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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

#421

Post by pixelmelt »

qingcharles wrote: post #399
heavyset_go wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit has more friction to sign up or post while new or low karma. The main subreddits will basically shadowban you until your account is aged and has more than X karma.

Which in itself is annoying, IMO. It creates a whole separate set of problems. You need karma, so people post in karma-farming subs to get a few crumbs. Then you get auto-banned from a dozen of the top subreddits preemptively for farming. Reddit hasn't been as overrun by bots yet, for the most part, although how long they can hold out I don't know.

maybe not overrun by spam, but the amount of bots I see on popular subs is definitely not 0

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#422

Post by dawnerd »

anonzzzies wrote: post #419
qingcharles wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moderating Reddit subs can be a huge money maker. I know people making $100K/year from it. There are cabals, especially in the adult sections. Reddit has tried to address this recently by limiting the number of subs a person can moderate, but that just causes these big accounts to create more user accounts and split all their subs up that way.

I must be old and naive but you can make money with subreddits?

Plenty of subs blatantly allow certain brands to advertise while banning anyone else. Kind of amazed Reddit themselves haven’t put more effort into to stopping it since it kinda sidesteps their in house advertising.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#423

Post by cindyllm »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #411
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…

When I read comments like this, I think about the average Joe who says: "Most people are terrible drivers." Then, someone asks them: "Are you a terrible driver?" They respond: "Of course not. I am an excellent driver." A few people roll their eyes. > worthy of an instant ban First, it is not always possible to identify an LLM-generated comment. There are too many false-positives. Imagine if this system was implemente…

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#424

Post by kazinator »

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...

A site can't easily be immune to macro trends in authentic dicussion, but it can be significantly immune to inauthentic uses.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#425

Post by kazinator »

dang wrote: post #347
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…

Indeed. Here is a recent litmus test: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47051852 . How can we filter the lightweight stuff while still benefiting from posts like these? (a bit more about this at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47056384 , with a reply from the OP)

You would need, say, a StackExchange-like crowdsourced moderation system whereby users with relatively high karma are randomly selected to check posts from new account, by casting votes to reject or keep.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#427

Post by speedylight »

No, Reddit is insufferable to use precisely because of this, try posting to any subreddit with a new account and your post gets removed because it’s too new or doesn’t have enough karma. Blanket moderation strategies like these make the UX horrible for new users and slows the platforms growth and reach.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#428

Post by admiralrohan »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #266

Reddit has tried this approach and, IMO, it's failed. A new human user will spend actual time creating a thoughtful and helpful post, only to be greeted by "sorry, your post has been removed by automod because you don't meet criteria". They get disheartened and walk away forever. The spammers, on the other hand, know how the rules work and so will just build their bots to work around this (waiting 30days, farming kar…

I agree. I faced this in the psychology subreddit, forced to quit. They wanted karma to post comments, but without posting comments, how am I supposed to get karma specific within that community?

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#429

Post by nurettin »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #266

Reddit has tried this approach and, IMO, it's failed. A new human user will spend actual time creating a thoughtful and helpful post, only to be greeted by "sorry, your post has been removed by automod because you don't meet criteria". They get disheartened and walk away forever. The spammers, on the other hand, know how the rules work and so will just build their bots to work around this (waiting 30days, farming kar…

> waiting 30days, farming karma

If "farming karma" is a thing, maybe that forum deserves what is coming. Either the karma mechanic is inappropriate given the demographic, or it is too hard for the users to avoid upvoting bots.

Re: Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting

#430

Post by rl3 »

dang wrote: post #347
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…

Indeed. Here is a recent litmus test: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47051852 . How can we filter the lightweight stuff while still benefiting from posts like these? (a bit more about this at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47056384 , with a reply from the OP)

>How can we filter the lightweight stuff while still benefiting from posts like these?

Well, the simplest automated method would be to run the post and comment together through an LLM with a prompt that's roughly:

"Is this person claiming to be the author or co-creator of the work discussed in this submission?"

Only green accounts subject to it. I predict you'd probably have a very low false positive and false negative rate.

It's of course a terribly slippery slope. My perhaps overly-cynical take is that once the infra is place some of your bosses would be prone to eventually abusing it.

Personally I'm here for it: Dang, moderator turned whistleblower—on the run from dark VC money—in a race against time to save freedom. Still working on a title for the film.

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