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Ask PG: Please consider a resurrection vote for the undead amongst us

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Ask PG: Please consider a resurrection vote for the undead amongst us

#1

Post by jerrya »

I browse Hacker News with show dead on, and what I see is that increasingly Hacker News is becoming haunted, with more and more undead walking amongst us. Not knowing they are dead; making comments no one will read. Worse, I often find that the comments of the dead are interesting and have value.

I realize they were killed off for a reason, and I realize that moderating is a tedious pain and a real chore, but it makes me feel sad to see that people who have taken the time to enter a good comment in good faith, will never have it seen. It leads me to wonder if their death wasn't a mistake.

And it makes me feel lessened to participate in that.

I wonder if it might be more fair to our undead to either inform them of their ban after a time, to resurrect them after a time, or to give to the rest of us with show dead set a way to give them a resurrection upvote. To indicate they seem to be participating in good faith, and allow a way bring them back to life after enough some period of time.

Anyway, it's not often we can bring the dead back to life, ....

Re: Ask PG: Please consider a resurrection vote for the undead amongst us

#4

Post by smoyer »

I agree, though as a compromise I have a suggestion that shouldn't overload the moderators.

Leave them dead but let us vote up the good comments and "undead" just those that are deemed by the community to be relevant or insightful (I won't recommend how many up-votes that should take).

Re: Ask PG: Please consider a resurrection vote for the undead amongst us

#5

Post by jere »

This actually wasn't my first account. I lurked for a while and then finally decided to join.

When I first joined, I commented for a few weeks and then stumbled into a conversation that involved Steve Jobs and poaching employees. The top comment was talking about how greedy Jobs was and I replied pointing out that he had taken $1 in salary and no stocks for several years. I wasn't totally clear in my first comment and by the time I got done explaining, I was ghost banned. From a single comment.

I went on for a while and out of spite, I kept posting replies even though I knew they wouldn't be viewed. A few people messaged me on other channels to let me know. I'm not sure what the solution is here, but that experience wasn't fun.

Re: Ask PG: Please consider a resurrection vote for the undead amongst us

#6

Post by stretchwithme »

jere wrote: post #5

This actually wasn't my first account. I lurked for a while and then finally decided to join. When I first joined, I commented for a few weeks and then stumbled into a conversation that involved Steve Jobs and poaching employees. The top comment was talking about how greedy Jobs was and I replied pointing out that he had taken $1 in salary and no stocks for several years. I wasn't totally clear in my first comment an…

An appeal process that allows others to point out the unfairness of the situation.

Also, look at which down-voters are subject to the most appeals might indicate who's being vindictive.

Re: Ask PG: Please consider a resurrection vote for the undead amongst us

#8

Post by clicks »

stretchwithme wrote: post #6
jere wrote: post #5

This actually wasn't my first account. I lurked for a while and then finally decided to join. When I first joined, I commented for a few weeks and then stumbled into a conversation that involved Steve Jobs and poaching employees. The top comment was talking about how greedy Jobs was and I replied pointing out that he had taken $1 in salary and no stocks for several years. I wasn't totally clear in my first comment an…

An appeal process that allows others to point out the unfairness of the situation. Also, look at which down-voters are subject to the most appeals might indicate who's being vindictive.

An appeal process exists. It's pretty much e-mailing info@ycombinator.com and saying something like "Hey, have I been banned? Please undo!" (if you feel you were unfairly banned), or "Hey, I realize I said something that I shouldn't have said. I'm sorry -- please consider unbanning?"

In my experiences the people in charge of making these decisions are fairly prudent.

Re: Ask PG: Please consider a resurrection vote for the undead amongst us

#9

Post by krapp »

smoyer wrote: post #4

I agree, though as a compromise I have a suggestion that shouldn't overload the moderators. Leave them dead but let us vote up the good comments and "undead" just those that are deemed by the community to be relevant or insightful (I won't recommend how many up-votes that should take).

or, users can chose to ignore other users as they see fit, and those users will appear dead to them (in other words, a per-account killfile.) They can also choose to "cure undead" on hellbanned users and have them appear live and they can reply to them. This has the benefit of appearing to preserve the status quo for those who think hellbanning is awesome.
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