Yes, we are in agreement here. I was simply noting what HN's past policy and rationale have been.
LLMs change the calculus somewhat in making automated bot-posting far more viable. It's clearly already a problem. I suspect that moderation policies will have to adapt to this. There's also the fact that such a change would make AI-banned discernable from normal bans, in that AI-banned accounts would not have vouchable comments. If explicitly noting AI banning isn't adopted on the basis that this would provide information to either the AI or its operator of the fact / nature of the banning, the absence of a vouch option would reveal the fact regardless.
(A relatively small example of changes we'll see induced by LLMs in the larger world as well. Interesting times....)
my suggestion would not remove the vouch option, it would just make it ineffective. people using it would not notice. the system would still indicate that you vouched for a message.
LLMs change the calculus somewhat in making automated bot-posting far more viable. It's clearly already a problem. I suspect that moderation policies will have to adapt to this. There's also the fact that such a change would make AI-banned discernable from normal bans, in that AI-banned accounts would not have vouchable comments. If explicitly noting AI banning isn't adopted on the basis that this would provide information to either the AI or its operator of the fact / nature of the banning, the absence of a vouch option would reveal the fact regardless.
(A relatively small example of changes we'll see induced by LLMs in the larger world as well. Interesting times....)