Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#11

Post by _alternator_ » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:48 PM UTC

Devils advocate take: I think the quality of the ShowHN projects are in fact getting higher, at least the ones that land in the front page. The issue is that projects that used to take weeks, months, or even years of work now can be done in a weekend or so. It’s been democratizing, but it also means that when we look at these posts we (rightly) see that these new projects aren’t that much effort _with AI assistance_.

So maybe we should just be honest about this: our standards have raised. We want to see Show HN posts that require effort and dedication, that require more than a few hours of prompt flogging.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#12

Post by neom » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:48 PM UTC

I almost emailed dang this morning to offer to help out tho I'm not particularly technical. Few solutions I thought of: 1 - honeypot, hide some links llms can follow if stuff gets posted in it, unlikely to be a human. 2 - Make an captcha that only llms can answer, I recently made 2 social networks, one that humans couldn't join by making the submission question too difficult to figure out quickly. 3- Use an LLM to detect LLMs, the other social network I did for fun (that a small number of people use), an llm that looks for moderation issues does a good job of flagging them. 4- Invites but vary the number you have to give out by account age + karma. The first 3 seem like they'd stop some % for some time, but eventually get old.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#13

Post by lokar » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:49 PM UTC

delichon wrote: post #9

BalinKing wrote: post #7

I furthermore wish that "posting an LLM-generated comment (i.e. and passing it off as your own)" was worthy of an instant ban, because I see this sort of behavior from non-green accounts as well. EDIT: I meant (but totally forgot) to qualify that my "proposal" would only apply when the LLM-ness is self-obvious—idk, make up a "reasonable person" standard or something. Presumably, the moderators would err on the side o…

The moderators are supposed to just know it when they see it? It's that black and white to you? Or are lots of false positives a price we have to pay?

It’s only going to get harder has people continue to model their writing on LLM style.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#14

Post by gnabgib » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:49 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #5

“shownew” : “no|yes” option would be nice.

If everyone turned off new account visibility, we'd just see the same noise 30 days later.. not sure that helps.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#15

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:49 PM UTC

BalinKing wrote: post #7

I furthermore wish that "posting an LLM-generated comment (i.e. and passing it off as your own)" was worthy of an instant ban, because I see this sort of behavior from non-green accounts as well. EDIT: I meant (but totally forgot) to qualify that my "proposal" would only apply when the LLM-ness is self-obvious—idk, make up a "reasonable person" standard or something. Presumably, the moderators would err on the side o…

The guidelines haven't even been updated to say that AI generated posts and submission aren't permitted even though it's been the policy for a couple of years now if one searches for postings by the moderators. So outsiders and new HN users have no reason to know that it's not allowed. I'm sure there are reasons for it but the inaction is all very mysterious from an outsider perspective.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#16

Post by castral » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:50 PM UTC

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.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#17

Post by Oras » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:51 PM UTC

_alternator_ wrote: post #11

Devils advocate take: I think the quality of the ShowHN projects are in fact getting higher, at least the ones that land in the front page. The issue is that projects that used to take weeks, months, or even years of work now can be done in a weekend or so. It’s been democratizing, but it also means that when we look at these posts we (rightly) see that these new projects aren’t that much effort _with AI assistance_.…

But the issue is not only show HN, even generic posts are increasingly from new accounts, some of them are reaching front page too.

One example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46884481

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#18

Post by pluc » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:53 PM UTC

_alternator_ wrote: post #11

Devils advocate take: I think the quality of the ShowHN projects are in fact getting higher, at least the ones that land in the front page. The issue is that projects that used to take weeks, months, or even years of work now can be done in a weekend or so. It’s been democratizing, but it also means that when we look at these posts we (rightly) see that these new projects aren’t that much effort _with AI assistance_.…

Well it's not just that... picture a community group talking among themselves and then some rando shows up, yells "I built this thing that you all might like", hangs out for an hour and then is never heard from again.

I think that's great in moderation as it stimulates ideas and discussions, shows us what folks are working on, etc... but this can't become Product Hunt. The reasons for posting here should be vastly different than posting on Product Hunt.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#19

Post by anonym29 » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:54 PM UTC

SG- wrote: post #2

I'm honestly surprised HN isn't used to share more malware/githubs with new accounts too.

The target audience for malware authors/distributors typically isn't a community full of technically literate software engineers, security practitioners, reverse engineers, malware analysts, etc.

Same reason that burglars don't typically target security camera stores and robbers don't typically target police departments - it's basically a fast-track to early detection, which disrupts the main objective of the adversary.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#20

Post by bluefirebrand » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 7:54 PM UTC

lokar wrote: post #13

delichon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moderators are supposed to just know it when they see it? It's that black and white to you? Or are lots of false positives a price we have to pay?

It’s only going to get harder has people continue to model their writing on LLM style.

I guess it's been fun but the internet is well and truly dead

If not already, then soon