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The submission to comment ratio gives me the sense that this may be a bot used for paid vote farming. OP feel free to correct me, as I don't mean disrespect.

reaperducer 2y ago
this may be a bot used for paid vote farming Based on the submission cadence, it's either a bot or someone with insomnia.
- stonethrowaway 2y ago
  No. This has been happening for quite some time. HN front page is littered with it.
  - isoprophlex 2y ago
    @dang, do you have any opinions or insights on this -- could this be something malicious, should we even care as long as the content is good? It makes me feel iffy, as it doesn't look too... organic
    - stonethrowaway 2y ago
      Since you have an old account I’ll chime in. There are 2 main streams I’ve seen since I’ve been here for what feels like an eternity (15+ years). There are others, but these ones are lame in particular. You have the people who just spam new posts every few hours. I don’t know when this started but I remember the old Digg getting a lot of shit for it. There’s no rhyme or reason it’s just post after post. It’s a post farm/botting. The other, more sinister one which I hope pg and whoever else have addressed in Arc is being able to detect and halt downvoting brigades. People going through your post history and just downvoting as much as they can because you hit a nerve. I’m not sure which is worse, the downvote or the flag, but both in aggregate are just dumb. Now, I don’t particularly care - this is easily my 50th+ account since I don’t care about the points per-se (it’s bullshit), but dang thinks I’m some new shitposter on the block when that’s not the case and it ends up making me not want to make valuable posts because what’s the point when assholes just downvote you because they don’t like what you’re saying? Honest advice? Just hide points from everyone and everything. Nobody needs to know. It’s a dick measuring contest without a winner and it drives shitty behaviour. If people don’t have a visible metric to gauge themselves on, hopefully it’ll put a damp on the bullshit.

reaperducer 2y ago

this may be a bot used for paid vote farming Based on the submission cadence, it's either a bot or someone with insomnia.

stonethrowaway 2y ago
No. This has been happening for quite some time. HN front page is littered with it.
- isoprophlex 2y ago
  @dang, do you have any opinions or insights on this -- could this be something malicious, should we even care as long as the content is good? It makes me feel iffy, as it doesn't look too... organic
  - stonethrowaway 2y ago
    Since you have an old account I’ll chime in. There are 2 main streams I’ve seen since I’ve been here for what feels like an eternity (15+ years). There are others, but these ones are lame in particular. You have the people who just spam new posts every few hours. I don’t know when this started but I remember the old Digg getting a lot of shit for it. There’s no rhyme or reason it’s just post after post. It’s a post farm/botting. The other, more sinister one which I hope pg and whoever else have addressed in Arc is being able to detect and halt downvoting brigades. People going through your post history and just downvoting as much as they can because you hit a nerve. I’m not sure which is worse, the downvote or the flag, but both in aggregate are just dumb. Now, I don’t particularly care - this is easily my 50th+ account since I don’t care about the points per-se (it’s bullshit), but dang thinks I’m some new shitposter on the block when that’s not the case and it ends up making me not want to make valuable posts because what’s the point when assholes just downvote you because they don’t like what you’re saying? Honest advice? Just hide points from everyone and everything. Nobody needs to know. It’s a dick measuring contest without a winner and it drives shitty behaviour. If people don’t have a visible metric to gauge themselves on, hopefully it’ll put a damp on the bullshit.