This leads inevitably to karma farming bots who upvote each other’s submissions à la Reddit.

It’s a speed bump at best.

A speed bump might still be preferable to nothing.

Yeah I considered that - but any friction is better than none. Maybe integrate an additional consideration by which low karma (threshold < 5 karma) accounts cannot upvote other low karma accounts.

Honestly, we don’t really have the same cold start problem that a brand new social media site would. We already have plenty of reputable active users here. So HN could restrict new accounts to only being able to comment initially. As they participate, their comments receive upvotes, allowing them to build up enough karma (even a small amount of 25) which unlocks the ability to upvote, and then, finally, the ability to create posts.

Creating more friction can also lead to a higher percentage of bots. I for one immefiately leave when I realize that I need to jump through several hoops before I'm actually allowed to participate on a site. Someone building a bot farm on the other hand is probably willing to tolerate quite some friction before giving up.

That's true. On the other hand, Hacker News is a pretty well known entity, so I think new users would be more willing to put in the time.

I also don't think it's too unreasonable to ask people to make comments and participate in the community before allowing them to do more.

I have seen accounts that were dormant for years suddenly start posting frequently, all with slop. (I don't know if this represents people having an epiphany about AI use, or accounts being compromised or just what.)

Yeah I've seen this too - like a weird equivalent of HN sleeper agents that suddenly get activated.