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Comment by recitedropper | Hacker News Reader

Do you think the "you can't mention astroturfing" rule is really serving HN these days? Do you think this thread hasn't been manipulated?

I respect you for replying here though, and yes I get that HN forum standards would suggest flagging my previous comment. But it is just sad to see a place used to be so vibrant get manipulated because of how much weight it holds for us in the industry.

And yea sure, I could go and flag all the bots and message Dang. But probably time to stop shouting into the void. :)

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Yes, this thread is not being manipulated. People a) being excited about something and b) it being in favor of a certain company is not sufficient evidence of astroturfing.

I've seen your articles in the past and I thought they were great. So I respect your thinking, and have no intention of being combative.

But do you really think people were so excited about cheaper versions of Astra that they were just waiting around to comment the instant this was posted? More than two comments per minute? All the initial comments were really similar too: brief one liners celebrating the cheap prices.

I think AI right now is a sort of Rorschach test. What it is clearly revealing to me is that I don't trust organizations with enormous financial incentives to not manipulate public opinion. So I see bots everywhere. :)

Yes. See my comment on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:oxaernim5mj2mmy3ytrvb42n/po...

> what the fuck

I guess there are more people eagerly watching price decreases than I realized!

You have to accept that people are different than you.

I see long massive pro apple threads. I don't get it at all. As in; literally don't understand what Apple is good for. But I have friends, family irl who love apple so I know the sentiment exists. I therefore accept that many HN users are similar.

Many people really truly are happy to see another model drop and are excited about progress etc etc. Surely you've met such ppl in real life. Well, they're here too (I'm one of them fwiw)

You know I think I have accepted this after a few decades on this planet, but probably can't hurt to be reminded. :)

I wouldn't argue there aren't real humans excited for this drop. It was just all the circumstances around it--the comment speed, the upvote speed, the initial uniformity of what people were saying.

Anyway, thank you for the moral reminder.

>Do you think the "you can't mention astroturfing" rule is really serving HN these days?

yes, i think so.

because, unfortunately, complaining about bots (or astroturfing, or whatever) doesn't stop them. so we end up with threads that have both the potential bot/astroturfing/whatever activity and complaints, which further drowns out any interesting comments.

That is actually a great point. I have no rebuttal.

Do you think all the comments in here are positive about the model? Because they aren't. In no way does it seem astroturfed. And yeah, pretty boring to read that kind of comment every time.

Engagement is generally more important than purely positive sentiment.

Anyway these comments were made when this thread was in an earlier state. I agree that it has gone on to be more "organic" looking. That doesn't exclude it initially being manipulated to the top, in my mind, but certainly they aren't carpet-bombing with only booster comments.

I agree with the rule and also found your comment boring.

Also, I don’t see that much astroturfing here? (And I tend to see it a lot on HN.)

More than two comments per minute right when it was posted, all simple one-liners celebrating the price decrease.

I would agree now that the thread has recovered to a more interesting state, but how it first looked--combined with it being posted right after Opus 5.5 announcement--look questionable to me.

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