Yep, you guys were right this time, and we've banned the offending accounts and sites.

In the future, though, please email hn@ycombinator.com about stuff like this, as the site guidelines ask. That's the only way to be sure we'll see it. Fortunately someone did send an email; without that, we'd probably never have seen this, and we can't take action about things we don't see.

Are there any plans to add a 'report' feature to HN? It would be much more obvious, as I was not aware that I should email hn@ycombinator.com before today.

That's pretty much what 'flag' already does, since we review the flagged stories and comments.

I like how gardenforce replied "Very interesting" to his/her own comment.

It was also #2 on HN before it received any comments, for what it's worth.

Only vizza and antonplus posted the same verbatim comment. Could just be the same person, different accounts. The accounts were created a long time ago as well. Doesn't look like shilling.

But then vizza posted the same comment as kearneyface (or vice-versa), as evidenced by the second and third screenshots.

Oh wow you're right. How bizarre.

Old accounts with sparse posting histories are just as suspect as throwaways. People batch-create + age accounts to sell or rent to marketers.

Really?? On HN? Who cares? This is a niche site... isn't it? If it's not, my account is 2138 days old, almost six years, how much could I get for it :P ? (I know, about tree fiddy.)

Selling account as old as Nessy...any takers? ;-)