Recently I've noticed a lot of totally new accounts posting comments on topics (Mainly Crypto related!)... all commenting in the same direction.<p>Are these throwaway (Possibly bot) accounts now becoming a problem - effecting ranking and the conversation?
Look, if you set up a permanent account on a pseudonymous forum, you are essentially linking it to your real identity.<p>Your writing voice, anecdotes from your life, what topics you understand and are interested in, it all comes together with enough time.<p>Not everybody wants to be bothered with all of that. Doesn't mean they're bots. It's worrying how often people assume that disagreement is necessarily inauthentic.
I see plenty of spam and garbage on HN (examples: the same articles being posted over and over, random crypto articles with 4 upvotes, "this" or "I agree, fuck X!" bandwagon comments).<p>But I still think the lower volume vs. larger social medias, and the upvote/downvote system, is good so that these spam and throwaways don't take up too much of my attention vs. the actually good content.
I like being able to comment without coming up with a traceable handle, I really don't think it is a problem. And yes, I also participate time to time in crypto related threads, but am certainly not a bot. Pseudoanonymity is valuable, and there's naturally a good overlap with individuals interested in crypto as many are privacy advocates. I really, strongly believe that it is not a problem to be able to easily post here without things like a degree of MFA. It allows for easier communication
I disagree, I frequently see them used to express viewpoints that may cause people an issue at work. It's nice that Hacker News is a place where people can do that and still spark or engage with conversation on topics where they can't use their real name for whatever reason.<p>Especially given recent news that gives some people pause about using Twitter (too early to tell if there will be a real exodus or need for exodus from the platform). It's nice to have techy people to chat with on HN.
Only if "who said what in internet" is important to you. I you focus in the ideas and content instead than in the envelope this accounts can be still valuable
Over time one learns to take the comments of green accounts with a certain grain of salt without discarding their opinion entirely. Wrongthink is a serious offense these days. Throwaways effectively work around this injunction.
My primary account on here is labeled throwaway even though I've been active for about four years. I just decided to label it "throwaway" to make it very clear that I have no concern whatsoever with reputation. In that respect it's a means of being able to express an opinion without the subsequent stress over perceived external perceptions.
I have not observed what you describe. But what I can tell about crypto topics (not only on HN) is that a quality of discussion use to be low while the amount of such discussion is very high. That remains me one of the most famous mathematical meme about Fermat's Great Theorem. There were a lot of people with no math education who use to desire to prove the theorem. And there are too much of people who use to tell something about crypto while have no ability to tell anything wise. What about throwaway accounts, I am sure this is not a problem at all. Just set your "showdead" option for yes and you will see how much of job is doing here invisibly.
People making many throwaway accounts end up rate-limiting themselves in certain regards. Make a new account and comment with a link as one of your first few messages? Probably going to get auto-killed (someone can vouch for it, I usually do) because it looks like a typical spam message. Similarly, young accounts posting too many submissions end up getting their submissions auto-killed for the same reason (these can also be vouched for, but people are less likely to notice it to do the vouching).<p>If it's how they want to interact with the site, though, let them. It doesn't hurt anything, just adds more green (and sometimes grey) to the page.
Wouldn't flagging/moderation that we have do work on this? Praise to mods, especially dang.<p>I would guess that the reason most of us are here is the higher than normal signal to noise ratio.<p>HN has a long way to go SNR wise before I think we reach bot problems. This is one of my couple accounts on HN, decoupled from my internet presence. Seems fine to me, for now.
My understanding would be throwaways should be limited to high value, usually one-time posts or comments specifically meant to anonymize a persons affiliation with a group in response to an event. Not just like an 'alt'. Are there other high value or in the spirit of HN uses?
I’ve noticed the same thing and been more and more feeling like commenting this same thing.<p>Not just on crypto, but on other topics that people don’t want to be associated with their actual opinions (GutHub Copilot) this seems to be far to common.<p>I really think these accounts poison the well on the more contentious topics.
It would be interesting to have a community where anonymous comments are separated from those with a name (or reputation / age, given you could still make throwaway accounts).
Throwaway accounts can't downvote.<p>That is the tool I'd use to manipulate HN.<p>Also can't flag, vouch and upvote in practice.<p>If throwaway account "comments" are a problem then all comments are a problem.<p>All systems (like the Stock Market) have mostly irrational actors already, the 'system' needs to smooth that out and get rational actors or rational data to the top. If it can't do it at the base level then it's already broken.<p>If you documented an example it'd help your case.<p>[edit] "all commenting in the same direction" I assume you mean negative, since that's the typical uneducated vapid bot-like comments you get on crypto. But it did occur to me later maybe you actually mean positive. Again why you need to document rather than having people do tasseography, you being a bot-like could be in the tea leaves on the second reading.
What's your evidence that there are bots on here? There's nothing worse than people just throwing out conspiracy theories with nothing to back them.<p>And HN has a lot of internal protection against vote rigging, etc.