[zamadatix]

Posting account is suspicious as it was created at the time of the comment for the comment and the username has no other trace on the internet. Very suspect, impossible to prove of course though.

I'm getting 6 minutes between comment and reply though, not seconds, and unless the developer was actively fighting they'd still be getting email notifications to their phone but unlikely to be at sitting at home patching Vue. This part in itself doesn't scream suspect, just the catalyst.

[d23]

> Posting account is suspicious as it was created at the time of the comment for the comment and the username has no other trace on the internet. Very suspect, impossible to prove of course though.

Seems pretty common to me. People frequently create accounts on sites just to ask a question or because they need something. This is probably the most common case / the long tail of most activity on social media sites.

[zamadatix]

The suspect part is that the username doesn't have any trace on the internet not just that it was a new account. Particularly relevant in this case since it's a 17 month old project with 9 total issues/PRs (or one every ~2 months) and this is the only such follow up to ever occur and the only one with such an account. Note: suspect, not guaranteed.

Again though the claim isn't it must be an impossibility to be anything else just a very suspect set of circumstances around the ping and impossible to prove one way or the other. I don't think it matters one way or another in the message, it's a good message and clearly popular, but that doesn't have anything to do with being staged or not.

[d0100]

I have a github account exclusively to post "dumb" questions

[cmg]

The 6 minutes makes perfect sense to me - it could be one of those "If I don't reply to this ASAP I will never have time" situations. The notification is right in front of you.

I don't think it's fair to assume any malicious intent here. What would the maintainer gain? People are already extremely aware of the situation. It's not a huge repo, there's no ask for financial donations or anything like that.

[zamadatix]

Counter-propaganda, which is exactly what the author later explicitly asks for both in the thread and (unverifiably) on the HN thread itself now. Of course they'd want that regardless if it was staged or not but there are more motives in life than a few bucks donation to your old GitHub project... particularly when your country is being invaded and an extremely false story being fed to the population of the invading country.

Or it could not be and just grew into propaganda naturally but that's why it's "Very suspect, impossible to prove" not "certainly staged, proven". Either way probably a good event but that doesn't mean we know whether or not it was staged just that the circumstances don't allow us to answer that question reliably.