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@mods An account with the same username as OP was allegedly spamming r/programming. https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5t7akn/50_bytes_of_code_that

@mods An account with the same username as OP was allegedly spamming r/programming. https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5t7akn/50_bytes_of_code_that_took_4_gb_to_compile/ddknrfu/?utm_content=permalink&utm_medium=front&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=programming https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5t7akn/50_byte...

DanBC 10y ago
You should email the mods (at the address in the guidelines) because they don't see every post and tagging mods doesn't work.
eganist 10y ago
Not even alleged anymore. The account's been shadowbanned (https://www.reddit.com/user/dotnetnews https://www.reddit.com/user/dotnetnews), a confirmation from Reddit admins that they've validated it as a spam/bot account. And yet this post is back up, which means someone vouched for it. Flagged it.
- endianswap 10y ago
  I doubt Bruce Dawson commissioned a spam bot to post his ancient articles. My guess is that it was vouched for because it's an actually interesting article (hence the corresponding votes) and users don't really care who posted it if it's interesting.
  - eganist 10y ago
    I'll interpret this to mean anyone can script a submission bot which automagically submits to hackernews so long as the articles could be perceived as interesting. I'm assuming that's not the intent of the submission function, but short of clarification from dang etc, I'll assume no one has a problem with it.
    - Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
      https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/ Seriously, though, do you have any evidence that this guy is a bot?
    - dsp1234 10y ago
      perceived as interesting Well, they would actually need to be interesting. There have been users who do what amounts to "interesting article arbitrage" by automatically submitting popular posts from other platforms. You can find the submission guidelines here (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). The only one that really would apply to a bot, anymore than a normal person, is "Please don't submit so many links at once that the new page is dominated by your submissions.", which naive bots are likely to do.
    - kbenson 10y ago
      > I'll interpret this to mean anyone can script a submission bot which automagically submits to hackernews so long as the articles could be perceived as interesting. Yes, I would say so. Nobody is going to complain (at least not with a valid complaint) as long as the articles are perceived as interesting and upvoted. In fact, I imagine you could do a good Show HN about the bot if it worked well enough. The problem is when the quality slips, and it starts sliding towards spam (even if the intention was good).
- Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
  Don't judge a post by its author. If the user has done anything to merit being hellbanned on HN, that's a seperate matter. This submission looks fine as-is and there's no reason to flag it on its own merits. I would always vote for telling the user that they're doing something wrong and giving them a chance to correct the behavior before hellbanning them, too. Users get shadowbanned on Reddit all the time for stupid reasons.
- douche 10y ago
  Seems like a dumb reason to flag something, especially for a new account that's only posted two rather interesting articles here.
- garrettgrimsley 10y ago
  Is this any different from the educative account [0] that posts nothing but educative.io links? If that account is fine I don't see why this one would not be OK as well. The rules here are not the same as on Reddit. There are no rules specifically about self-promotion. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=educative https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=educative
  - dang 10y ago
    Posting your own (or your employer's, or friends') stuff is ok, but accounts that only do that eventually lose submission privileges, especially if they overdo it and/or if they're corporate identities rather than personal ones. Corporate identities don't fit with the community thing.
    - garrettgrimsley 10y ago
      Got it, I checked https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and did not see it in there. May want to add it?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- KirinDave 10y ago
  I vouched it, and I am sure I am among others. 1. Reddit's moderators can make their own decisions, but that should not change things here. It's an untrustworthy site with a culture and moderation system that rewards untrustworthy users. If it went out of business tomorrow the world would be a better place. 2. The article is genuinely interesting. 3. If all he bot does is link us to genuinely interesting back catalog .net writing, that's probably a service (at least for now) as this venue has long ignored a lot of interesting content from that ecosystem. People can break the rules here and then we'll ban them here.
  - Jillboy 10y ago
    I agree with all your points, except for one thing that made me curious: Why would say Reddit is an untrustworthy site, with a system that rewards untrustworthy users? I'm not a particularly active Reddit user, in fact it's been a while since I've even visited the site so I'm not taking this personally at all, but I'm genuinely interested as to why anyone would consider it an untrustworthy site that encourages untrustworthy users.
    - gitonup 10y ago
      Spez (The CEO and one of the admins) has admitted to shadow-editing comments posted by other users without visible tracking (normally edits get a *, and I'm otherwise not aware of any mod- or user-facing ability to do so for comments that are not yours) on /r/The_Donald[1]. [1] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/spezgiving-how-reddits-ceo-triedand-failedto-troll-the-trolls https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/spezgiving-how-re...
      - KirinDave 10y ago
        Sure. Quite frankly, I hate those people too. But Reddit's poor decision making goes deeper than that. They have a culture of finding blame rather than solving problems, a massive botnet problem they refuse to address despite multiple people submitting pretty compelling evidence, incredibly lax rule enforcement. Their voting system encourages people to build elaborate bot networks to game the system. They know it, they refuse to do anything about it. Reddit is a untrustworthy site that grew and untrustworthy community.
- ksk 10y ago
  Exactly how have you established that it is the same person, and that its a bot?
dang 10y ago
This is a good article. Better still, a good article that was never discussed on HN before. So that account hasn't done anything abusive here—on the contrary. If abuse occurs, we'll deal with it. If you think abuse might be occurring, please let us know at hn@ycombinator.com. We're can't read all the posts here but we do see all the emails.
- pryelluw 10y ago
  Thanks. I'll make sure to take the correct steps next time. :)
michaelmrose 10y ago
usernames across different websites aren't unique identifiers nor is this relevant to the discussion

