Hacker News Reader

It’s not about revenue, it’s about making spam unprofitable. Charging 0.25$usd is enough to make spam not worth it.

It also attaches an identity to the posting.

I think the suggestion was that the revenue generated by NPM's commercial dealings should cover any cost associated with a review process for OSS submissions (which in itself would make such spam repositories ineffective)

So, let the spam happen, and remove it after the fact using humans? Or hold all submissions until a human reviews it?

I'm just clarifying my interpretation of OP's comment, not necessarily agreeing with it.

Anyway, involving humans (funded by NPM's commercial revenue) doesn't reduce the options to "letting the spam happen and dealing it after the fact" or "holding all submissions until a human reviews [them]".

If I was trying to solve this problem, I'd be open to a solution that tried to automatically classify submissions as either legitimate or spammy, with an associated confidence level. If the confidence level fell below a given threshold then I'd involve a human.

Yes, the first one. Not exclusively with using humans to develop better detection of spam.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com