alt Hacker NewsPeople are definitely trying to make HN bots because I have seen several get flagged. No idea to what end though.
Replies
the suits or suit minded people have realised that HN is good for advertising to the kind of demographic that'll give them free labour and is easily swayed by whatever the latest trend is
Why would reddit bots exist? (In)organic advertising, same concept here.
The ones you see flagged are the very obvious bots. What about the more sophisticated ones? How do I know skupig isn't a bot?
Possibly to test reactions to a bot they plan to build a startup around.
I've seen some claim they do it to avoid stylometry or being fingerprinted, or because of social anxiety problems.
Some people just have a compulsive need to optimize everything, and HN's guidelines and tone policing are more easily followed by a bot than a human.
I didn’t say that people weren’t doing it. I was asking this person not to do that here since it sort of sounds like they have plans to
People still see HN as a valuable place for promoting their businesses. Usually some poorly thought out SaaS.
If you look at what people outside HN talk about HN, it's not uncommon to see wannabe tech entrepreneurs talking about how to promote their products via Show HNs and how to stay HN front page. It's honestly a little sad considering that HN has a tendency to rip these projects apart.