3 ms·

Hmm, I think HN needs a way to report either spam messages or users - this guy was created 6 mins ago, has two comments, both spam

reitanqild 9y ago
Brainstorming with you: Maybe we could have another queue /possiblespam like we have for /newest? Or we could make a competition out of it: 1point for a correct spam identification -10 for false positive
- eterm 9y ago
  This is way off topic, but that kind of simple gamification is "broken" because there are three Nash equilibrium, only one of which is actually marking spam correctly. If everyone marks everything as spam, then anyone not also doing the same is "punished" because they are missing out on points they could get by marking more things as spam. If everyone is marking everything as "not spam" then anyone marking spam as spam correctly is punished as having "false positives" because everyone else is marking it not spam. To prevent those bad outcomes (which happen very quickly in some situations, I'll try to dig out real-world examples later) you need to know what is "really" spam and what isn't, but if you know that then you've already solved the problem you set out to solve with this system.
  - asdfgadsfgasfdg 9y ago
    HN already punishes accounts that either flag or vouch a different way to the moderators final decision. This should approach should help make the two pathological minima less likely.
  - reitanqild 9y ago
    In theory this sounds fine. Bit here are two factors that together makes scenario 1 and 2 unlikely to play out IMO: HN users seems to be a constructive crowd and mods only need to punish a few accounts visibly for users to be deterred from trying this.
tokenizerrr 9y ago
There is. You click on the "X minutes ago" link, then click flag. The comments are already dead by now, meaning no one sees them unless they have "showdead" turned on in their profile.
vidarh 9y ago
As others have pointed out, there is, but I have "showdead" on, and there's been a huge uptick in deliberate spam lately. They do get blocked very quickly, so hopefully they get tired of it, but it's a big change from how showdead would mostly show cranks, bad jokes, and the (very occasional) overzealous moderation.
- heartbreak 9y ago
  I figured HN would have solved this wave of spam by now.

reitanqild 9y ago

Brainstorming with you: Maybe we could have another queue /possiblespam like we have for /newest? Or we could make a competition out of it: 1point for a correct spam identification -10 for false positive

eterm 9y ago
This is way off topic, but that kind of simple gamification is "broken" because there are three Nash equilibrium, only one of which is actually marking spam correctly. If everyone marks everything as spam, then anyone not also doing the same is "punished" because they are missing out on points they could get by marking more things as spam. If everyone is marking everything as "not spam" then anyone marking spam as spam correctly is punished as having "false positives" because everyone else is marking it not spam. To prevent those bad outcomes (which happen very quickly in some situations, I'll try to dig out real-world examples later) you need to know what is "really" spam and what isn't, but if you know that then you've already solved the problem you set out to solve with this system.
- asdfgadsfgasfdg 9y ago
  HN already punishes accounts that either flag or vouch a different way to the moderators final decision. This should approach should help make the two pathological minima less likely.
- reitanqild 9y ago
  In theory this sounds fine. Bit here are two factors that together makes scenario 1 and 2 unlikely to play out IMO: HN users seems to be a constructive crowd and mods only need to punish a few accounts visibly for users to be deterred from trying this.

tokenizerrr 9y ago

There is. You click on the "X minutes ago" link, then click flag. The comments are already dead by now, meaning no one sees them unless they have "showdead" turned on in their profile.

vidarh 9y ago

As others have pointed out, there is, but I have "showdead" on, and there's been a huge uptick in deliberate spam lately. They do get blocked very quickly, so hopefully they get tired of it, but it's a big change from how showdead would mostly show cranks, bad jokes, and the (very occasional) overzealous moderation.

heartbreak 9y ago
I figured HN would have solved this wave of spam by now.