5 ms·

5 day old repo, 2000 stars on GitHub, 400 total weekly downloads on npm. Frontpage of hacker news with a bunch of weird comments. Moderation has been lacking re

5 day old repo, 2000 stars on GitHub, 400 total weekly downloads on npm. Frontpage of hacker news with a bunch of weird comments. Moderation has been lacking recently.

sschueller 8mo ago
Sad that HN is now also getting boted by LLMs. People are just shameless. HN is one of the few places left where you can post / self promote something you have made only for people to take advantage of it.
- ZeWaka 8mo ago
  The strangest part is the weird commenting accounts have pretty old account ages.
  - quadrifoliate 8mo ago
    I don't know if you're demonstrating reductio ad absurdum, but maybe that's because they are genuine? As people in the thread have pointed out, the author as well as their company is pretty well-known in software circles. They have had multiple projects discussed on HN in the past[1]. 2000 stars is not a lot given that [2]. I fail to understand why a ton of breathless blog posts about the process of AI-assisted coding are more interesting to HNers than some of the actual code (potentially, not claiming anything about it) written. Maybe you or the GP could actually say what you think are "weird comments" and why you think this is being "boted"? --------------- [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=knadh&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [2] Why are people obsessed with star counts? I at least only star things to bookmark them, not vouch for them in any way. It does not seem unreasonable to me that 5 times as many people bookmarked the repo in the early days than are using it on npm. Also, npm is not necessary, the author shows at least 2 other ways to use it (direct download, link to GitHub pages) which will not show up in npm stats.
    - sfdlkj3jk342a 8mo ago
      > I love it. We need to see more of this. > Use of semantic elements is an interesting take. I'll give it a try. > Thank you for this, can’t wait to use. Minimalism at its best. > Good one. Presentation is good too. Thanks These are the kind of comments you see from Indians paid to boost Youtube content.
      - jonathanstrange 8mo ago
        They're probably just Indians using the framework saying "thanks." India has the largest population on Earth, they're close to 1.5 billion now. I think some people underestimate what that means.
        humanindia 8mo ago
        [dead]
      - n_e 8mo ago
        An explanation that would fit both the old accounts and the artificial comments would be that they were encouraged by the author to comment (which is against the HN rules).
      - skeledrew 8mo ago
        I'm on the other side of the planet, generally not a fan of web dev, and heartily agree with the sentiments in that comment.
        hkt 8mo ago
        Same here, DevOps by trade, allergic to ridiculous frontend nonsense, my comment praised the framework.
      - quadrifoliate 8mo ago
        This seems like some pretty lazy analysis to be honest. Following the first comment you quoted... > I love it. We need to see more of this. ...shows that the author talks about using a “Chase card abroad” in a previous comment [1], which means they cannot be Indian as Chase doesn't issue cards or have substantial operations in India. I don't want to run around following specific comment authors back through their threads, but as an Indian by birth it is pretty hurtful to see this kind of drive-by casual characterization of an population in a space like this. It also seems to be pretty contrary to the HN guidelines (“Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.”) -------------- [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46535775 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46535775
