4 ms·

-4 points on this submission? What? How did that happen? I've never seen it go negative.

by joegibbs 5mo ago

bigyabai 5mo ago
It won't even upvote it to -3. Integer overflow?
minimaxir 5mo ago
This is...a first.
OuterVale 5mo ago
Do a get a biscuit or something for somehow managing this? Interestingly on the Harmonic client on my Android phone it is claiming -10 points. Very odd.
- Waterluvian 5mo ago
  Hacker News uses the D&D 2e ruleset. You’re doing great… if you want everyone to miss your post.
teddyh 5mo ago
[flagged]
- ramon156 5mo ago
  It's generic, but I wouldn't say there are any obvious LLM patterns. Unless I'm missing something?
  - teddyh 5mo ago
    “This isn’t just a supposition — I have proof!” was one I noticed at a glance. Also the many bulleted lists.
hans-l 5mo ago
My theory is either fudging the display (add/remove votes to prevent people from knowing the real count), or there’s a secret API that some bot found and exploited. Or maybe it uses negative points when it detects bad actors voting/commenting on it? Just spitballing of course.
signorovitch 5mo ago
Ironically, the novelty of a negative point value seems to be the primary driver of traffic to this post.
dang 5mo ago
Looks like we have a race condition that someone triggered by using a script to rapidly upvote and then unvote the submission. I'm not sure whether to be grateful or pissed. Perhaps I'll settle on grateful once I've fixed it. In the meantime, please don't anybody else do this!
- unconed 5mo ago
  Hm so not only is it possible to manipulate scores on HN with weird scripts, but mods only noticed this when users pointed it out in this instance, with no automation or logging there to detect something like this? Do you suppose motivated individuals might have used something like this to bury wrongthink at a time when mods insisted such a thing wasn't happening, and even if it was, it was happening to all tribes equally so really it wasn't a big deal?
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]

-4 points on this submission? What? How did that happen? I've never seen it go negative.

bigyabai 5mo ago

It won't even upvote it to -3. Integer overflow?

minimaxir 5mo ago

This is...a first.

OuterVale 5mo ago

Do a get a biscuit or something for somehow managing this? Interestingly on the Harmonic client on my Android phone it is claiming -10 points. Very odd.

Waterluvian 5mo ago
Hacker News uses the D&D 2e ruleset. You’re doing great… if you want everyone to miss your post.

teddyh 5mo ago

[flagged]

ramon156 5mo ago
It's generic, but I wouldn't say there are any obvious LLM patterns. Unless I'm missing something?
- teddyh 5mo ago
  “This isn’t just a supposition — I have proof!” was one I noticed at a glance. Also the many bulleted lists.

hans-l 5mo ago

My theory is either fudging the display (add/remove votes to prevent people from knowing the real count), or there’s a secret API that some bot found and exploited. Or maybe it uses negative points when it detects bad actors voting/commenting on it? Just spitballing of course.

signorovitch 5mo ago

Ironically, the novelty of a negative point value seems to be the primary driver of traffic to this post.

dang 5mo ago

Looks like we have a race condition that someone triggered by using a script to rapidly upvote and then unvote the submission. I'm not sure whether to be grateful or pissed. Perhaps I'll settle on grateful once I've fixed it. In the meantime, please don't anybody else do this!

unconed 5mo ago
Hm so not only is it possible to manipulate scores on HN with weird scripts, but mods only noticed this when users pointed it out in this instance, with no automation or logging there to detect something like this? Do you suppose motivated individuals might have used something like this to bury wrongthink at a time when mods insisted such a thing wasn't happening, and even if it was, it was happening to all tribes equally so really it wasn't a big deal?
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]