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Bombing is one thing, but you also have a whole SEO industry now that will exploit any way possible to get to the top of the rankings. The moment you have comm

Bombing is one thing, but you also have a whole SEO industry now that will exploit any way possible to get to the top of the rankings. The moment you have community rankings on search, and your search gets popular, you land in a war zone with bots trying to mangle those. Reddit is kind of good dealing with that, but it is very resource intensive.

closedloop129 4y ago
What if you limit accounts to real people and then keep track of their credibility? It's some initial effort but how could the ranking be manipulated when all dishonest people have burned their credibility?
- ThunderSizzle 4y ago
  The internet-should-be-anonymous crowd wouldn't like that. But it's no worse than Google tracking everything A-Z.
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    I'm very much part of that community but I could see verified moderators using it. However it could just be reputation based like on Wikipedia
- RL_Quine 4y ago
  You can’t limit to real people. If you managed to, I would make a service where people can sign up and I’ll pay to use their account. No cost to them and they make some money from it, seems totally reasonable.
  - closedloop129 4y ago
    That's just another group of people with reduced credibility. At some point, the price to incentivize the next person to offer their account is more expensive than the benefits of link manipulation. Every corrupted account can be discovered because the manipulated content stands out and will be reported.
- kevincox 4y ago
  I've always wondered if you could combat via referal-only sites. To get in you need to achir your humanness on someone else's account. If an account is found to invite too many spammers, robots, or otherwise it is banned or disallowed to invite more accounts. I'm sure you could still manage to make "fake" accounts but it would be much more difficult, and linking them together would be much easier. Of course starting a site like this would be very difficult. But maybe you could start without it then add it in once you get to a decent popularity such that many people can find a referral if they need to.
  - throwamon 4y ago
    Afaik that's how https://lobste.rs https://lobste.rs works.
    - kevincox 4y ago
      Of course it is a much smaller site so it isn't clear how effective this strategy would be at a large scale. Even a referral-based site approaching HN levels would be very interesting to see.
- netheril96 4y ago
  > What if you limit accounts to real people and In China, all social accounts must be associated with a phone number, and phone numbers are tied to government identities. It doesn't stop any manipulation of scores and rankings. > then keep track of their credibility? It is very likely China will do that too soon. I think you can already imagine the ramifications.
asah 4y ago
if this becomes popular, that same industry will recruit gangs to manipulate this new system. source: worked in ads and search for decades, incl google.

closedloop129 4y ago

What if you limit accounts to real people and then keep track of their credibility? It's some initial effort but how could the ranking be manipulated when all dishonest people have burned their credibility?

ThunderSizzle 4y ago
The internet-should-be-anonymous crowd wouldn't like that. But it's no worse than Google tracking everything A-Z.
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  I'm very much part of that community but I could see verified moderators using it. However it could just be reputation based like on Wikipedia
RL_Quine 4y ago
You can’t limit to real people. If you managed to, I would make a service where people can sign up and I’ll pay to use their account. No cost to them and they make some money from it, seems totally reasonable.
- closedloop129 4y ago
  That's just another group of people with reduced credibility. At some point, the price to incentivize the next person to offer their account is more expensive than the benefits of link manipulation. Every corrupted account can be discovered because the manipulated content stands out and will be reported.
kevincox 4y ago
I've always wondered if you could combat via referal-only sites. To get in you need to achir your humanness on someone else's account. If an account is found to invite too many spammers, robots, or otherwise it is banned or disallowed to invite more accounts. I'm sure you could still manage to make "fake" accounts but it would be much more difficult, and linking them together would be much easier. Of course starting a site like this would be very difficult. But maybe you could start without it then add it in once you get to a decent popularity such that many people can find a referral if they need to.
- throwamon 4y ago
  Afaik that's how https://lobste.rs https://lobste.rs works.
  - kevincox 4y ago
    Of course it is a much smaller site so it isn't clear how effective this strategy would be at a large scale. Even a referral-based site approaching HN levels would be very interesting to see.
netheril96 4y ago
> What if you limit accounts to real people and In China, all social accounts must be associated with a phone number, and phone numbers are tied to government identities. It doesn't stop any manipulation of scores and rankings. > then keep track of their credibility? It is very likely China will do that too soon. I think you can already imagine the ramifications.

asah 4y ago

if this becomes popular, that same industry will recruit gangs to manipulate this new system. source: worked in ads and search for decades, incl google.