Ask PG: Are there IP blocks?

I feel a little silly submitting this via Ask, but I don't see any other way to ask this.

Yesterday, I was no longer able to reach HN via my work wifi. I can ping HN and get responses, but the web server explicitly sends nothing back:

    % curl http://news.ycombinator.com
    curl: (52) Empty reply from server

I can still see HN through other networks (I'm doing this currently through my wifi hotspot), and apparently am still active.

Has a block been placed on my work network? I have captured the work network's root IP address if it's needed.

I have a similar problem visiting HN from my mobile network. I get a 502 response then.

From what I've been able to tell, HN can and does block HN login/username, HN can and does block by IP in more extreme cases, but I think it can be temporary; maybe it is a one day block? Possibly one day block is for flaming/trolling, whereas could be worse for spammers. And, there is a block related to the rate of comments. However, I've not seen a full site block in any of these cases- in each case I've seen, you can read the posts. You will instead be blocked from using login to login/create an id, for IP block. It may say "please slow down" if you are trying to submit too many comments within a certain time period. I'm not a troller or a flamer, and wish no harm to HN, but I had unpopular viewpoints at times. When those unpopular viewpoints were stirring up too much negative response or PG didn't like what I was saying, I got blocked. I can tell that it wasn't automated because it didn't happen right away, although the comment rate limiting is automated, I'm sure.

I was automatically banned awhile ago, after doing something silly (checking all my bookmarks for dead links). The explanation was that the server thought I was DDOSing. It was OK after a week or so. Maybe it'll work out for you too.

I was doing something even more silly and was banned for 48 hours or so.