Fake comments are killing PH

Good point Joan. I'm a public health geek (MPH), and we're in the late stages of a global pandemic, so I hope you'll indulge the clinical medicine metaphor: The fake comments are a secondary sign succeeding the solicitation of upvotes, the chief symptom of the real PH killer, what I call "Launch Gaming Syndrome", all of which comprise clear violations of the Community Guidelines: (emphasis mine) https://help.producthunt.com/en/... "Do Not Spam - Mass messaging users, *asking for upvotes*, using bots, incentivizing upvotes, and any other form of artificially increasing activity on your contribution is not acceptable. Self-promoting in comments or discussions will also be removed. Only genuine activity will be accepted on the site. Attempting to "game" your contribution could result in its removal and your loss of contribution access. Failure to meet these guidelines could result in your removal or suspension from the Product Hunt community." The manifestation and prognosis of LGS usually takes the following form: 1. Bad faith actors, often first-time launch hunters and makers, spam their mailing lists, networks, and social media (I've seen this countless times, having signed up for more "coming soon" pre-launches than I can count) soliciting upvotes primarily 2. During launch day, hunters/makers blast follow-up progress notes, especially when their launch has either captured top "of-the-xyz [day, week, month]" honors (to maintain standing) or within striking distance of its same-day competitors, now seeking "reviews" 3. Low-value, bought/botted, fake/farmed comment reviews artificially inflate launch activity and result in said products landing on "Featured", creating a positive feedback loop This has been ongoing for years now. To their credit, PH has enforced guidelines and restrictions with increasing strictness, but much of the "Syndrome" continues. Perhaps an effective prophylactic might consist of imposing a requirement already employed by technology review aggregator G2, where user feedback submissions require proof of usage (screenshots, registration, etc.) before publication. Hope this helps. Cheers! :) Farooq

Thanks for writing this, Joan. I was having a discussion precisely on this topic just yesterday. There are a good few I can pick out as well. On the same note is the problem of fake comments and upvotes on "low-effort" products. I am all for MVPs and shipping early. But a listing directory made on Wix/Webflow with nothing to do except scroll through pages? Not trying to gatekeep what a product is. PH is a community, after all, and one is free to submit what one thinks is a good product. But the system is clearly being gamed.

It is a real problem, but it is a result of the world where main interest of everybody - money. Do not expect more. Until the algorithms of PH start to delete such projects and comments, we have to deal with them.

+1

Shots fired 🔥🔫 I've experienced a big hunter who asked me for payment ($500) when I asked to hunt my product.. Please hunters, that also goes against the guidelines of Product Hunt and ruins the community's ecosystem 😭

I'm not surprised that this is happening on PH. I just launched my first ever project on PH yesterday and within a couple hours I received 8 different emails from different 'expert companies' promising to deliver 100's of upvotes and comments for a price. The emails all sounded the same and all mentioned it's the only way to be featured and that they've got hundreds of clients, all doing this. None the less, I blocked and marked the emails as spam, as what's the point of fake upvotes and comments? It reminds me of when people buy followers for their socials. On the surface they look like an influencer...but a quick look at their post engagement shows otherwise. I'd much rather have a few genuine; followers, upvotes, comments, whatever it may and have real engagement than be a fake facade that will ultimately shatter. It's actually rather depressing but fascinating the obsession some people have with image...

Absolutely!!

I have the same opinion!

Never noticed this before so linking to that project was really helpful. I agree that it would definitely kill the community aspect. I also think it's incredibly unhelpful for the makers themselves. Gives a bad look, and the fake comments themselves won't turn into paying customers or be helpful for validating any ideas/improvements. Seems like a lose/lose in my opinion.

I was about to post the same thing but searched here as it's so bad that I figured people must already be talking about this! I get that people want to bolster their accounts ahead of their own launches, but this is going too far! It's not that hard to actually check out the product description and write a halfway engaging comment, but with these comments I feel like I could whip up a GPT-3 bot that would actually write 10x BETTER comments than all this garbage.

Platforms can enhance their moderation Mini Crossword systems to detect and remove fake comments. Implementing algorithms or manual review processes can help identify and filter out suspicious or false comments.