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pinkmuffinereyesterday at 10:59 PM2 repliesview on HN

I was thinking of setting up a system to highlight sock-puppeters and other consistent-rule-violating accounts, as a 'fun project' that might improve the HN experience. But it strikes me that the HN staff probably already does something like this, they may not welcome a side-loaded project of this sort, and it would require some automated crawling of HN (which again may be unwelcomed). Finally, I don't actually have experience in this area. Is this something that would be welcomed, or unwanted?

My initial thought is to set up a devoted account like "sock_puppet_detector", and using the infrastructure from https://hackersmacker.org/, add any likely sock-puppets as 'foes'.


Replies

vunderbatoday at 3:20 AM

It'd be pretty easy to spot too, because most people don’t even bother trying to hide it (either out of laziness and/or ineptitude).

A lot of users don’t seem to realize that anyone can click on the domain in a "Show HN", and Hacker News will show you all the times that domain has been submitted. So you’ll see four or five different low karma sock puppets accounts that have all submitted the same site.

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rdevillayesterday at 11:03 PM

I'm wary about new accounts such as yours wanting to censor and shape discourse by antagonizing people who hold diverse views that differ from your own here.

The HN culture has shifted drastically over the past 5 years.

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