[raoulj]

On this thread and similar, I'm noticing that some strong opinions about $LLM_PROVIDER are coming from accounts without much post history. With so much on the line, and the way that HN can influence developer behavior, I wonder what ways we can responsibly consume opinions in a thread like this.

Not to cast too much criticism. HN is extremely well-moderated (thanks team!). But think we-developers need to be very wary.

[antihero]

I asked it what the cheapest train fare would be for my partner to get somewhere and it hallucinated the two together railcard rules to the point it would have got us a fine. That said, British train fares are arguably more convoluted than even the most complex software application.

[recitedropper]

Do you see the pattern as new accounts tending to boost or criticis $LLM_PROVIDER? I think I see both...

Either way, I agree that HN is quickly becoming more manipulated and low SNR, like the rest of the entire internet.

[Karrot_Kream]

I think the community on this site these days, much like other comment sections on the web, just read the headline and make a low effort comment. Regression to the mean I guess.

[Karrot_Kream]

As an update to myself, the comments did eventually sort themselves out. I guess the initial "reaction" commenters and voters are just more interested in participating than in SNR. Good opportunity for me to finally start blocklisting users, and I'll probably block some of these large, reactive thread authors.

[raoulj]

How do you block users? Could be an interesting app to scrape HN and write some criteria to measure per-user SNR to then block

[Karrot_Kream]

In the past I wrote a version of HN that uses modern CSS rather than tables that populates stuff from the API. There I built a little blocklist of my own that prunes a comment tree the moment it encounters a blocked user (inspired by posts from another HN user, arjie.)

I've been thinking of making a purely algorithmic filter for myself but at that point I might just ditch the fake HN interface and make something. I've been thinking of building atop Mastodon/ActivityPub clients.

[jejeej]

Personally I think you have to form your opinion and not trust anyone.

This requires a lot of mental strength and conviction.