We've banned throwaabolt and also what looks to be that user's main account.
To answer the question, it took HN only a few minutes for some users to realize this, but 2 hours for me to find out about it. Most of that time, an email was sitting in the inbox waiting. Thank you for pointing this out, and also to the user who emailed, since otherwise I wouldn't have seen this. We rely on the community to route info to us. Fortunately HN has a lot of users who care about the quality of the site.
All: if you notice anything weird, dodgy, or otherwise degrading of quality, we always appreciate a heads-up at hn@ycombinator.com. HN admins are mostly a clearinghouse for things that the community notices, so this really is a shared effort.
To answer the question, it took HN only a few minutes for some users to realize this, but 2 hours for me to find out about it. Most of that time, an email was sitting in the inbox waiting. Thank you for pointing this out, and also to the user who emailed, since otherwise I wouldn't have seen this. We rely on the community to route info to us. Fortunately HN has a lot of users who care about the quality of the site.
All: if you notice anything weird, dodgy, or otherwise degrading of quality, we always appreciate a heads-up at hn@ycombinator.com. HN admins are mostly a clearinghouse for things that the community notices, so this really is a shared effort.