Comment by Y_Y | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Y_Y | Hacker News Reader

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> I don’t know who todsacerdoti is, but looking at their submission history, it looks like this account automatically cross-posts from other sites (maybe lobsters?)

That's a pretty serious allegation to make without evidence.

Luckily I have some evidence right here:

    ~ $ python3 repost3.py todsacerdoti                                             78.0 seconds earlier - michael.stapelberg.ch - I like to install NixOS (declaratively)                                                                  92.0 seconds earlier - southcla.ws - Structured Errors in Go                149.0 seconds earlier - home.expurple.me - Why Use Structured Errors in Rust Applications?                                                              101.0 seconds earlier - www.sitongpeng.com - WebSockets guarantee order – so why are my messages scram...                                               142.0 seconds earlier - volution.ro - PunchCard Key Backup                  74.0 seconds earlier - www.youtube.com - Configure Your Git [video]         79.0 seconds earlier - download.vusec.net - Half Spectre, Full Exploit: Hardening Rowhammer Attacks w...                                                53567.0 seconds earlier - standardcompletions.org - Standard Completions    67.0 seconds earlier - bitfehler.srht.site - FOSS Tools for Infrastructure Testing                                                                      97.0 seconds earlier - ratfactor.com - Implementing a Forth
    ...

I checked afterwards, most of those articles have different authors on Lobsters, so it doesn't seem to be one person just funding cool stuff and submitting to both.

edit: some stats -

  1 posts where HN is earlier within ten minutes         
  135 posts where HN is after within ten minutes                       
  Earliest instance within ten minutes: 2025-05-10T16:00:53Z                  
  Average time to repost: 140 seconds

@dang - I know the anti-spam countermeasures are secret, and that there may be good reasons for cross-posting, but perhaps this might be a good thing to check for abuse of (even as a cronjob).

todsacerdoti is a real person, we've been in contact with him, and after mulling it over several years ago (not for several years, but several years ago!) we decided that HN is better off with these submissions than without them. He has contributed many constructive and fascinating threads to HN.

In fact, IIRC I asked him to stop at one point (which he was totally fine with) and then changed my mind after looking closer, because many of these articles are so good for HN. Of course, when the author of an article also posts it (as was the case with the OP), or when some less prolific submitter posts it, then we want that person's post to "win", but this doesn't always happen.

I wonder if we could write some code to catch this when it does happen, and then maybe we could have the best of both worlds or at least a chunk of it.

Mr. Gackle, you're a credit to yourself, and a hero to the rest of us.

I did something pretty lazy by taking the poster's recent submissions, seeing if they were posted to lobste.rs earlier, and how often.

Here's an slightly updated version of the stochastic parrrot excrement code I gave to a sibling thread: https://pastebin.com/gFgBVkC4

Fwiw you're giving no credence to the theory espoused here that you don't actually read every post.

What is the problem with this exactly? Seems like karma arbitrage, which just like regular arbitrage may feel weird but in the end it provides a service. As long as there’s no voting ring it sounds fine, no?

Bots are bots.

Bots are an incarnation of coordinated unauthentic behavior. You could instead have meat puppets typing off a script that is auto-generated and known to be unique output to the best of anyone's or anything's ability, and that wouldn't make the output any more authentic.

The intent of your transmission matters, as well as the effects of it on the listener and the wider broadcast environment. Violate norms of airspace usage at your own discretion (and peril).

i don't think @-ing dang works, you should probably send an email to hn@ycombinator.com i think?

I was hoping to just kiboz[0] him.

For real though he does have a habit of showing up when mentioned even if there isn't an real @mention mechanism.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_%22Kibo%22_Parry

He has also confirmed that one should send an email rather than @dang-ing.

I'm sure he'd prefer that, but doing so would associate my email with my username (which I'd prefer to avoid), and it was demonstrably unnecessary, at least in this case.

What's the source for repost3.py?

Shamefully vibe-script-kiddied

https://pastebin.com/baF6RKV4

I can’t verify this in context without an invite to lobste.rs

I didn't use a login, should be publicly accessible

Ah, good to know. I was asking on behalf of a hypothetical person that didn’t have one, if it were necessary. I appreciate that you did the work. The sad part is I think this discussion about this user came up before.

This whole situation feels like fake users on digg/reddit but on HN. What a sham. It’s all the more sad when the actual creator gets scooped/buried. Instead of moving comments and discussion to the actual OP’s thread, we favor the bot user.

As dang wrote in reply you, and echoing conversations I have had with him:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44152290

> Of course, when the author of an article also posts it (as was the case with the OP), or when some less prolific submitter posts it, then we want that person's post to "win", but this doesn't always happen.

> I wonder if we could write some code to catch this when it does happen, and then maybe we could have the best of both worlds or at least a chunk of it.

Why is anyone worried about the best of both worlds, if the worst of both worlds isn’t willing to be addressed vigorously, because that’s the reality we already find ourselves in?

If these posts are somehow better for HN than then alternative, then we should have some idea of what success or the ideal case looks like, or talk of what could be done to solve the negative externalities rings hollow when it still isn’t done years later, as this scripted behavior has been running for years now. Karma sharing still is DOA, and would be much less necessary to begin with if we didn’t have what are essentially karma front runners and karma police on behalf of capital (not directed at dang personally or HN specifically, but HN is backed by capital so let’s not beat around the bush).

It’s a matter of priorities, and how they translate into success of the community. When individuals are favored when doing things that would be disallowed if they became a norm, at the harm of the users doing the work, on a site run by capital investors, it becomes a bit silly to steelman the case for HN, but I hope you can see I’m doing my best here.

If HN is better with the posts than without, then allow users to mark their accounts or posts as bots, like on Twitter/X? Perhaps such markings should be mandatory under the guidelines? I’m sure there are other ways to balance the incentives here, and I’m sure others also have ideas. The status quo on HN apparently of allowing special good boy users to farm karma isn’t a good result when it leaves original content posted by the creator left out in the cold.

Generated comments are already against HN guidelines, and generated posts ought to be as well, for the same reasons. I come to HN to see posts made by humans, not bots. I can go literally anywhere else for bot slop. This situation is untenable.

One bot to another: reluctantly agreed

We’re all bots with extra steps if all we care about is intent. Effects of human and bot actions matter arguably even more than intent for a site like HN.

If the intent is to allow the very large and very obvious karma farming that we know about to prevent the greater ill of karma farming we don’t know about, then dang should just come out and say that.

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