4 ms·

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

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.
- dredmorbius 3mo ago
  Exceptions? <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47116093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47116093> (LLM but not PF). <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47095664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47095664> (a16h) <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46695693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46695693> (vuln exploits) 2026-1-20 <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46280602 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46280602> (???, but not PF) <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46195234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46195234> (Monero / Dark Web) 2025-12-8 <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45894305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45894305> and <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45826273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45826273> (Tor hidden service) Nov 2025 That's from the past 20 comments. Submissions: 8 most recent on PF, 9+ cover nuclear power, Tor dark web, robotaxis, and other topics. Again: Not a one-note flute, though fairly focused of late on AI and poisoning. Again: I think the ban is unwarranted. I'm not sure what's driving your thinking here, but a no-warnings ban seems excessive. And given YC's current preponderance of AI/agentic launches (<https://news.ycombinator.com/launches https://news.ycombinator.com/launches>), self-serving and contrary to the "we moderate YC stories less" guideline. (Yes, I'm aware "less" isn't "none", and this is an account/user rather than story, I hope my point stands and is clear.) The Yann LeCun posts you link are ... a bit OTT. That's also a couple of years ago. I've said my bit. I'm hoping you and atomic128 can come to an understanding in email.
dataflow 3mo ago
> Such as, say, Jon Corbet (@corbet), of LWN, whose activity on HN shows a similar pattern and roughly equivalent frequency. I took a look at the most recent comments from both accounts and they don't look similar to me in this respect. I think there are two questions here though: 1. Was the violation egregious? 2. Did it deserve an immediate ban, or did they deserve a warning etc.? Seems to me the answer to (1) is yes, but the answer to (2) I'm less sure about.
- dredmorbius 3mo ago
  Jon's been around a while and some of the piss and vinegar of youth may have subsided. He does tend to show up with LWN comes up, whether as a topic of discussion (or more often) from submitted articles. That's his baliwick, and again, I don't fault him at all for it. Our other friend here is a more recent participant to HN, at least under this handle. (I don't know that there are others, only what I can see from this one.)

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.

dredmorbius 3mo ago
Exceptions? <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47116093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47116093> (LLM but not PF). <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47095664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47095664> (a16h) <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46695693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46695693> (vuln exploits) 2026-1-20 <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46280602 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46280602> (???, but not PF) <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46195234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46195234> (Monero / Dark Web) 2025-12-8 <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45894305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45894305> and <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45826273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45826273> (Tor hidden service) Nov 2025 That's from the past 20 comments. Submissions: 8 most recent on PF, 9+ cover nuclear power, Tor dark web, robotaxis, and other topics. Again: Not a one-note flute, though fairly focused of late on AI and poisoning. Again: I think the ban is unwarranted. I'm not sure what's driving your thinking here, but a no-warnings ban seems excessive. And given YC's current preponderance of AI/agentic launches (<https://news.ycombinator.com/launches https://news.ycombinator.com/launches>), self-serving and contrary to the "we moderate YC stories less" guideline. (Yes, I'm aware "less" isn't "none", and this is an account/user rather than story, I hope my point stands and is clear.) The Yann LeCun posts you link are ... a bit OTT. That's also a couple of years ago. I've said my bit. I'm hoping you and atomic128 can come to an understanding in email.

dataflow 3mo ago

> Such as, say, Jon Corbet (@corbet), of LWN, whose activity on HN shows a similar pattern and roughly equivalent frequency. I took a look at the most recent comments from both accounts and they don't look similar to me in this respect. I think there are two questions here though: 1. Was the violation egregious? 2. Did it deserve an immediate ban, or did they deserve a warning etc.? Seems to me the answer to (1) is yes, but the answer to (2) I'm less sure about.

dredmorbius 3mo ago
Jon's been around a while and some of the piss and vinegar of youth may have subsided. He does tend to show up with LWN comes up, whether as a topic of discussion (or more often) from submitted articles. That's his baliwick, and again, I don't fault him at all for it. Our other friend here is a more recent participant to HN, at least under this handle. (I don't know that there are others, only what I can see from this one.)