[momokoko]

> I've personally spent hundreds (probably thousands) of hours investigating such things, have banned many accounts and sites for it, and have put tons of effort into writing code to combat it.

> No, that is not what's happening.

Not to try and get clever and twist your words, but these statements do not appear to line up particularly well with one another.

[tbodt]

First statement is absolute numbers. Second statement is regarding relative numbers. They can both be true.

[dang]

Ok, I'll give you a detailed breakdown. You said that three things were happening which in reality are not:

(1) that we "realize the exact opposite [of what we say]" — in reality, I tell the truth as far as I know it, because I respect this community (edit: plus, for the cynical, it would be a stupid and unnecessary risk not to);

(2) that we're "terrified what will happen if the public finds out how common it is" — in reality, I'm confident that the community would be bowled over by how diligently we work on this, and my only woe is that half the commenters don't want to hear it when I tell them how common it is (namely, that it's uncommon relative to the insinuations that they love to fill the threads with, and that such insinuations are the harder problem to solve and a heavier burden on moderators);

(3) that "the percentage of this stuff is absolutely massive" — in reality, unless I'm wildly ignorant of my job, it's tiny relative to the quantity of imaginary things people make up about it. The latter is the greater threat to HN. With real astroturfing and other forms of abuse, it's possible to find evidence and take action. But how do you persuade the internet not to hurl shit-soaked spaghetti everywhere? (Sorry for the unhinged metaphors, but it's demoralizing to argue about this in HN comments, because none of the users making grand insinuations want to hear about that side of the problem, and when I raise it they say things like "dang denies that astroturfing exists".)

We have a rule that you can't manipulate voting, commenting, or submissions on HN (because some people do that and shouldn't). We have another rule that you can't smear others with insinuations of abuse without evidence (because some people do that and shouldn't). There's no contradiction there. That doesn't seem hard to understand.

[momokoko]

> in reality, unless I'm wildly ignorant of my job, it's tiny relative to the quantity of imaginary things people make up about it.

It is a safe bet you would not have written this the way you did if you knew this was a larger problem that you did not reveal or you were an amazing thespian.

Apologies on the insultation, which is obviously unfounded at this point.

[dang]

Appreciated!