Can you provide some context for your position? I’m not particularly familiar with ForgeCode. I’m interested in why you think there’s manipulation, and what you mean by “submissions like these”.
It's true that there were many inorganic upvotes on this submission, made within the first 10-20 minutes by a bot. Maybe bigyabai could see that there was an unusually high vote count for a story that was submitted so recently.
But this just goes to show how futile – indeed counter-productive – this kind of activity is. These votes are easily detected and were ignored, and the submission had enough legit upvotes to make it onto the front page organically. We've penalized the users involved and the domain, as we can't let this kind of attempted abuse go without any consequence.
But also, public callouts like this are against the guidelines and we ask that people let us know via email at hn@ycombinator.com. This allows us to know about it sooner and investigate it thoroughly before making a public comment about it.
But this just goes to show how futile – indeed counter-productive – this kind of activity is. These votes are easily detected and were ignored, and the submission had enough legit upvotes to make it onto the front page organically. We've penalized the users involved and the domain, as we can't let this kind of attempted abuse go without any consequence.
But also, public callouts like this are against the guidelines and we ask that people let us know via email at hn@ycombinator.com. This allows us to know about it sooner and investigate it thoroughly before making a public comment about it.