4 ms·

There should be a "flag as AI" link in addition to "flag" and then a setting for people to show flagged as AI. Once the flagged as AI reaches a certain threshol

There should be a "flag as AI" link in addition to "flag" and then a setting for people to show flagged as AI. Once the flagged as AI reaches a certain threshold then it disappears unless you enable "Show AI". Maybe once enough posts have been flagged like that then that corpus could be used to train an AI to automatically detect content generated by AI. That would be cool. Maybe the HN site wouldn't add this feature but if someone wrote a client then maybe it could be added there.

postalcoder 7mo ago
I’ve actually been thinking about this exact idea for https://hcker.news/ https://hcker.news/. Stay tuned, I’ve already started rolling out some comment filtering.
- arrsingh 7mo ago
  Oh I didnt know about this. Very cool. Is hcker.news only on web? Or is there a mobile app as well?
  - postalcoder 7mo ago
    No app right now but it works well as a PWA.
altairprime 7mo ago
‘Flag’ is an algorithmic flag only, and there are no humans in the flag algorithm’s processing loop. They may monitor and react to the ‘queue’ of flagged articles, and they can do special mod things with flagged posts. But if you want to report a guidelines violation for AI-assisted writing to the mods, just email the mods (contact link in the footer) subject “AI-assisted writing flag” or similar with a link to the post/comment. It works, I know, I’ve done it before. It takes maybe 60 seconds and there is no other way on the site (seemingly by OG design!) to guarantee human review but that email.
- zahlman 7mo ago
  > It works, I know, I’ve done it before. It takes maybe 60 seconds and there is no other way on the site (seemingly by OG design!) to guarantee human review but that email. It's a ton of friction compared to ordinary use of a forum; and while I've emailed several times myself, it comes with a sense of guilt (and a feeling that my "several" is probably approximately "several" above average).
  - altairprime 7mo ago
    Valid. It’s a big drawback of HN. I find it helps to report a perceived guidelines violation in “seems like” language rather than “is”, without demanding a specific mod outcome, in cases where I’m uncertain. That is noticeably distinct from “this is completely unacceptable” which I’ve said in a couple of instances, though I still tend to let the mods pick the outcome since that’s their job and I make a specific effort not to participate in sentencing decisions if at all possible. ps. I acknowledge as well that I’m exempt from feeling guilt for brain reasons, and so if it sounds like I’m not honoring what I would describe as a ‘completely normal’ human response, apologies; I’m trying my best given the lack of familiarity and intend no disrespect towards that reaction.
- 152334H 7mo ago
  Never occurred to me to try that, because I assumed I would get banned for doing it, until today.
  - altairprime 7mo ago
    Nah, as long as you aren’t demanding and rude, you’ll either get a reply or not, and if you get a reply, it’ll either be “we’ll look into it”, “we looked into it and acted in some way”, or “we looked into it and decided it isn’t actionable”; often with some supporting explanation. (I suppose if you open with e.g. “wtf is wrong with you mods” they might well ask you to reconsider your approach or else clock a ban — I’ve never tried that!)
dang 7mo ago
We're going to add that. I've resisted adding reasons-for-flagging for years, but even I can change my mind every decade or so. A nice side effect is that it will double as a confirmation step, solving the FFF (fat finger flagging) problem.
- mikewarot 7mo ago
  My radical opinion is there shouldn't be 2 flags, there should be N flags, user defined, so that we can flag humor/satire/factuality/insight/political and a bunch of other things. I fully realize that's not going to fly any time soon. Adding AI in addition to the standard up/downvote and flag seems a reasonable thing.
  - tptacek 7mo ago
    Flags are a signal to the moderation system. What does it mean to "flag" something as "factuality" or "satire"?
    - mikewarot 7mo ago
      I should have said "ratings" instead of flags, my bad.
  - saratogacx 7mo ago
    That sounds like /.'s moderation system. Not that I disagree, theme based filtering could be fun but also encourages things like meme threads that you'd see on reddit under the guise of "Just filter funny out and let us have fun".
  - lgats 7mo ago
    i think you're thinking of flair like on reddit, flag is more of a 'report spam' type feature
  - ethbr1 7mo ago
    The issue with N-flagging is that every flag needs to be universally-defined and equally applied. If one person's humor is another person's satire is another person's political, then splitting it into N options muddles the signal. Downvotes are bad enough between "I disagree with this" and "This isn't an appropriate comment for HN."

