We will ban you and ridicule you in public if you waste our time on crap reports

Post by catlifeonmars » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 12:00 PM UTC

kordlessagain wrote: post #103

nelox wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a real cross-cultural mismatch, but it’s doing too much work with nationality alone. In a lot of Indian (and broader South Asian) work contexts, questioning instructions can be read as challenging authority or admitting incompetence, so people default to executing without asking. That’s often reinforced by education systems and contractor dynamics where producing something quickly feels safer than pa…

> questioning instructions can be read as challenging authority or admitting incompetence, so people default to executing without asking That’s ego, assuming doing is the value, not doing RIGHT. Doing alone has almost zero value.

Post by throwaway85825 » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 12:01 PM UTC

kordlessagain wrote: post #103

nelox wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a real cross-cultural mismatch, but it’s doing too much work with nationality alone. In a lot of Indian (and broader South Asian) work contexts, questioning instructions can be read as challenging authority or admitting incompetence, so people default to executing without asking. That’s often reinforced by education systems and contractor dynamics where producing something quickly feels safer than pa…

> questioning instructions can be read as challenging authority or admitting incompetence, so people default to executing without asking That’s ego, assuming doing is the value, not doing RIGHT. Doing alone has almost zero value.

Post by zimpenfish » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 12:02 PM UTC

mikkupikku wrote: post #22

skeptic_ai wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why you don’t just put an AI guardian to close or to ask them to change the story. Or shadow ban

Subjecting every real contributor to the "AI guardian" would be unfair, and shadow banning is ineffective when you're dealing with a large number of drive-by nuisances rather than a small number of dedicated trolls. Public humiliation is actually a great solution here.

Post by Aeglaecia » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 12:02 PM UTC

nchmy wrote: post #64

causalscience wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Indian students Is this cultural? I ran a small business some years ago (later failed) and was paying for contract work to various people. At the I perceived the pattern that Indian contractors would never ever ask for clarifications, would never say they didn't know something, would never say they didn't understand something, etc. Instead they just ran with whatever they happened to have in their mind, until I cal…

selfishness, laziness, lack of self-awareness, lack of shame, etc are obviously universal traits. But cultures absolutely reinforce them to different degrees. Many cultures around the world are built around the sorts of behaviors we both described. Whereas other cultures have at least some (if not a lot of) resistance to it - eg publicly ridiculing when people step flagrantly out of line. This is good. My impression…

Post by jraph » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 12:03 PM UTC

ezst wrote: post #112

jraph wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read this idea that we could make people pay for security reports a few times here on HN (and you get back the money if the report is deemed good). That feels very wrong. If I find a security issue, I'm willing to responsibly disclose it, but if you make me pay, I don't think I will bother. Punishing bad behavior to disincentivize it seems more sensible.

Punishing bad behaviour does close to nothing, because the problem at hand is one of high asymmetry between the low effort to submit vs the high effort to review. I do agree that paying for reports isn't ideal, and we should find other ways to level the playing field, but in the meantime I haven't heard of anything as effective.