4 ms·

I don't understand how this is supposed to solve anything, and I've seen it suggested as a solution multiple times. If you restrict comments to older accounts,

by castral 7mo ago

I don't understand how this is supposed to solve anything, and I've seen it suggested as a solution multiple times. If you restrict comments to older accounts, all it's going to do is make the bot creators speculatively open and proactively age accounts for future use.

kn100 7mo ago
I would argue that we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Adding a cost to commenting that requires aging accounts I think might discourage fly by night operations and "experiments".
Oras 7mo ago
I wish for karma based too if we managed to get filters. I want to see posts only by accounts with {x}+ karma points.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- Springtime 7mo ago
  Would be fine for a personal filter but if used globally would incentivize karma gaming. You can get high karma from reposts of past popular submissions (an author who was in prison who reached the front page even half-joked/resented once how many common Wikipedia articles land on the front page for the nth time).
- elpocko 7mo ago
  You want other people to deal with the things you don't like and filter stuff for you, to improve your own experience and shield you from the filthy masses. God beware you have to endure a comment you don't like, your royal highness. I'd rather see you gone than the people you complain about.
  - Springtime 7mo ago
    Filtering is a valid form of improving signals. If there there was a reliable heuristic for users posting low effort content that was better then the user would be considering that instead. If someone in a chatroom for example is being spammy with their messages at the expense of noticing posts one finds more relevant then blocking them isn't due to considering them some filthy pleb but improving their experience. If the user being filtered never becomes aware there's no reason to be offended, either. Edit: also I wasn't the one to downvote you if that makes any difference.
    - elpocko 7mo ago
      HN is already heavily moderated. Low-effort posters and spammers get downranked immediately, based on their behavior. OP is simply intolerant and unable to function in a social setting. Minimum karma and account age filters are discriminatory, anti-social features that should not exist on any social site. The people asking for such features are intolerant jerks, no different from ageists or ableists. They are parasites, because they want the people who are not intolerant jerks to do their filtering for them, and keep the site alive by doing so. What would happen if every single user enabled their minimum karma filter?
      - Springtime 7mo ago
        This thread is evidence that some are unhappy with the state of a core HN feature due to users posting what they judge to be low effort content, so it does get through. The comments here are about possible mitigations. Based on this feedback dang has apparently now restricted new accounts from posting Show HN threads, so globally now there is a form of filtering users from being seen by others based on a heuristic. Your initial comment is written with the impression that the poster wanting to improve their chances of higher effort content is making some judgement on the posters themselves as though they're conceited ('filthy masses', 'your royal highness') when they're merely considering one approach to reducing noise from their feed. I myself in this very comment chain have already posted that I disagree that filtering by karma would help due to gaming issues but I don't see the problem with the user's goal.
- bakugo 7mo ago
  Have you taken a look at reddit recently? It's absolutely infested with bots farming karma, either by reposting old popular posts, or simply posting AI generated comments. Actively encouraging this will only make things worse.
andai 7mo ago
Several of the posts I've seen are from autonomous AI agents, which don't currently seem to have that kind of long-term planning.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
dom96 7mo ago
My prediction is that nothing short of human verification is going to solve this.
dang 7mo ago
And also invest more effort in karma farming. In other words, if we raise the bar for Show HNs we'll probably see more generated comments in the threads.
vunderba 7mo ago
This already happens now. Go look through a few of the "Show HN" authors - you'll inevitably see around several accounts that are 50-100 days old with a karma of 1 to avoid a green label. The OP is talking about posts, not comments. The simplest solution might be to prevent someone from posting a "Show HN" until they’ve earned twenty-five or fifty karma, to demonstrate that they’ve been actively participating on Hacker News rather than using it solely to promote themselves.
- brewdad 7mo ago
  This leads inevitably to karma farming bots who upvote each other’s submissions à la Reddit. It’s a speed bump at best.
  - DharmaPolice 7mo ago
    A speed bump might still be preferable to nothing.
  - vunderba 7mo ago
    Yeah I considered that - but any friction is better than none. Maybe integrate an additional consideration by which low karma (threshold < 5 karma) accounts cannot upvote other low karma accounts. Honestly, we don’t really have the same cold start problem that a brand new social media site would. We already have plenty of reputable active users here. So HN could restrict new accounts to only being able to comment initially. As they participate, their comments receive upvotes, allowing them to build up enough karma (even a small amount of 25) which unlocks the ability to upvote, and then, finally, the ability to create posts.
    - muldvarp 7mo ago
      Creating more friction can also lead to a higher percentage of bots. I for one immefiately leave when I realize that I need to jump through several hoops before I'm actually allowed to participate on a site. Someone building a bot farm on the other hand is probably willing to tolerate quite some friction before giving up.
rjh29 7mo ago
I don't understand why we put locks on bicycles, a determined person can just saw them off.

by castral 7mo ago

kn100 7mo ago

I would argue that we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Adding a cost to commenting that requires aging accounts I think might discourage fly by night operations and "experiments".

