3 ms·
Astroturfing.
by sbierwagen 11y ago
Astroturfing.
- bduerst 11y agoSomething fishy is going on with new HN accounts created right after this was posted: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ajax_freak https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ajax_freak https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=hws100 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=hws100 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=rivalz https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=rivalz
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dang 11y agoActually, this is an interesting case. It looks to me like the early votes were real, but then a bunch of later voters showed up to promote the story. Perhaps teammates got wind of their startup being on HN. All: promotional voting is bad on HN. It's against the rules, users hate it and are good at detecting it, and we penalize accounts and sites that do it. In this case, though, there clearly was some real community interest, so we've reduced the penalty on the story. Hopefully the thread can focus on the actual startup now.
- sanderjd 11y agoHonest question: if in the future a company I work for is submitted to HN and I notice, should I really not upvote it? That seems like it would be a really unnatural reaction.
- dang 11y agoAn isolated vote won't make a difference. If a bunch of people have the same reaction, that might be indistinguishable from a voting ring.