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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

> Yes theoretically it shouldn't work, but I see it work everyday

I'm pretty sure this is not true (certainly the method you mention doesn't work), but if you think you know counterexamples, please send them to hn@ycombinator.com. We have put a ton of work into counteracting promotional voting a.k.a. voting rings, and genuine counterexamples (i.e. voting rings that defeated our software) are super valuable to us.

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Can you give a transparent answer to this scenario?: Let's say I posted a "Show HN". I would email my friends who are HN users, telling them "hey guys i posted something on hacker news, please go to the front page, find a post titled * and upvote!" I just can't think of a robust way to detect this.

I'm pretty sure that doesn't work. But obviously I can't tell you why, or people would soon start getting around it.

Again, eager for counterexamples if anyone knows of any.

I remember reading a while ago that YC founders' posts appear in a different color to other YC founders. Is this still true? If so, that's sort of an in-built voting ring.

Still true. But AFAICT such voting-ring impact as it has is canceled by HN's anti-voting-ring software, which treats everyone the same.

By the way, when pg added that feature years ago, he actually added two features: the colored usernames, plus a page for stories submitted by YC founders. The latter really did have a voting ring effect, and when we figured that out we got rid of it.

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