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

news.ycombinator.com

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

#21

Post by jere »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #15
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…

How did you know you were "ghost banned"? Do you get an email or something?

This was a while ago, but I think I had read about ghost banning on HN before it happened. I'm assuming the same for the people who messaged me.

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

#22

Post by smacktoward »

DanBC wrote: post #14

It's important for people to include an email in their 'about' box on their profile, so that other HN users can get in contact. HN seems to be pretty good about letting people know that they're banned, either by email or in threads. It's probably a good idea to check their comment history before letting them know. jere's comment is disturbing. I tend to stay away from some hotbutton topics now, and anything involving…

I was partly shadow-banned myself, on this account -- my comments would show up, but not my submissions. I only figured it out months after it happened (I just assumed the things I was submitting weren't catching peoples' interest for some reason), which was frustrating. At the time the account had more than 4,000 karma, which I would have thought would have been a decent indicator that I wasn't a troll.

I eventually got the ban lifted, but only after writing HN and asking them to do it. I never got any notice that I'd been banned, or really any rational explanation about what I'd done to cause the ban, either by email or in a thread, from HN admins or anyone else. My profile has both an email address and a link to an "About Me" page with my contact information on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., so it's not like I'm hard to find.

Even though the ban eventually got lifted, it really knocked my opinion of this community down a few notches. Passive-aggressive measures like hell-banning/shadow-banning/etc. should be last resorts used for silencing hard-core trolls. If they're used too widely, they break down the trust a community needs to have in its mods to function properly.

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

#23

Post by Samuel_Michon »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #15
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…

How did you know you were "ghost banned"? Do you get an email or something?

Aside from someone else clueing you in, wouldn’t you notice after a while that you don’t get any upvotes anymore? (or downvotes for that matter)

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

#24

Post by jere »

cynicalkane wrote: post #20
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…

Do you have a link to the comments of the old account?

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=nluqo

I may not have remembered everything perfectly, but there you go.

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

#26

Post by lotharbot »

freework wrote: post #13

This has been brought up a bunch of times before. An Upvote for dead comments should make them visible. I was once shadow banned on an older account. I don't remember what I said, but it wasn't that bad. I had made like 10 or so effort-posts until I realize someone had monkeyed with my account. edit: Also, if you get so many upvotes on your comments, say 20, you are automatically un-shadow-banned.

I suggest it should take multiple upvotes before any sort of automated system kicks in. Maybe 4-5 upvotes should make a previously dead comment visible.

I also suggest that un-shadow-banning should not be automated. Enough upvotes over time could trigger a "review this account" e-mail, but it should still be up to a moderator to look over the account and give the final say.

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

#27

Post by jey »

maaku wrote: post #18
leephillips wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn't clear?: "A few people messaged me on other channels to let me know."

How did those people know?

You can set "showdead" to "yes" in your profile. (This option might only be available beyond some karma threshold.)

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

#28

Post by DanBC »

maaku wrote: post #18
leephillips wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn't clear?: "A few people messaged me on other channels to let me know."

How did those people know?

In your profile you can set an option to "show dead" - this shows hellbanned users.

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

#29

Post by joeldidit »

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…

This is usually what happens in INTJ dominated environments. Trigger happy and sometimes nonsensical.

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

#30

Post by jere »

DanBC wrote: post #14

It's important for people to include an email in their 'about' box on their profile, so that other HN users can get in contact. HN seems to be pretty good about letting people know that they're banned, either by email or in threads. It's probably a good idea to check their comment history before letting them know. jere's comment is disturbing. I tend to stay away from some hotbutton topics now, and anything involving…

>It's important for people to include an email in their 'about' box on their profile, so that other HN users can get in contact.

The funny part is I didn't have contact info. I only added it to this account a few weeks ago. Some charitable person decided to google my username and found one of my accounts on another site.

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