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I've banned this account because we don't allow single-purpose accounts on HN, and your account has been doing that for quite some time now. We ban such accoun

by dang 3mo ago

I've banned this account because we don't allow single-purpose accounts on HN, and your account has been doing that for quite some time now. We ban such accounts regardless of what the single purpose happens to be. Pre-existing agendas are not what HN is for and destroy the curious conversation that it is supposed to be for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

nekusar 3mo ago
This is a strong positive sign that poison fountain works. I wasn't aware of this project. Thanks for the heads up.
- dang 3mo ago
  It's not a sign about that project in any way. I had never heard of it and have no opinion about it one way or the other. It's just a sign that single-agenda accounts aren't allowed here—no more, no less. That's why I said "We ban such accounts regardless of what the single purpose happens to be".
dredmorbius 3mo ago
Seriously, dang? 10 comments (excluding subsequent in-thread replies) over four months, always in contexts in which either the topic of LLM scraping or Poison Fountain itself has already been mentioned. This strikes me as contextually informational, and is no different from other project representatives appearing in threads discussing their own subjects or posts. Such as, say, Jon Corbet (@corbet), of LWN, whose activity on HN shows a similar pattern and roughly equivalent frequency. I hope it goes without saying I'm not suggesting corbet's handle be banned, anything but. atomic128's comments are predictable, but apposite, informative, non-disruptive, and address an increasingly urgent issue. Whether or not it's an effective mitigation is of course another discussion, but it seems plausible at first blush. As dang should well know but others may not, I often contact mods directly for HN issues, including numerous "one-note flute" alerts. atomic128's account should be un-banned, though perhaps they might communicate with HN's mods over what would be a more acceptable mode of interaction.
- fragmede 3mo ago
  I think the reasoning is about having alt accounts for different purposes. He intention is to map one human to one account and have all of their thoughts from that one account, instead of one human having one account to discuss scraping on, and a different account to discuss crypto on.
  - dredmorbius 3mo ago
    I'm pretty confident it's not that. HN's prime directive is "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity": <https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html> and many, many, many dang comments. I'm pretty sure that the specific gripe is posting excessively (not even necessarily exclusively) on a single topic or theme. See <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19392902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19392902> for a more detailed comment from dang. Occasional alts are explicitly permitted, though not to engage in abuse (e.g., mutual admiration societies, sock-puppetry). See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9963551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9963551> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9823379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9823379> (both against sock puppetry) and <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9122086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9122086> and <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7504621 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7504621> (on where throwaways are/aren't permitted). Where HN does favour persistent accounts the stated claim is to foster community, rather than for nefarious tracking purposes: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18082346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18082346> and <https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>. From that last: Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to.
- dang 3mo ago
  The most recent 60 (!) comments plus every submission of the last 6 months were all about the same thing. That's extreme. The posts didn't all mention that specific project, but there was only one topic and they were extremely repetitive. This is not a close call. I made it all the way back to https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=atomic128&next=46280602 https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=atomic128&next=4628060... (6 months ago) before seeing posts about anything else, only to find that there was a different agenda before that. Not cool. Edit: and before all that, there was this: https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=atomic128&next=41647959 https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=atomic128&next=4164795.... This is obviously not using HN as intended.
user- 3mo ago
Just curious dang, did you warn them before banning? Im not against the ban perse (single purpose accounts are bad), just curious if they had a chance to change their contribution style.
- dang 3mo ago
  No, but if they have a change of heart and genuinely want to use HN as intended, they're welcome to let us know. I've added that in an edit now.
teravor 3mo ago
I'm confused why everyone is pretending that a ban holds any meaning here. he probably already has a new account, it might have made sense to just silently ban him in the hope of imposing a minor cost on what you believe he is doing, but wasting your time addressing it imposed a far greater cost on you than him.
- dang 3mo ago
  I understand how it can be confusing. The key factors in doing it this way are (1) the community regards older accounts, especially ones that have significant posting history, as more credible; and (2) doing it publicly rather than silently has transparency value.

by dang 3mo ago

nekusar 3mo ago

This is a strong positive sign that poison fountain works. I wasn't aware of this project. Thanks for the heads up.

dang 3mo ago
It's not a sign about that project in any way. I had never heard of it and have no opinion about it one way or the other. It's just a sign that single-agenda accounts aren't allowed here—no more, no less. That's why I said "We ban such accounts regardless of what the single purpose happens to be".

dredmorbius 3mo ago

Seriously, dang? 10 comments (excluding subsequent in-thread replies) over four months, always in contexts in which either the topic of LLM scraping or Poison Fountain itself has already been mentioned. This strikes me as contextually informational, and is no different from other project representatives appearing in threads discussing their own subjects or posts. Such as, say, Jon Corbet (@corbet), of LWN, whose activity on HN shows a similar pattern and roughly equivalent frequency. I hope it goes without saying I'm not suggesting corbet's handle be banned, anything but. atomic128's comments are predictable, but apposite, informative, non-disruptive, and address an increasingly urgent issue. Whether or not it's an effective mitigation is of course another discussion, but it seems plausible at first blush. As dang should well know but others may not, I often contact mods directly for HN issues, including numerous "one-note flute" alerts. atomic128's account should be un-banned, though perhaps they might communicate with HN's mods over what would be a more acceptable mode of interaction.

fragmede 3mo ago
I think the reasoning is about having alt accounts for different purposes. He intention is to map one human to one account and have all of their thoughts from that one account, instead of one human having one account to discuss scraping on, and a different account to discuss crypto on.
- dredmorbius 3mo ago
  I'm pretty confident it's not that. HN's prime directive is "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity": <https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html> and many, many, many dang comments. I'm pretty sure that the specific gripe is posting excessively (not even necessarily exclusively) on a single topic or theme. See <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19392902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19392902> for a more detailed comment from dang. Occasional alts are explicitly permitted, though not to engage in abuse (e.g., mutual admiration societies, sock-puppetry). See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9963551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9963551> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9823379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9823379> (both against sock puppetry) and <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9122086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9122086> and <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7504621 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7504621> (on where throwaways are/aren't permitted). Where HN does favour persistent accounts the stated claim is to foster community, rather than for nefarious tracking purposes: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18082346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18082346> and <https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>. From that last: Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to.
dang 3mo ago
The most recent 60 (!) comments plus every submission of the last 6 months were all about the same thing. That's extreme. The posts didn't all mention that specific project, but there was only one topic and they were extremely repetitive. This is not a close call. I made it all the way back to https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=atomic128&next=46280602 https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=atomic128&next=4628060... (6 months ago) before seeing posts about anything else, only to find that there was a different agenda before that. Not cool. Edit: and before all that, there was this: https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=atomic128&next=41647959 https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=atomic128&next=4164795.... This is obviously not using HN as intended.

user- 3mo ago

Just curious dang, did you warn them before banning? Im not against the ban perse (single purpose accounts are bad), just curious if they had a chance to change their contribution style.

dang 3mo ago
No, but if they have a change of heart and genuinely want to use HN as intended, they're welcome to let us know. I've added that in an edit now.

teravor 3mo ago

I'm confused why everyone is pretending that a ban holds any meaning here. he probably already has a new account, it might have made sense to just silently ban him in the hope of imposing a minor cost on what you believe he is doing, but wasting your time addressing it imposed a far greater cost on you than him.

dang 3mo ago
I understand how it can be confusing. The key factors in doing it this way are (1) the community regards older accounts, especially ones that have significant posting history, as more credible; and (2) doing it publicly rather than silently has transparency value.