[esperent]

> Is there any way we can keep HN from becoming drowned in garbage?

You make a good point - that we should watch out for manipulation everywhere on the internet - but then you undermine it by ending with an unfounded hyperbolic statement. You only provided one example user out of thousands (millions?) of HN users, how do you get from there to "drowning in garbage"? Seems to me the mods and community here are doing a pretty good job already.

[PennRobotics]

The mentioned user is always on the front page, and I never hesitate to flag all of their non-tech/startup links, which is probably 90 percent of their submissions. They post nearly once per hour. This user and three others are the reason I posted a similar recent rant about serial off-topic posting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30907198

I can call out usernames if you really insist, but that's a bit rude when some of them are on https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders

[blunte]

I intentionally did not identify the poster. But if you look at recent submissions regarding birds and phys.org, you'll find them.

As for hyperbole, I think it's a valid concern. If that user is allowed to operate freely, (and assuming that user is being paid or is a bot), then we can expect many more like them to appear. Then indeed HN will be drowned in garbage submissions.

Unless the mods have analytics which identify odd patterns of behavior, they will depend on users to flag things. And if only a few users flag something, then most other users won't see it. Thus, it only gets "some" flags.

It seems more reasonable to judge a user by the volume of posts and submissions over time. Who legitmately has time or motivation to submit 10+ things per day? Or to do that several days in a short period? Even if that is a real human choosing to promote content, does that not suggest some behavior which is likely to be detrimental to HN as a gathering place?