Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

Post by edanm » Mon, Mar 09, 2026, 6:44 AM UTC

christofosho wrote: post #316

edanm wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Post by ares623 » Mon, Mar 09, 2026, 6:48 AM UTC

dextrous wrote: post #102

delichon wrote: post #28

There is an epistemic silver lining. This is in fact a Red Queen's race that cannot be won. So in the end the only solution is to evaluate the text on its own merits without reference to the writer's status, because that status can no longer be reliably detected. For a public feed like this one, the only alternative is to ignore it. The fire hose of data will inevitably become ever more fecal. We can only walk away f…

One way that I could imagine a human-only HN could evolve in the coming AI wasteland: motivated individuals join small local groups and are validated face-to-face at meet-ups. Local trusted leads gatekeep their chapter’s posts, and this scalable moderation works up the tree. Bad leaves get culled out reasonably fast, maybe there’s some controls at the top level that let you see more content “lower down the tree” if y…

Post by nottorp » Mon, Mar 09, 2026, 6:59 AM UTC

wolvoleo wrote: post #226

lich_king wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many HNers strongly argue that it's absolutely impossible to distinguish between AI text and non-AI text. Some of it seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to some of the occasional, one-sided stories of people who were accused of using LLMs and fired from their jobs. And some of it seems to be just hedging so that we don't develop a culture that could penalize their LLM-generated posts or code. We had people defending the…

Hmm, some LLM text is hard to detect, sure. Some is also horribly easy. If the text is full of: - Overly positive commentary and encouragement - Constant use of bullet point lists, bolding and emoji - This quaint forced 'funniness', like a misplaced attempt at being lighthearted - A lot of blablah that just missed the point - Not concise and to the point, but also not super long Then that really screams ChatGPT to me…

Post by nottorp » Mon, Mar 09, 2026, 7:06 AM UTC

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.

Post by muldvarp » Mon, Mar 09, 2026, 7:27 AM UTC

vunderba wrote: post #384

brewdad wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This leads inevitably to karma farming bots who upvote each other’s submissions à la Reddit. It’s a speed bump at best.

Yeah I considered that - but any friction is better than none. Maybe integrate an additional consideration by which low karma (threshold Honestly, we don’t really have the same cold start problem that a brand new social media site would. We already have plenty of reputable active users here. So HN could restrict new accounts to only being able to comment initially . As they participate, their comments receive upvotes…