Ask HN: More Bots on HN Lately?

6 points by Havoc 6y ago ↗ HN

I've noticed instant voting on comments submitted lately. As in click submit on comment, immediately go to profile and check the score on it. Appears to be damn near instant (<2sec even on long comments) so its not a human. Mostly up, sometimes down.

Voting bots are nothing new of course, but I don't recall seeing visible bot action on hn before that I could see with my own eyes. Plus the both up & down suggest some sort of logic driving it - even if crude.

Anybody else notice this?

4 comments

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ChrisGranger 6y ago ↗

I haven't noticed it personally, but I'm curious to know what dang thinks of this.

rshnotsecure 6y ago ↗

I'm not sure I'm comfortable using the term "bots", but certainly more gamesmanship and "information warfare".

The Nautilus link that made it to the front page several days ago deeply disturbed me [1]. From a grumpy technical standpoint it did not have TLS by default or even a redirect.

More concerning though was that it was a SPONSORED advertorial that only ran because a fee was paid. Anyone who pointed this out was downvoted as the post accrued hundreds of upvotes and comments.

[1] - http://oceans.nautil.us/

Havoc 6y ago ↗

I could sorta see someone looking to move submissions. But someone putting effort into moving my crappy comments? Historically the mostly stay at 1 point (or move over time if they're good)

kaushikt 6y ago ↗

Yes, hard to pin it to bots but I have felt like lately some of the posts go to front page rather quickly. More interestingly, I have found the number of upvotes and comments raking up to about 50 in a matter of minutes. Find that super strange.