Am I banned?
Nope. Am I?
[deleted]
Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?
71–80 of 139 posts
Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?
#72I submitted a link a few days ago about a possible IE 0-day in the wild and it immediately became "[dead]". It's the first submission I've ever made and I haven't, AFAIK, broken any HN rules since I finally created my account (after years of lurking). On a related note, you will be hellbanned if you create an HN account over Tor (even if you "don't do anything wrong"). Considering the recent NSA revelations, I think…
No dude. It's just you. They knew it was jgaddis from UnderNet days... and they said... /dev/null that punk's post. :)
hey man. Long time no talk. SuperLag here. Still have those 25xx Cisco's I sold way back in the dark ages?
Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
I may or may not agree with you, but my comment only considers HN rules and that there is a strong precedent for these HN-policy meta-discussions to be killed by mods.
> there is a strong precedent for these HN-policy meta-discussions to be killed by mods. If this is true, it would be a pretty sad state of affairs. If such a discussion comes up, it's because of a lack of transparency.
It is true, and for me it is not a sad state of affairs. I've seen more sites killed by excessive meta-discussion than almost anything else. More, true "transparency" frequently just leads to more meta-discussion about the minutiae, and constant bickering about nuances of interpretation.
Personally, I think PG is striking a good balance. If you disagree you are, of course, free to go elsewhere and/or start an alternative community, and solve all the problenms in your own way.
Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell me about it! I edit my posts probably 3-5 times after making them to remove spelling mistakes, correct grammar, and make whatever changes are needed (quickly after posting). This seems to trigger the slowdown after the second or third edit. I also got hellband a year or two ago for submitting either a few links that made it to front-page - but then were flagged by people for political reasons, or posting a negat…
Jacobian (of Django fame) has also been banned for speaking out against sexism. There must be some moderators/admins with axes to grind. I mean, it's friggin' Jacobian, for Pete's sake.
I'm sure you meant Jacobinian? ;-)
Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?
#75Posting out of turn? That's a banning. Posting from the wrong browser window? That's a banning. Staring at my post? That's a banning. Post about banning? Oh, better believe that's a banning.
I'd upvote you, but I'm pretty sure that's a banning.
as im writing this i think im about to be ba
Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?
#76Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?
#77An example: First alpha release of Python 3.4 is out (python.org) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6155423 It probably linked to [1], but all we can tell is that it was something at python.org. The post was by plessthanpt05, an HN user for about two years with 838 karma. All of his/her posts from the past year or so are dead (about 60 of them). They don't appear to be a bot. Python 3.4.0a1 isn't something that wo…
Well, that user also posted over 60 links in the last year, while never receiving a single upvote or comment. I'm not sure why a flesh-and-blood user would still be posting after that.
"Saved links" might be one reason. While I wouldn't advocate using HN as a personal bookmark service it does lessen the burn a bit if nobody else comments/votes on it. The good thing is that if you use saved links for that it makes you think twice about what sort of things you should be submitting.
Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree with the idea of having a strict code of rules. Coming up with rules and sticking to them to the letter doesn't do anything to encourage meaningful discussion. All you end up are the trolls who do their best to toe the line while provoking other people to step over it, and the sort of people who think a conversation where everybody follows the rules yet no-one says anything of substance is preferable to a…
Vague wording in rules is like legislation; they just end up as excuses for doing bad things, instead of ensuring good behaviour. "Toeing the line", if you will. We constantly see this in trying to figure out what kind of stories are supposed to be submitted to HN. Does it really make sense for a person like Maciej Ceglowski to be permabanned from HN? https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/111332316458135553 . I think i…
Vague wording in legislation ends up as an excuse for doing bad things because when you get enough people together to call them a government, you're bound to end up with a few bad eggs. Online discussion sites are small enough that that's not necessarily the case - it's quite feasible to maintain a core group of people who don't abuse that power.
Especially since, unlike in government, that core group of people is beholden only to whoever is operating the site, and not to a popularity contest that sees them being replaced with an entirely new group every so often. This is also why you absolutely can have poorly-defined rules and opaque moderation - the operator of the discussion site shapes what they want it to look like, and if too many people disagree with that vision then another discussion site springs up tailored to what those people want. And if the original operator is too arbitrary or capricious in their moderation, their own site dies or becomes an insular hugbox or something like that.
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Ultimately, when people say they want stricter interpretation of the rules and more accountability on an online discussion board, what they really mean is "I disagree with some of these decisions and I want them to make the decision that I would make next time". Which is fine, but having seen a lot of the proposed alternatives in action I can't really see them as being an improvement.
Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?
#79If I make a comment, any comment, and it gets two or more downvotes, I assume the account has been hellbanned and abandon the account. Why? Because it's happened to me many times in the past. I create new accounts often. The thought police cannot stop me.
That's ridiculous. I often get down-voted for some of my more bone-headed, humorously off-topic or bad faith posts. Well, not _very_ often (generally I'm a good soul) but you get the point. If you're not making this up and this has happened to you many times then maybe you should consider the possibility that your posts are not adding anything of benefit to the site. I created one account initially and went from ther…
>you should consider the possibility that your posts are not adding anything of benefit to the site.
...such as when your thoughtful posts don't show up because you got hellbanned for a single post the mods/algorithm didn't like. And when considering the odds, it makes sense to create new accounts.
Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hellbanning is necessary because of the low barrier to creating a new account. You are assuming that all users are well-intentioned and can be reasoned with, but this is simply not the case. Any sizable only community will develop a number of hard-core anti-social trolls exhibiting behavior which they can only undertake online (because in real life they would get their asses kicked on a regular basis). When said trol…
Serious trolls know about hellbanning and how to figure out whether an account they're using has been hellbanned. The primary effect of hellbanning is to drive away well intentioned new users who are unlucky enough to break some of the unwritten rules in their first few posts.
How do you know this? Have you run a forum or community website, or have you been on the other side? Serious question. Must know data and provenance of data.