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Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#231

Post by VorpalWay »

Barbing wrote: post #212
SoftTalker wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd suggest: new accounts are read-only for at least a week. Then they can comment (rate limited at first, gradually relaxed) and vote, and then after some additional amount of time and/or karma they can submit a post. Maybe some of these mechanisms are already in place? Bots can probably game this too but drive-by bots maybe won't be patient enough.

Immediate comment privileges are really important. Lots of examples, but to give a silly one, someone pastes their clipboard without realizing it includes their API key or their email. Good Samaritans should be able to say, "Hey, I just caught something." And, as another commenter mentions, if someone shares your work, you should be able to comment on that thread without delay.

This is the only reason I got myself a HN account: someone posted a link to a blog post of mine, and I happened to see the increased traffic on my VPS.

(And I stuck around after, a few posts are interesting enough. All the AI stuff isn't, and there is too much of that unfortunately.)

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#232

Post by brudgers »

laborcontract wrote: post #95
dang wrote: post #34

We're going to at least restrict Show HNs for a while. I do think this is relevant though: "HN can't be immune from macro trends" - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Please do so. And, forgive me if I speak heresy, but there has to be more proof of work (friction) to create accounts. I was shocked at how easy it is for something like chatgpt atlas to create new accounts on the fly.

My intuition is increasing the difficulty of account creation favors motivated actors and disincentivizes organic participation because:

1. ideological and/or economically motivated actors will just see it as a cost of doing business.

2. Ordinary sign-up friction is more likely to make HN appear ordinary to anyone who stumbles upon it.

3. Sign-up friction is a moat. The strength of HN is moderation of what gets in.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#233

Post by bitroughj »

idontwantthis wrote: post #170
srid wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not too much of my post history accumulates in one account I'm curious to hear what benefits you think can be gained from avoiding this.

I do it sometimes just to restrict my own pride in the account. I get a buzz from upvotes and that upsets me on a deeper level.

Same, but also for the opposite reason: a new account gives me a chance to do better. If I post lame comments, I accept the lameness of the posts attached to a particular user name and the hesitation I feel to post more lame comments decreases. With a fresh identity, I am more likely to avoid lame posting sort of like how you avoid going out in the mud in brand new sneakers. A sort of repentance; being born again in the digital realm.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#235

Post by zahlman »

fubdopsp wrote: post #156
ryandrake wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I'm not a fan of LLM slop articles and blogspam either and if I could hold back the tide, I'd try to. But I'm just saying that pointing it out each and every time is just going to become its own form of spam. We're quickly entering a world where 99+% of what is written online, be it blogs, amateur news, or actual professional journalism, is LLM generated. You hate it, I hate it, but it's coming. The state of jou…

I still think it has strong normative value. Maybe at some point when norms have become firmly established these comments will be pointless and spammy but I don't think we're anywhere close to that point yet. A lot of blogging is essentially self-expression and that stuff won't be taken over by LLMs (it defeats the whole point). Other blogging is done with some kind of sales/promotional/brand purpose and the extent t…

Perhaps it would be better to have comments that praise apparently human-written text?

I understand where you're coming from. I've been posting complaints about LLM-written articles almost as long as I've been here. (My analysis is definitely more complex than a search for blacklisted Unicode characters or words.)

But I've let off on that, partly because I agree the guideline is meant to encompass that kind of criticism (same with my comments about initial page content not rendering with JavaScript, honestly) but largely because it just seems futile. It's better material for a blog post than HN comments (and would be less repetitive).

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#236

Post by wizzwizz4 »

trinsic2 wrote: post #196
magicalhippo wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that we might lose some gold. Not too seldom have I seen the author or a significant party of a story chime in through a fresh green account, as they were alerted by the story being posted here one way or another. And usually when they do it's very interesting. As such I would find it detrimental if they had to jump through too many hoops so they don't bother or it takes too long so the thread dies bef…

I think the right people will stick around. There is a certain kind of indivudal that has the paitence to understand that a system that restricts new accounts from post is a good thing. Of recent, there have been a lot of posters that come here from the open web just to try and slant opinion.

I am only that kind of individual when I'm inclined to post unconstructively – not that I know that, at the time. When I'm feeling constructive, friction is likely to make me take my constructive energies elsewhere.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#237

Post by brudgers »

trinsic2 wrote: post #196
magicalhippo wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that we might lose some gold. Not too seldom have I seen the author or a significant party of a story chime in through a fresh green account, as they were alerted by the story being posted here one way or another. And usually when they do it's very interesting. As such I would find it detrimental if they had to jump through too many hoops so they don't bother or it takes too long so the thread dies bef…

I think the right people will stick around. There is a certain kind of indivudal that has the paitence to understand that a system that restricts new accounts from post is a good thing. Of recent, there have been a lot of posters that come here from the open web just to try and slant opinion.

I believe HN's success is in large part not presuming to have a good idea of what "the right people" are.

This doesn't mean it doesn't have a strong sense of what bad behavior is. It clearly does.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#238

Post by zahlman »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #72
heavyset_go wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without engaging in more ad hominem, that are wrong by the way, what's the issue with labeling AI content with what it is?

It's one thing to have an AI-label. It's another to completely derail a conversation with a likely false AI accusation. Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47122272 You have to scroll a few pages before the actual article is discussed. "This was LLM generated" is likely to float to the top of an article. That's where the best comments about the article deserve to go, not an off topic comment. An AI label sh…

> You have to scroll a few pages before the actual article is discussed.

Or you could collapse the one thread containing those comments.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#239

Post by hinkley »

magicalhippo wrote: post #149
laborcontract wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do so. And, forgive me if I speak heresy, but there has to be more proof of work (friction) to create accounts. I was shocked at how easy it is for something like chatgpt atlas to create new accounts on the fly.

The problem is that we might lose some gold. Not too seldom have I seen the author or a significant party of a story chime in through a fresh green account, as they were alerted by the story being posted here one way or another. And usually when they do it's very interesting. As such I would find it detrimental if they had to jump through too many hoops so they don't bother or it takes too long so the thread dies bef…

Responding from a new account is different from posting from a new account. You aren’t vetting people by making accounts have a minimum age to post articles. That’ll just cause people to make accounts before they need them.

Reddit has forums where you need a minimum karma to post to certain subreddits and that is typically upvotes on your comments, but it could also be upvotes on someone else’s moderated subreddit.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#240

Post by II2II »

apt-apt-apt-apt wrote: post #203
laborcontract wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do so. And, forgive me if I speak heresy, but there has to be more proof of work (friction) to create accounts. I was shocked at how easy it is for something like chatgpt atlas to create new accounts on the fly.

I was going to suggest emotional leetcode, but LLMs do well on this. When given a conversation about Alice and Suzy having a one-upmanship conversation (my husband rich, my kid is a genius) and what emotions they are feeling, and what Suzy could have said instead to improve the conversation, it gave accurate responses (e.g. they're feeling insecure, competitive, envy).

That type of question could also turn people off. We already have too many discussions where people are quick to jump to conclusions and attribute intent, rather than asking basic questions.
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