DanBC 10y ago

You should email the mods (at the address in the guidelines) because they don't see every post and tagging mods doesn't work.

eganist 10y ago

Not even alleged anymore. The account's been shadowbanned (https://www.reddit.com/user/dotnetnews https://www.reddit.com/user/dotnetnews), a confirmation from Reddit admins that they've validated it as a spam/bot account. And yet this post is back up, which means someone vouched for it. Flagged it.

endianswap 10y ago
I doubt Bruce Dawson commissioned a spam bot to post his ancient articles. My guess is that it was vouched for because it's an actually interesting article (hence the corresponding votes) and users don't really care who posted it if it's interesting.
- eganist 10y ago
  I'll interpret this to mean anyone can script a submission bot which automagically submits to hackernews so long as the articles could be perceived as interesting. I'm assuming that's not the intent of the submission function, but short of clarification from dang etc, I'll assume no one has a problem with it.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
    https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/ Seriously, though, do you have any evidence that this guy is a bot?
  - dsp1234 10y ago
    perceived as interesting Well, they would actually need to be interesting. There have been users who do what amounts to "interesting article arbitrage" by automatically submitting popular posts from other platforms. You can find the submission guidelines here (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). The only one that really would apply to a bot, anymore than a normal person, is "Please don't submit so many links at once that the new page is dominated by your submissions.", which naive bots are likely to do.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    > I'll interpret this to mean anyone can script a submission bot which automagically submits to hackernews so long as the articles could be perceived as interesting. Yes, I would say so. Nobody is going to complain (at least not with a valid complaint) as long as the articles are perceived as interesting and upvoted. In fact, I imagine you could do a good Show HN about the bot if it worked well enough. The problem is when the quality slips, and it starts sliding towards spam (even if the intention was good).
Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
Don't judge a post by its author. If the user has done anything to merit being hellbanned on HN, that's a seperate matter. This submission looks fine as-is and there's no reason to flag it on its own merits. I would always vote for telling the user that they're doing something wrong and giving them a chance to correct the behavior before hellbanning them, too. Users get shadowbanned on Reddit all the time for stupid reasons.
douche 10y ago
Seems like a dumb reason to flag something, especially for a new account that's only posted two rather interesting articles here.
garrettgrimsley 10y ago
Is this any different from the educative account [0] that posts nothing but educative.io links? If that account is fine I don't see why this one would not be OK as well. The rules here are not the same as on Reddit. There are no rules specifically about self-promotion. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=educative https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=educative
- dang 10y ago
  Posting your own (or your employer's, or friends') stuff is ok, but accounts that only do that eventually lose submission privileges, especially if they overdo it and/or if they're corporate identities rather than personal ones. Corporate identities don't fit with the community thing.
  - garrettgrimsley 10y ago
    Got it, I checked https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and did not see it in there. May want to add it?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
KirinDave 10y ago
I vouched it, and I am sure I am among others. 1. Reddit's moderators can make their own decisions, but that should not change things here. It's an untrustworthy site with a culture and moderation system that rewards untrustworthy users. If it went out of business tomorrow the world would be a better place. 2. The article is genuinely interesting. 3. If all he bot does is link us to genuinely interesting back catalog .net writing, that's probably a service (at least for now) as this venue has long ignored a lot of interesting content from that ecosystem. People can break the rules here and then we'll ban them here.
- Jillboy 10y ago
  I agree with all your points, except for one thing that made me curious: Why would say Reddit is an untrustworthy site, with a system that rewards untrustworthy users? I'm not a particularly active Reddit user, in fact it's been a while since I've even visited the site so I'm not taking this personally at all, but I'm genuinely interested as to why anyone would consider it an untrustworthy site that encourages untrustworthy users.
  - gitonup 10y ago
    Spez (The CEO and one of the admins) has admitted to shadow-editing comments posted by other users without visible tracking (normally edits get a *, and I'm otherwise not aware of any mod- or user-facing ability to do so for comments that are not yours) on /r/The_Donald[1]. [1] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/spezgiving-how-reddits-ceo-triedand-failedto-troll-the-trolls https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/spezgiving-how-re...
    - KirinDave 10y ago
      Sure. Quite frankly, I hate those people too. But Reddit's poor decision making goes deeper than that. They have a culture of finding blame rather than solving problems, a massive botnet problem they refuse to address despite multiple people submitting pretty compelling evidence, incredibly lax rule enforcement. Their voting system encourages people to build elaborate bot networks to game the system. They know it, they refuse to do anything about it. Reddit is a untrustworthy site that grew and untrustworthy community.
ksk 10y ago
Exactly how have you established that it is the same person, and that its a bot?

dang 10y ago

This is a good article. Better still, a good article that was never discussed on HN before. So that account hasn't done anything abusive here—on the contrary. If abuse occurs, we'll deal with it. If you think abuse might be occurring, please let us know at hn@ycombinator.com. We're can't read all the posts here but we do see all the emails.

pryelluw 10y ago
Thanks. I'll make sure to take the correct steps next time. :)

michaelmrose 10y ago

usernames across different websites aren't unique identifiers nor is this relevant to the discussion