  - debarshri 8mo ago
    It is probably not bots. The reach of authors is pretty good. He actually loyal fan followers in india. You can see the same when he shows up on a podcast or talk. I think theres alot indian developers who are hacker news as well as on github and other forums.
    - JasonADrury 8mo ago
      Why do all the comments look exactly like paid comment spam?
      - decremental 8mo ago
        [dead]
      - debarshri 8mo ago
        On second look. It could be spam. This is disappointing.
      - humanindia 8mo ago
        [dead]
  - gas9S9zw3P9c 8mo ago
    If you search you can easily find sites to buy aged HN accounts, lots of them. Just like reddit accounts.
  - e2le 8mo ago
    Perhaps stolen accounts? I doubt every user is practising good security hygiene with a unique password per each account. Password leaks from other sites might well allow a motivated individual to hijack some here.
    - leke 8mo ago
      I could speculate that someone in the past had the business mindset to create thousands of accounts over multiple sites and offers the ability to loan them out for a period of time.
ssiddharth 8mo ago
The author is the CTO of Zerodha, India’s largest online brokerage. Not that it matters, just an observation.
- smarx007 8mo ago
  I thought they also OSSed a pretty solid https://github.com/frappe/helpdesk https://github.com/frappe/helpdesk helpdesk but that was from Frappe, not Zerodha.
- isodev 8mo ago
  A CTO that codes? Interesting indeed.
  - subscribed 8mo ago
    CTO in my company* remains SME on a several components, commits to several production repositories (and expects the most stringent PR checks), and maintains couple of small tool used by us and the customers. Its not that rare I think. *small fintech with couple of billions in the accounts, not a startup, not a Fortune 500 company
  - simonw 8mo ago
    That's pretty common in small companies. It's less common in large companies but can happen - you may use the "CTO" title for the founding engineer who still leads code and architecture, then hire someone under a different title (frequently "VP of Engineering") to handle the management / team growing side of the role.
    - appplication 8mo ago
      That sounds like a reasonable split to me, so much so I’m not sure I’d understand why you’d want the same person handling both code/architecture and management.
codegeek 8mo ago
You are jumping to conclusions. The author is the CTO of the largest online brokerage in India but more importantly, they have created many open source software of good quality. His website and blog are of great quality. Whether you think this library deserves more attention or not is your personal preference but it is far from spam. I havr no affiliation with them but like their work.
- bityard 8mo ago
  It's possible for both things to be true: this project is written by a developer well-known within India, AND this thread has a lot of bot (bought?) comments of praise in it.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
dang 8mo ago
I'm not sure which comments you're finding weird, but I spot checked a bunch and didn't see anything that looked particularly bogus, other than https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47026348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47026348 and some trollish ephemera. The upvotes on the submission look legit to me, as does the submission itself.
BoneShard 8mo ago
AI Slop, basically a couple of LLM prompts will generate similar shit now.
humanindia 8mo ago
[dead]

