest was all my honest / best opinion on whatever was being discussed. I don't know, unhappy people with too much time on their hands? Laid off coders maybe? If it's a trend it's a shame.
  - mbenjaminsmith 17y ago
    ...and I get down-voted for that?
    - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
      I didn't downvote you, but word to the wise: complaining about getting downvoted without anything of larger value to add to the conversation almost always gets you downvoted more (and any parent comments as well that you made in that thread) When I first started I spent one thread basically telling the rest of the room to go jump in a lake for downvoting me. I lost about 7 karma points that day, so I don't do that anymore. :) A more reasonable question is: I do not understand what I said that was so bad. Would somebody please take the time to explain to me why you think I was downvoted?
      - jacquesm 17y ago
        He's right though, look at his comment history.
        DanielBMarkham 17y ago
        Not any more. Got to do my good deed for today. Now back to work.
        plinkplonk 17y ago
        I think (in this case) whining provokes downvotes. As simple as that. This is just a discussion forum for $Diety's sake. Getting downvoted to -4 isn't the end of the world. It is just a number on a webpage which has no impact on your success in the real world. Just try to improve your points/writing. That's what I do when I am downvoted to oblivion and I care about upvotes.
jacquesm 17y ago
4 or 5 is plenty, once an article hits the front page even if it is rubbish it tends to pick up enough upvotes to stay there for a long time. The dynamics of the 'new' page and the 'front' page are completely different.

ratsbane 17y ago

Hacker News source: http://github.com/nex3/arc/blob/master/news.arc http://github.com/nex3/arc/blob/master/news.arc Check out vote-for at line 1351. I'm looking at the code and wondering how it keeps users from up/down voting for the same article more than once.* It must be there but I'm not yet following how this works. Interesting code, though. I wish I understood it better. *[edit] as this implies that it's keeping a list of votes as article-user records somewhere.

rms 17y ago

PG says that his best software for checking this is not in the public source code.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]