Oras 7mo ago

I wish for karma based too if we managed to get filters. I want to see posts only by accounts with {x}+ karma points.

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
Springtime 7mo ago
Would be fine for a personal filter but if used globally would incentivize karma gaming. You can get high karma from reposts of past popular submissions (an author who was in prison who reached the front page even half-joked/resented once how many common Wikipedia articles land on the front page for the nth time).
elpocko 7mo ago
You want other people to deal with the things you don't like and filter stuff for you, to improve your own experience and shield you from the filthy masses. God beware you have to endure a comment you don't like, your royal highness. I'd rather see you gone than the people you complain about.
- Springtime 7mo ago
  Filtering is a valid form of improving signals. If there there was a reliable heuristic for users posting low effort content that was better then the user would be considering that instead. If someone in a chatroom for example is being spammy with their messages at the expense of noticing posts one finds more relevant then blocking them isn't due to considering them some filthy pleb but improving their experience. If the user being filtered never becomes aware there's no reason to be offended, either. Edit: also I wasn't the one to downvote you if that makes any difference.
  - elpocko 7mo ago
    HN is already heavily moderated. Low-effort posters and spammers get downranked immediately, based on their behavior. OP is simply intolerant and unable to function in a social setting. Minimum karma and account age filters are discriminatory, anti-social features that should not exist on any social site. The people asking for such features are intolerant jerks, no different from ageists or ableists. They are parasites, because they want the people who are not intolerant jerks to do their filtering for them, and keep the site alive by doing so. What would happen if every single user enabled their minimum karma filter?
    - Springtime 7mo ago
      This thread is evidence that some are unhappy with the state of a core HN feature due to users posting what they judge to be low effort content, so it does get through. The comments here are about possible mitigations. Based on this feedback dang has apparently now restricted new accounts from posting Show HN threads, so globally now there is a form of filtering users from being seen by others based on a heuristic. Your initial comment is written with the impression that the poster wanting to improve their chances of higher effort content is making some judgement on the posters themselves as though they're conceited ('filthy masses', 'your royal highness') when they're merely considering one approach to reducing noise from their feed. I myself in this very comment chain have already posted that I disagree that filtering by karma would help due to gaming issues but I don't see the problem with the user's goal.
bakugo 7mo ago
Have you taken a look at reddit recently? It's absolutely infested with bots farming karma, either by reposting old popular posts, or simply posting AI generated comments. Actively encouraging this will only make things worse.

andai 7mo ago

Several of the posts I've seen are from autonomous AI agents, which don't currently seem to have that kind of long-term planning.

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

dom96 7mo ago

My prediction is that nothing short of human verification is going to solve this.

dang 7mo ago

And also invest more effort in karma farming. In other words, if we raise the bar for Show HNs we'll probably see more generated comments in the threads.

vunderba 7mo ago

This already happens now. Go look through a few of the "Show HN" authors - you'll inevitably see around several accounts that are 50-100 days old with a karma of 1 to avoid a green label. The OP is talking about posts, not comments. The simplest solution might be to prevent someone from posting a "Show HN" until they’ve earned twenty-five or fifty karma, to demonstrate that they’ve been actively participating on Hacker News rather than using it solely to promote themselves.

brewdad 7mo ago
This leads inevitably to karma farming bots who upvote each other’s submissions à la Reddit. It’s a speed bump at best.
- DharmaPolice 7mo ago
  A speed bump might still be preferable to nothing.
- vunderba 7mo ago
  Yeah I considered that - but any friction is better than none. Maybe integrate an additional consideration by which low karma (threshold < 5 karma) accounts cannot upvote other low karma accounts. Honestly, we don’t really have the same cold start problem that a brand new social media site would. We already have plenty of reputable active users here. So HN could restrict new accounts to only being able to comment initially. As they participate, their comments receive upvotes, allowing them to build up enough karma (even a small amount of 25) which unlocks the ability to upvote, and then, finally, the ability to create posts.
  - muldvarp 7mo ago
    Creating more friction can also lead to a higher percentage of bots. I for one immefiately leave when I realize that I need to jump through several hoops before I'm actually allowed to participate on a site. Someone building a bot farm on the other hand is probably willing to tolerate quite some friction before giving up.

rjh29 7mo ago

I don't understand why we put locks on bicycles, a determined person can just saw them off.