Ask HN: Can HN ban new accounts? or charge money?

4•randyrand•1h ago

I love HN and I don’t want to see it die.

But bot accounts are growing everyday. Something more radical needs to be done.

Comments

randyrand•1h ago

Personally, I think new accounts should cost $300. It’s not a perfect solution, clearly. But it should hopefully reduce the floodgates.

chistev•55m ago

So punish real users who just discovered HN, or old lurkers who finally decide to join?

Great idea.

pixel_popping•52m ago

Also, most users (actually everyone I know personally) have multiple HN accounts which is natural for an anonymous platform, so it's not abnormal for long-term users to remake accounts regularly. I believe most of us don't access their oldest account (probably due to post history, beliefs that have changed...)

sovenyr•51m ago

it should be better bot detection system - especially because of ai generated comments - and that's all

late_night_fix•36m ago

Instead of banning and charging,HN could double down on trust signal,like device reputation,posting velocity limits,and stronger weighting of upvotes from long standing accounts.

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