5 day old repo, 2000 stars on GitHub, 400 total weekly downloads on npm. Frontpage of hacker news with a bunch of weird comments. Moderation has been lacking recently.

sschueller 8mo ago

Sad that HN is now also getting boted by LLMs. People are just shameless. HN is one of the few places left where you can post / self promote something you have made only for people to take advantage of it.

ZeWaka 8mo ago
The strangest part is the weird commenting accounts have pretty old account ages.
- quadrifoliate 8mo ago
  I don't know if you're demonstrating reductio ad absurdum, but maybe that's because they are genuine? As people in the thread have pointed out, the author as well as their company is pretty well-known in software circles. They have had multiple projects discussed on HN in the past[1]. 2000 stars is not a lot given that [2]. I fail to understand why a ton of breathless blog posts about the process of AI-assisted coding are more interesting to HNers than some of the actual code (potentially, not claiming anything about it) written. Maybe you or the GP could actually say what you think are "weird comments" and why you think this is being "boted"? --------------- [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=knadh&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [2] Why are people obsessed with star counts? I at least only star things to bookmark them, not vouch for them in any way. It does not seem unreasonable to me that 5 times as many people bookmarked the repo in the early days than are using it on npm. Also, npm is not necessary, the author shows at least 2 other ways to use it (direct download, link to GitHub pages) which will not show up in npm stats.
  - sfdlkj3jk342a 8mo ago
    > I love it. We need to see more of this. > Use of semantic elements is an interesting take. I'll give it a try. > Thank you for this, can’t wait to use. Minimalism at its best. > Good one. Presentation is good too. Thanks These are the kind of comments you see from Indians paid to boost Youtube content.
    - jonathanstrange 8mo ago
      They're probably just Indians using the framework saying "thanks." India has the largest population on Earth, they're close to 1.5 billion now. I think some people underestimate what that means.
      - humanindia 8mo ago
        [dead]
    - n_e 8mo ago
      An explanation that would fit both the old accounts and the artificial comments would be that they were encouraged by the author to comment (which is against the HN rules).
    - skeledrew 8mo ago
      I'm on the other side of the planet, generally not a fan of web dev, and heartily agree with the sentiments in that comment.
      - hkt 8mo ago
        Same here, DevOps by trade, allergic to ridiculous frontend nonsense, my comment praised the framework.
    - quadrifoliate 8mo ago
      This seems like some pretty lazy analysis to be honest. Following the first comment you quoted... > I love it. We need to see more of this. ...shows that the author talks about using a “Chase card abroad” in a previous comment [1], which means they cannot be Indian as Chase doesn't issue cards or have substantial operations in India. I don't want to run around following specific comment authors back through their threads, but as an Indian by birth it is pretty hurtful to see this kind of drive-by casual characterization of an population in a space like this. It also seems to be pretty contrary to the HN guidelines (“Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.”) -------------- [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46535775 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46535775
- debarshri 8mo ago
  It is probably not bots. The reach of authors is pretty good. He actually loyal fan followers in india. You can see the same when he shows up on a podcast or talk. I think theres alot indian developers who are hacker news as well as on github and other forums.
  - JasonADrury 8mo ago
    Why do all the comments look exactly like paid comment spam?
    - decremental 8mo ago
      [dead]
    - debarshri 8mo ago
      On second look. It could be spam. This is disappointing.
    - humanindia 8mo ago
      [dead]
- gas9S9zw3P9c 8mo ago
  If you search you can easily find sites to buy aged HN accounts, lots of them. Just like reddit accounts.
- e2le 8mo ago
  Perhaps stolen accounts? I doubt every user is practising good security hygiene with a unique password per each account. Password leaks from other sites might well allow a motivated individual to hijack some here.
  - leke 8mo ago
    I could speculate that someone in the past had the business mindset to create thousands of accounts over multiple sites and offers the ability to loan them out for a period of time.

ssiddharth 8mo ago

The author is the CTO of Zerodha, India’s largest online brokerage. Not that it matters, just an observation.

smarx007 8mo ago
I thought they also OSSed a pretty solid https://github.com/frappe/helpdesk https://github.com/frappe/helpdesk helpdesk but that was from Frappe, not Zerodha.
isodev 8mo ago
A CTO that codes? Interesting indeed.
- subscribed 8mo ago
  CTO in my company* remains SME on a several components, commits to several production repositories (and expects the most stringent PR checks), and maintains couple of small tool used by us and the customers. Its not that rare I think. *small fintech with couple of billions in the accounts, not a startup, not a Fortune 500 company
- simonw 8mo ago
  That's pretty common in small companies. It's less common in large companies but can happen - you may use the "CTO" title for the founding engineer who still leads code and architecture, then hire someone under a different title (frequently "VP of Engineering") to handle the management / team growing side of the role.
  - appplication 8mo ago
    That sounds like a reasonable split to me, so much so I’m not sure I’d understand why you’d want the same person handling both code/architecture and management.

codegeek 8mo ago

You are jumping to conclusions. The author is the CTO of the largest online brokerage in India but more importantly, they have created many open source software of good quality. His website and blog are of great quality. Whether you think this library deserves more attention or not is your personal preference but it is far from spam. I havr no affiliation with them but like their work.

bityard 8mo ago
It's possible for both things to be true: this project is written by a developer well-known within India, AND this thread has a lot of bot (bought?) comments of praise in it.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

dang 8mo ago

I'm not sure which comments you're finding weird, but I spot checked a bunch and didn't see anything that looked particularly bogus, other than https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47026348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47026348 and some trollish ephemera. The upvotes on the submission look legit to me, as does the submission itself.

BoneShard 8mo ago

AI Slop, basically a couple of LLM prompts will generate similar shit now.

humanindia 8mo ago

[dead]