postalcoder 7mo ago

I’ve actually been thinking about this exact idea for https://hcker.news/ https://hcker.news/. Stay tuned, I’ve already started rolling out some comment filtering.

arrsingh 7mo ago
Oh I didnt know about this. Very cool. Is hcker.news only on web? Or is there a mobile app as well?
- postalcoder 7mo ago
  No app right now but it works well as a PWA.

altairprime 7mo ago

‘Flag’ is an algorithmic flag only, and there are no humans in the flag algorithm’s processing loop. They may monitor and react to the ‘queue’ of flagged articles, and they can do special mod things with flagged posts. But if you want to report a guidelines violation for AI-assisted writing to the mods, just email the mods (contact link in the footer) subject “AI-assisted writing flag” or similar with a link to the post/comment. It works, I know, I’ve done it before. It takes maybe 60 seconds and there is no other way on the site (seemingly by OG design!) to guarantee human review but that email.

zahlman 7mo ago
> It works, I know, I’ve done it before. It takes maybe 60 seconds and there is no other way on the site (seemingly by OG design!) to guarantee human review but that email. It's a ton of friction compared to ordinary use of a forum; and while I've emailed several times myself, it comes with a sense of guilt (and a feeling that my "several" is probably approximately "several" above average).
- altairprime 7mo ago
  Valid. It’s a big drawback of HN. I find it helps to report a perceived guidelines violation in “seems like” language rather than “is”, without demanding a specific mod outcome, in cases where I’m uncertain. That is noticeably distinct from “this is completely unacceptable” which I’ve said in a couple of instances, though I still tend to let the mods pick the outcome since that’s their job and I make a specific effort not to participate in sentencing decisions if at all possible. ps. I acknowledge as well that I’m exempt from feeling guilt for brain reasons, and so if it sounds like I’m not honoring what I would describe as a ‘completely normal’ human response, apologies; I’m trying my best given the lack of familiarity and intend no disrespect towards that reaction.
152334H 7mo ago
Never occurred to me to try that, because I assumed I would get banned for doing it, until today.
- altairprime 7mo ago
  Nah, as long as you aren’t demanding and rude, you’ll either get a reply or not, and if you get a reply, it’ll either be “we’ll look into it”, “we looked into it and acted in some way”, or “we looked into it and decided it isn’t actionable”; often with some supporting explanation. (I suppose if you open with e.g. “wtf is wrong with you mods” they might well ask you to reconsider your approach or else clock a ban — I’ve never tried that!)

dang 7mo ago

We're going to add that. I've resisted adding reasons-for-flagging for years, but even I can change my mind every decade or so. A nice side effect is that it will double as a confirmation step, solving the FFF (fat finger flagging) problem.

mikewarot 7mo ago
My radical opinion is there shouldn't be 2 flags, there should be N flags, user defined, so that we can flag humor/satire/factuality/insight/political and a bunch of other things. I fully realize that's not going to fly any time soon. Adding AI in addition to the standard up/downvote and flag seems a reasonable thing.
- tptacek 7mo ago
  Flags are a signal to the moderation system. What does it mean to "flag" something as "factuality" or "satire"?
  - mikewarot 7mo ago
    I should have said "ratings" instead of flags, my bad.
- saratogacx 7mo ago
  That sounds like /.'s moderation system. Not that I disagree, theme based filtering could be fun but also encourages things like meme threads that you'd see on reddit under the guise of "Just filter funny out and let us have fun".
- lgats 7mo ago
  i think you're thinking of flair like on reddit, flag is more of a 'report spam' type feature
- ethbr1 7mo ago
  The issue with N-flagging is that every flag needs to be universally-defined and equally applied. If one person's humor is another person's satire is another person's political, then splitting it into N options muddles the signal. Downvotes are bad enough between "I disagree with this" and "This isn't an appropriate comment for HN."