[lotharbot]

> " Suggestion to pg, make it so that accounts cannot post their first comment for 24hrs."

Two problems with this approach:

1) if someone's post happens to make it big on HN and they discover us through their logs, they can't give feedback while their posts is still on the frontpage.

2) HN has a long tradition of throwaway accounts [0] being used to give valuable input in sensitive discussions (abuse, corruption, medical, financial, family/social, or legally dangerous.) A waiting period means those contributions won't be made, or at the very least, won't be seen by the majority of readers.

The price of getting rid of drive-by trolling is that we lose these contributions. Seems better to just downvote or flag the trolls, and keep the really excellent stuff.

[0] There are some real gems among http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=throwaway&#...

[krapp]

In this particular case, keeping track of the similarity between posts might have helped. There's no legitimate reason to post the exact same content several times that I'm aware of.

Post quoting might end up being an issue though.

[lotharbot]

The software auto-kills duplicate posts.

You're probably seeing them because you've turned on showdead.

[krapp]

You're right, I did. My mistake then. Still a newb.