Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Digg is gone again

digg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 497 posts

Re: Digg is gone again

#201

Post by gzread »

basisword wrote: post #190
ThalesX wrote: post #135

I recently activated my account on there and went to the forum for my country. It was already taken over by moderators. Then I looked at the mod and he took all real estate that is already available on Reddit that is related to said country. So in a way, he was probably the first account on there and became god-king for eternity for the subreddits related to the country. I had no idea who he was, what he stood for, w…

>> I recently activated my account on there and went to the forum for my country. It was already taken over by moderators. Then I looked at the mod and he took all real estate that is already available on Reddit that is related to said country. Are you sure? My understanding is that accounts were only allowed to create two communities.

On Reddit? It's horribly intransparent but there seems to be a special class of people to whom the normal rules don't apply.

That limit wouldn't stop you creating more communities with more accounts anyway.

Re: Digg is gone again

#202

Post by gzread »

deanc wrote: post #120
mikeocool wrote: post #51

Kinda seems like we’re rapidly headed for the complete collapse of the internet as we know it. Every site that is driven by user posting seems to be headed towards being overrun by AI bots chatting with each other, either for sake of promoting something or farming karma. And there’s really not much point in publishing good content anymore, since AI is just going slurp it up and regurgitate it without driving you any…

The bot problem cannot be solved. Even if you strongly authenticate, people are letting bots act on their behalf (moltbook is a great example of this) and what's to stop people doing that in the future. Build your identity and reputation autonomously with the benefits that come with that. This happens now on Onlyfans too. Content creators hire agencies which in the best case outsource chatting to "customers" to armie…

"content creators" https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2025/07/06/content-creator/

Re: Digg is gone again

#203

Post by gzread »

JimDabell wrote: post #149
deanc wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bot problem cannot be solved. Even if you strongly authenticate, people are letting bots act on their behalf (moltbook is a great example of this) and what's to stop people doing that in the future. Build your identity and reputation autonomously with the benefits that come with that. This happens now on Onlyfans too. Content creators hire agencies which in the best case outsource chatting to "customers" to armie…

> people are letting bots act on their behalf (moltbook is a great example of this) and what's to stop people doing that in the future. Verifiable credentials; services can get persistent pseudonymous identifiers that are linked to a real-world identity. Ban them once and they stay banned. It doesn’t matter if a person lets a bot post inauthentic content using their identity if, when they are caught, that person cann…

The ability to make a new account is an important defense against abusive bans. You don't want it to be possible for Google to unperson you.

Re: Digg is gone again

#204

Post by gzread »

Terr_ wrote: post #151
JimDabell wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people are letting bots act on their behalf (moltbook is a great example of this) and what's to stop people doing that in the future. Verifiable credentials; services can get persistent pseudonymous identifiers that are linked to a real-world identity. Ban them once and they stay banned. It doesn’t matter if a person lets a bot post inauthentic content using their identity if, when they are caught, that person cann…

I'd rather have a system where there's a small investment cost to making an account, but you could always make another. Imagine A system where there's a vending machine outside City Hall, you spend $X on a charity for choice, and you get a one-time, anonymous token. You can "spend" it with a forum to indicate "this is probably a person or close enough to it." Misuse of the system could be curbed by making it so that…

Something Awful made you pay $10 for an account. Directly to the forum. If you got banned you could pay another $10 to try again. Somehow this didn't lead to that bad incentives even though you'd think it would.

Re: Digg is gone again

#206

Post by spicymaki »

october8140 wrote: post #130
mikeocool wrote: post #51

Kinda seems like we’re rapidly headed for the complete collapse of the internet as we know it. Every site that is driven by user posting seems to be headed towards being overrun by AI bots chatting with each other, either for sake of promoting something or farming karma. And there’s really not much point in publishing good content anymore, since AI is just going slurp it up and regurgitate it without driving you any…

The future is human curated content. Provide the same experience people get today but without the noise. Give them just the good stuff and don't let just anyone make a post. A book has an author, a movie has a director, maybe websites can have webmasters again who filter through the garbage for you.

The future is meeting in person and watching performers actually perform live.

Re: Digg is gone again

#207

Post by gzread »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #121
kdheiwns wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With AI running rampant, it seems security through obscurity is basically the best thing we have. Everyone knows reddit, facebook, xitter, etc so any clown can and does have bots running loose. HN is "obscure" in that most normies don't know about this place, and so it's relatively safe from the floods of spam. But I think it's just a matter of time until non-tech people start looking for those few bastions of human…

I've asked ChatGPT a question about something I read in a thread here and it responded with a comment from that thread, even though the thread was less than an hour old. HN is well known in the tech community and there are certain subjects, especially anything involving Israel or India, that nearly instantly result in a flood of comments from bad actors. HN isn't Reddit but it's also a shadow of what it once was, whi…

Search engines seem to index HN in near real time. They must have custom scraping code to follow the incrementing post IDs.

Re: Digg is gone again

#208

Post by gzread »

huhkerrf wrote: post #125
ranger_danger wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with lemmy has not been nice. A majority of people there are just downright awful, and the mods are often power-hungry and overzealous in their actions. Many times entire servers are defederated from many others due to how a large percentage of their users behave. Example: https://0x0.st/8RmU.png

> A majority of people there are just downright awful, and the mods are often power-hungry and overzealous in their actions. If you're telling me it's _worse_ than reddit in this regard, I can only imagine how terrible it is.

Lemmy is server software, it's like saying you don't use phpBB because it has bad mods

Re: Digg is gone again

#209

Post by jimmydorry »

tlonny wrote: post #175
Terr_ wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather have a system where there's a small investment cost to making an account, but you could always make another. Imagine A system where there's a vending machine outside City Hall, you spend $X on a charity for choice, and you get a one-time, anonymous token. You can "spend" it with a forum to indicate "this is probably a person or close enough to it." Misuse of the system could be curbed by making it so that…

I’d love something like this implemented for email. Sending an unsolicited email to a random person X requires you to pay a small toll (something like 50p). Subsequent emails can then be sent for free - however person X can “revoke” your access any time necessitating a further toll payment. You would of course be able to pre-authorise friends/family/transactional emails from various services that you’ve signed up for…

>transactional emails from various services that you’ve signed up for

These are one of the main culprits of unwanted emails... and a toll system would make them all the more valuable for the even worse actors to take advantage of.

Re: Digg is gone again

#210

Post by gzread »

JimDabell wrote: post #156
gagik_co wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Reddit fighting the bot problem? They introduced a feature to hide post history which makes it hard to know whether you’re interacting with a spammy bot account. If anything they’re embracing it.

Actions speak louder than words. They’ve added features that help spammers hide their behaviour, they are rejecting API keys when people apply for access to deal with the bot problem, they ignore subreddits with spam-friendly moderators, and they ignore reports on vote manipulation. There’s a tonne of low-hanging fruit for tackling the bot problem on Reddit that they aren’t doing anything about, and often it seems li…

I wonder what they say if you apply for API access and say you want to run a spam bot.
Post reply on HN