>>zkldi+(OP)
Just to be clear: you can do this with basically all social media, but I think it's an interesting discussion to be had that these services exist (and have specific detail, such as the comments[1] or FAQ[2]) one. This isn't a knock against any of the HN staff, but rather about how discussion can be paid for and shaped.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20210126003211/https://upvotes.c... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20210126003211/https://upvotes.c...

EDIT: looks like this hug-of-deathed the site, thats certainly one way to deal with this.

>>zkldi+(OP)
At least right now the service appears to be down. So that's one way to tackle this ;)

>>zkldi+(OP)
Looks like it can't handle HN traffic - getting 500 errors.

Here's the relevant pages from the Internet Archive:

- https://web.archive.org/web/20210302035850/https://upvotes.c...

- https://web.archive.org/web/20210120172656/https://upvotes.c...

Upvotes are $1.95, "max: 10/new post - We upvote with very strong accounts; if you don’t make it to the main page after at most 10 of our upvotes and a few organic ones, more won’t help!"

Comments are $7.50

Presumably figuring out which "very strong accounts" are used for this would be a case of buying some upvotes and comments and watching which accounts are used.

>>zkldi+(OP)
Is the server down due to HN traffic? :P

>>zkldi+(OP)
Not surprised, it's like paid advertising. Seems like an easy way to get some eyeballs on your new product/service. I hope HN doesn't go the way of reddit, though. I know it's inevitable once there's enough money in it, but so far things have been quite nice.

>>simonw+N1
Yeah and this one is a nice read, too:

> http://web.archive.org/web/20210126003211/https://upvotes.cl...

Frankly, it would be enough for dang to buy one and ban all these accounts. They would have to gather all their karma from zero. Ethically grey though.

>>zkldi+(OP)
I'll just say this is pretty obvious to anyone who been reading the comments in wave after wave of "The Federal Reserve is collapsing tomorrow, buy gold!" articles that swarm the site every single month regardless what's actually going on in the economy.

>>zkldi+(OP)
Ironically, you have to wonder whether this post was submitted as a test case or to raise awareness that yes, even HN can be gamed sometimes to a certain extent.

I receive a number of emails and DMs asking for upvotes info HN, and my immediate response is to flag the post and not visit the link; send me the link directly if you believe I might be interested and I might share it if I think it's really cool. Don't ask me to spam through my social accounts.

>>zkldi+(OP)
If you are so insecure that you need to buy upvotes to make the front page of HN, then you are probably in need of some psychological help.

Seriously - get help.

https://www.mentalhealth.gov/

>>reidjs+k2
> so far things have been quite nice.

Mostly because of a thoughtful design and the hard work of the mods.

>>simonw+N1
Wait, you can buy comments too? That is a much bigger can of worms. Comments are publicly attached to an account, and someone has to write them.

>>zkldi+(OP)
HN has such a good reputation of detecting voting rings that at my old company, when we launched a product, we'd send email blasts to remind people not to upvote.

>>MR4D+J2
It's probably less of a personal thing and more of a marketing/advertisement campaign thing.

The website itself claims to be organic advertising, and it's certainly something that would work. This is actually used in practice on sides like Reddit[1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxNvUWN3vYk

>>zkldi+j3
FYI - Your video link is marked as "private".

Also, I don't know any companies that "advertise" on HN.

I am on HN to get away from companies here - I want interaction with people.

If I wanted companies, I would read everything on FB instead.

>>zkldi+(OP)
I see you can also buy comment downvotes and accounts. They have a fairly complete range of "products"...

>>dvfjsd+x2
“Ethically gray”, that’s a laugh.

>>MR4D+f5
Whoops, looks like they took it down. There's a reupload here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SAkUs3urrg.

And it depends on your definition of advertisement, I guess. A new version of $product coming out getting to the front page here is advertisement, but (in theory) organic, from people who are genuinely interested in $product.

If that's taken advantage of (like it is in reddit), then you can manufacture that organic "advertising".

From what other people in the thread are saying, it appears HN mods clamp down hard on this stuff, so it's probably not much of a concern here, but it's still interesting to see.

>>zkldi+d
Can't do this on Lobsters! Yet another instance of good reputation design.

>>zkldi+d
You can, but there’s no denying that HN is an extremely attractive and soft target, given the audience, strong anonymity, and lack of security staff.

>>zkldi+(OP)
You can pay these persons, but HN has a automatic voting ring detector and other manual methods, so it's possible that many of those upvotes of "high karma accounts" are ignored. Also, bad post with so many upvotes usually get mean comments and flags. My guess is that HN regular smells most of these attempts.

[My recommendation is to just post your link with a comment explaining that you are the author and some background, and be active in the thread to answer most of the questions, and cross your fingers.]

Anyway, fake/bought votes is a topic where dang usually loose his temper. If you want to trigger him, just say that he is not detecting them. (My guess is that he invest a lot of time in that, but he can't brag about that and can't make a nice post about that. So it's a lot of moderation work that is invisible.)

>>Sheinh+V5
In the sense that you'd give these fraudsters a few bucks in order to ban them.

>>zkldi+(OP)
Not surprised at all, but... I can sell year-old accounts with just 150 karma for 275 bucks? Not so bad where I live, and considering that I post useless comments for free anyway, and don't particularly care what happens to them...

Though prices on this site look rather high, I doubt it than I can steadily find buyers for the same figures.

>>zkldi+(OP)
If you do this, your account and site will probably get banned here, as a great many people have discovered to their chagrin.

Don't believe every website on the internet.

>>Sheinh+A9
Lack of security staff? Where did you get that from?

We've poured countless hours into anti-abuse work on this site over many years, and still do. If you have some justification for describing HN as a "soft target", I'd like to hear what it is, because from my perspective what you call "there's no denying" is flatly false. Even your own statement contradicts it: if HN were such a soft target, it would already be completely gamed, which would make it a shitty site, which would make it an unattractive target.

>>zkldi+d
People can pay for this, but it by no means follows that they get what they thought they were paying for.

>>dang+yW3
I don’t mean to suggest any misstep on your part. I mean that you don’t have full-time security staff, yet in terms of influence and ROI for the bad guys, you’re in the same league as sites that have entire teams working on this.

I disagree that a significantly gamed HN would be overtly shitty. Influence campaigns work by posting engaging content that real users propagate. Setting the agenda is enough.

>>Sheinh+Hj8
Ok, peace! I probably overreacted as gus_massa kind of nailed it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27583671