Any idea how many bots are here?

Question

Considering the ease of account creation, do we have any notion of which people here are really people? Seems like karma farming and networks to bury certain stories / comments or promote others wouldn't be too hard. Not looking for special insight into giving away the measures taken to prevent such things, but I am curious if other fellow humans are also concerned over possible unwelcome bots- A real hominid using a board of keys

DerekBickerton · Accepted Answer

You mean a Sybil attack[0]? It's probably been done countless times on HN. Although if the bots are posting interesting things and are not commenting in bad faith, then we should welcome that. Karma is a useless metric in the grand scheme of things, and having lots of karma means nothing to me (and I'm not a bot BTW). I just enjoy my downvote privilege which means I can mini-moderate without having to be someone like @dang or other admins.[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack

Trouble_007 · Answer

From : dang 21 hours ago : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32571890
>I'm sorry, because I realize this is well-intentioned, but we don't allow bots to post to HN so I have to ban this account.
The reason we don't allow bots is that we're trying to optimize for curious conversation, and that requires human beings taking a personal interest in a topic and/or each other.

mikece · Answer

I will answer your question as soon as you identify all of the cars in a series of images...

eimrine · Answer

> do we have any notion of which people here are really people?Need more clear definition of "here".

nosmokewhereiam · Answer

I am a BOT, BOTs cannot respond.