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Ask HN: Is it time for HN to implement a form of captcha?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: Is it time for HN to implement a form of captcha?

#41

Post by ktallett »

rd wrote: post #5

I've always wished there was a "block comments from this user" feature that didn't rely on vibe-coding my own Chrome extension (and thus not work on Safari where I spent at least 50% of my HN time). I imagine it could even work like Sponsorblock does, and we could crowdsource people who's comments are inflammatory. I've also noticed that very obviously LLM-generated comments are called out, and the community tends to…

Do we have any users here that have such controversial or meme esque opnions that require blocking every single one?

Re: Ask HN: Is it time for HN to implement a form of captcha?

#42

Post by ibejoeb »

rd wrote: post #5

I've always wished there was a "block comments from this user" feature that didn't rely on vibe-coding my own Chrome extension (and thus not work on Safari where I spent at least 50% of my HN time). I imagine it could even work like Sponsorblock does, and we could crowdsource people who's comments are inflammatory. I've also noticed that very obviously LLM-generated comments are called out, and the community tends to…

I don't see a many habitual problem accounts. Do you? I guess there was the arguably special case of a certain OS enthusiast...

Re: Ask HN: Is it time for HN to implement a form of captcha?

#44

Post by pamcake »

ktallett wrote: post #41
rd wrote: post #5

I've always wished there was a "block comments from this user" feature that didn't rely on vibe-coding my own Chrome extension (and thus not work on Safari where I spent at least 50% of my HN time). I imagine it could even work like Sponsorblock does, and we could crowdsource people who's comments are inflammatory. I've also noticed that very obviously LLM-generated comments are called out, and the community tends to…

Do we have any users here that have such controversial or meme esque opnions that require blocking every single one?

Spammers plastering /new with self-promotion posts is a thing and filtering those out would be useful. I don't see how more CAPTCHAs would improve the over-all situation, on the other hand.

On the more benign side, maybe some people enjoy the musings of amichail on Ask but I could honestly do without.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time for HN to implement a form of captcha?

#45

Post by fragmede »

gilrain wrote: post #30
freeplay wrote: post #22

Captcha is only effective at annoying legitimate users. If there is any incentive to do so, bots have no problem bypassing/solving them.

Is this your experience as a sysadmin or a user? As a sysadmin, this is an absurd statement in contradiction of my everyday reality.

https://2captcha.com/

Re: Ask HN: Is it time for HN to implement a form of captcha?

#46

Post by pepperball »

ibejoeb wrote: post #42
rd wrote: post #5

I've always wished there was a "block comments from this user" feature that didn't rely on vibe-coding my own Chrome extension (and thus not work on Safari where I spent at least 50% of my HN time). I imagine it could even work like Sponsorblock does, and we could crowdsource people who's comments are inflammatory. I've also noticed that very obviously LLM-generated comments are called out, and the community tends to…

I don't see a many habitual problem accounts. Do you? I guess there was the arguably special case of a certain OS enthusiast...

> I don't see a many habitual problem accounts.

It’s usually old/high karma accounts, as they can get away with it easier

Re: Ask HN: Is it time for HN to implement a form of captcha?

#47

Post by pepperball »

ibejoeb wrote: post #42
rd wrote: post #5

I've always wished there was a "block comments from this user" feature that didn't rely on vibe-coding my own Chrome extension (and thus not work on Safari where I spent at least 50% of my HN time). I imagine it could even work like Sponsorblock does, and we could crowdsource people who's comments are inflammatory. I've also noticed that very obviously LLM-generated comments are called out, and the community tends to…

I don't see a many habitual problem accounts. Do you? I guess there was the arguably special case of a certain OS enthusiast...

> I don't see a many habitual problem accounts.

It’s usually old/high karma accounts, as they can get away with it easier. Throwaways that establish themselves for a time too, but those are usually dealt with eventually

Re: Ask HN: Is it time for HN to implement a form of captcha?

#48

Post by jmward01 »

This is evolution in action. An ecosystem is generating with different things populating it. Is there a better method than captcha out there? For instance, hide things in html comments that only bots would see and if they are reacted to then flag that as a bot account and silently hide their comments (so that another account isn't created)? Do this randomly so that it is hard to find but bot code would catch it. Or other things like text with the same background color so only a bot could have seen it. Basically, instead of staying defensive, go on the attack?

Re: Ask HN: Is it time for HN to implement a form of captcha?

#49

Post by caminante »

tptacek wrote: post #33
rd wrote: post #5

I've always wished there was a "block comments from this user" feature that didn't rely on vibe-coding my own Chrome extension (and thus not work on Safari where I spent at least 50% of my HN time). I imagine it could even work like Sponsorblock does, and we could crowdsource people who's comments are inflammatory. I've also noticed that very obviously LLM-generated comments are called out, and the community tends to…

This is an anti-goal for HN. There are forums that silo themselves in various ways. HN is an experiment in how far you can get without any of those kinds of features, with a single global pool of conversations and participants. That's not to say there's no value in siloing, just that it's specifically not what HN is exploring.

Preach it.

I'm still amazed at how Reddit weaponized the block feature.

If you block someone, you not only can't see their posts, but you ice them out from replying in the rest of the thread.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time for HN to implement a form of captcha?

#50

Post by xnx »

rd wrote: post #5

I've always wished there was a "block comments from this user" feature that didn't rely on vibe-coding my own Chrome extension (and thus not work on Safari where I spent at least 50% of my HN time). I imagine it could even work like Sponsorblock does, and we could crowdsource people who's comments are inflammatory. I've also noticed that very obviously LLM-generated comments are called out, and the community tends to…

Not sure what extensions work in Safari, but I think I used this one for awhile in Chrome: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10005699 / https://github.com/morgante/hn_blocklist
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