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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

#311

Post by christofosho »

basilikum wrote: post #282
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.

Requiring accounts to be a certain age does not help and will only affect legitimate users. The slopsters will simply create accounts, wait a bit and start posting then. Actually cross the will out. They are already doing this to avoid the green smell. This account replied to me today. 4 months old, but only started posting today. https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=BelVisgarra Oh damn, that's the one who posted the…

Yikes. That account is like the epitome of LLM posting. It's a shame, too, because it makes me feel less inclined to read discussion on this forum.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#312

Post by esperent »

alwa wrote: post #310
8cvor6j844qw_d6 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, what are the alternatives to HN? Because if new account restrictions create enough friction, you lose legitimate users who periodically rotate accounts for privacy reasons. At some point the annoyance tips toward just lurking, and a forum where only old accounts talk is a stagnant forum given enough time.

Lobste.rs comes to mind. High enough friction that, even as a seasoned participant here, I haven’t tried over there yet.

I've wanted to join lobste.rs for several years but don't see any way to do so. I think that might be a bit too far in the other direction.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#313

Post by scoofy »

I definitely think this is solvable via some basic honeypot laiden proof of work.

1. Exist for some time.

2. Vote on stuff that humans would vote for.

3. Avoiding voting on traps.

4. Comment occasionally and productively.

5. Post to a limited existing audience, and receive upvotes.

6. Post limitedly to a general audience.

7. Post generally.

It’s basic earn a reputation behavior.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#314

Post by imiric »

layer8 wrote: post #162
hamdingers wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abusing the flag button by reporting LLM generated posts and comments (which are not breaking any current guidelines) seems like a good way to get your flags ignored.

Flagging isn’t only in case of breaking the guidelines. From the FAQ: What does [flagged] mean? Users flagged the post as breaking the guidelines or otherwise not belonging on HN. In other words, submissions get flagged that users believe don’t belong on HN. LLM-written submissions can be one such case.

"Not belonging on HN" is an open invitation to flag anything someone disagrees with. Many posts are flagged simply because they express an unpopular opinion.

Community moderation won't fix this problem. It can only be mitigated if the site owners invest significant resources in addressing it. And judging by how little YC actually invests in HN, I wouldn't hold my breath. This website will succumb to this problem just like most others.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#315

Post by hcs »

randusername wrote: post #230

How about an opt-in toggle to display the year each account was created? randusername_2022 I'm right on the boundary of the slopocene, not sure if in or out.

Or grade accounts by the logarithm of how many accounts were registered before them, like Slashdot. (This is tongue in cheek as I assume yours was.)

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#316

Post by christofosho »

edanm wrote: post #298
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…

I disagree with this policy. Some people can really benefit from using LLMs to help them write. E.g. non-native speakers. LLM-assisted-writing doesn't have to be low effort, it can help people express themselves better in many cases. I'd argue that someone who spent their time doing multiple passes with an LLM to get their phrasing just write, has taken obviously more care than the majority of people on HN take befor…

Aren't down votes on this forum restricted to 500+ karma? And how would those compare to flagging? I'd hate for people under 500 karma to think they need to flag a post in order to have it get any attention by moderation. And, with your idea that LLMs help folks write, wouldn't that make the community worse for them?

And what about users like this, whose comment are very much entirely LLM generated and possibly even a bot? https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=BelVisgarra

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#317

Post by knowitnone3 »

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.

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#318

Post by ropable »

rdevilla wrote: post #274
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking of setting up a system to highlight sock-puppeters and other consistent-rule-violating accounts, as a 'fun project' that might improve the HN experience. But it strikes me that the HN staff probably already does something like this, they may not welcome a side-loaded project of this sort, and it would require some automated crawling of HN (which again may be unwelcomed). Finally, I don't actually have…

I'm wary about new accounts such as yours wanting to censor and shape discourse by antagonizing people who hold diverse views that differ from your own here. The HN culture has shifted drastically over the past 5 years.

"New account". Meanwhile, the account is 4.5 years old with 2600 karma and has hundreds of thoughtful comments.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#319

Post by imiric »

mapontosevenths wrote: post #228
fubdopsp wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much more than a "tangential annoyance" and it adds a lot to the conversation--among other things, it establishes a norm that AI-generated blogspam is, well, spam and unwelcome. Blogging, sharing blog posts, reading them, commenting on them--these are all acts of human communication. Farming any of these steps out to an LLM completely breaks down the social contract involved in participating in an online forum l…

> it establishes a norm that AI-generated blogspam is, well, spam and unwelcome. It is welcome though. Being on the front page regularly is evidence that people enjoy it or find it informative. You may feel that others shouldn't be ALLOWED to enjoy it, but that's just your opinion and is almost always tangential to the actual topic. Worse, you seem to believe that it needs to be labeled to help you identify it. Why?…

> Being on the front page regularly is evidence that people enjoy it or find it informative.

What makes you think that it's people who get it to the front page anymore? Or that most people aren't simply fooled by technology designed to mimic humans?

> Worse, you seem to believe that it needs to be labeled to help you identify it. Why?

Why not? Would adding a label and providing filtering capabilities hurt anyone else's experience?

Some people object to this content based on principle, not on its quality, or on how closely it resembles content authored by humans.

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