When you do the job we do, and spend hours each day looking at the discussions and the data, it becomes fairly easy to spot inauthentic actors on HN. It stands

When you do the job we do, and spend hours each day looking at the discussions and the data, it becomes fairly easy to spot inauthentic actors on HN. It stands out when newly registered accounts (which appear in green) or older accounts without much posting history, suddenly start posting comments in support of a particular position. This is another reason why HN's primary purpose – gratifying intellectual curiosity – is so important. Curious conversation is hard to fake. You can't really be inauthentically curious, at least not for long. So the more we can succeed at nudging the community's conduct towards curious conversation, the more it stands out when accounts are acting to promote a particular agenda, and the faster we can weed them out.