
Ask HN: Stricter Submission Guidelines?  - tinkerrr
It seems like websites create accounts that then just keep posting their content (mostly kinda unrelated to what HN is about anyway, just to get some clicks). I am not trying to pick on anyone in particular at all, but here are some examples - 
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;submitted?id=WealthyGorilla -&gt; account created 1 day ago, posted 9 links (all very thin content, IMHO) all from the same website. 
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;submitted?id=ventureblend -&gt; account created 9 days ago, 6 links, all from same website (again, IMHO, thin content). 
Is it possible to enforce stricter submission guidelines or am I completely imagining up a problem that doesn&#x27;t exist?
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dang
The other users who have replied to you have it right, but I'll add that in
case of spam we go much further and start banning things. The line between
"spam" and "thin content" isn't precisely defined, of course.

Some but not all of this is automated. We're working on automating more of it.

All: when you notice stuff like this, hn@ycombinator is your friend. We always
look into it closely, if not immediately, and we will always get back to you.

~~~
tinkerrr
Thanks for this information. Sorry I didn't know about hn@ycombinator,
otherwise would have just emailed them. In any case, I hope at least one other
person learned something new today!

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minimaxir
Sites that do that eventually get their submission privileges revoked. (i.e.
all submissions are autokilled, respective of the destination url)

If you have showdead on, here's a blatant example:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=TheSurge](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=TheSurge)

~~~
tinkerrr
Ah thanks, that's what I wanted to know. It's nice to know there's a procedure
for this, and I hope the workaround isn't too straightforward for anyone
looking to abuse the system.

Do you know if the submission privilege revoking is done automatically or by a
moderator?

~~~
jcr
Generally, when you see abuse on HN, the right thing to do is send an email to
hn@ycombinator.com rather than post it publicly.

I've recently been trying to work out simple but useful heuristics to just
detect this kind of abuse without creating too much load. Since I don't have
access to all of the data, it's mostly been observation and keeping notes.

Automating just detection of the most obvious abuses is feasible and fairly
straight forward, but automating action is somewhere between difficult and
nigh impossible.

The reason is simple; there are many great HN users who will regularly submit
links to their own work, like blog posts. In fact, a few of the folks on the
HN leader board [1] will share their own work fairly regularly (ColinWright,
DanielBMarkham, jgrahamc, ..., and in years long past, also patio11, jacquesm,
...). Of course, when they submit their own stuff, it's usually really
interesting, and they also submit other interesting stuff from other sites
(not their own).

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders](https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders)

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tomek_zemla
Somewhat related... When making new submissions I use your search feature to
check if somebody already submitted the same (and often find it is the
case...). Could this be automated by warning users on the submit page after
the enter the link into the text field?

It's kind of painful to do the search then sort by date manually. IMHO it is a
simple way to avoid duplicates...

~~~
krapp
When you submit a site, HN should show you a list of the closest matches to
that submission as a preview and give you the opportunity to just reply to one
of the existing threads. Although for this to work, I think Hacker News' URL
matching might have to be a bit stronger, and maybe include something like
metadata collection.

------
_random_
It would be nice to limit the number of JavaScript-related posts per day as
well.

~~~
xtrumanx
How is that a problem? OP was complaining about user promoting their own
websites constantly.

Or is it that you're uninterested in JS-related posts?

I personally don't like anything Apple-related; be it WWDC, new products,
changes in pricing or policies, daringfireball (especially), or even an app
some enterprising fellow happen to release to the App Store.

My trick is to simply ignore the lot of them and move on to the next link. If
you feel the front page is dominated by stuff you don't find interested, make
sure you check out the new queue and vote in the things you are interested in.

