3 ms·

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 (hen

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).

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).