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Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

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Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

#131

Post by dasil003 »

lmm wrote: post #68
dasil003 wrote: post #42

Earlier 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.

This is all very hand-wavy. First of all, hellbanning is not always the same thing everywhere, so no, there's no guarantee that a serious troll knows how hellbanning works. More importantly, I have actually had to deal with forum trolls as an under-resourced dev for a very popular and long-running forum. It's an arms race, plain and simple. Information asymetry is to the developer's advantage. Have I gotten to the point of implementing hellbanning? No... but I understand the justification for why it's done.

Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

#132

Post by anthonyb »

wikiburner wrote: post #101
anthonyb wrote: post #14

I just took a look at the new page, and it doesn't look any different to normal. The users of those posts aren't necessarily hellbanned - the posts are though. If enough people flag a new story I think it'll automatically be marked dead. Usually it's just for spammy crap, or stories that aren't very interesting.

We're actually discussing the flagging situation here, in a thread that was flagged : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6155513 I don't think many stories get flagged just on the new page. It's usually domains that are flagged, like buzzfeed.com, huffingtonpost.com, or gawker.com. It sounds like maybe there was a bug in the server today.

Tons of stories get flagged on the new page. They're usually spam.

In this case, it's part of a policy not to discuss meta-hn issues on hn. If you start a post asking why you were hell banned, or flagging/downvoting, it'll usually get flagged and/or removed.

Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

#133

Post by jlgaddis »

pg wrote: post #127
jlgaddis wrote: post #7

I 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, you don't get banned if you create an account over Tor. We autokill submissions from such IPs, but we resuscitate legit ones if we see them.

I created an account over Tor and made a few comments. It was hellbanned the next day.

A few days later, I created a new account and simply lurked -- never posting. It was also hellbanned.

I gave up after that.

Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

#134

Post by jlgaddis »

akulbe wrote: post #72
jlgaddis wrote: post #7

I 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?

Heh, they probably did.

Those 2500s are long gone although I've damn near a full rack of gear now. The electric company loves me.

Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

#135

Post by jlgaddis »

fsck--off wrote: post #41
jlgaddis wrote: post #7

I 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…

> On a related note, you will be hellbanned if you create an HN account over Tor That's not true. This account was created using a Tor browser bundle less than three weeks ago, and it is definitely not hellbanned.

You had better luck than I did, then. Both accounts I created (maybe a month ago and a few days apart) were banned.

Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

#136

Post by alan_cx »

eshvk wrote: post #107
alan_cx wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole business of banning from sites in general bothers me. More so with huge sites like FB and Twitter. These sites like to promote themselves as communities, and to be banned from a community with no explanation, due process or right to appeal is awful. It can literally alter, even ruin lives. This, AFAIK, doesn't happen in the "real" world". I don't see why virtual communities get some sort of impunity. Person…

> These sites like to promote themselves as communities, and to be banned from a community with no explanation, due process or right to appeal is awful. It can literally alter, even ruin lives. This, AFAIK, doesn't happen in the "real" world". I don't see why virtual communities get some sort of impunity. Sure it happens in the real world. A real world community like an HOA. It is a private property. A private proper…

Could you never resolve a HOA issue in a court, independently?

Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

#137

Post by alan_cx »

eshvk wrote: post #104
alan_cx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell banning for using Tor seems like a terrible contradiction to me. Especially for HN, in the land of the free.

> Especially for HN, in the land of the free. Whatever gave you that idea? This is a forum owned by a private individual. The individual's interests in computer science, painting, startups and leadership probably influenced how the forum started. Sure, there are some people with libertarian tendencies here. It doesn't necessarily mean that everyone top down automatically thinks Tor is a holy cow. In fact, there were…

Which idea?

HM seems to be a place sympathetic to the types of people who need TOR, and as far as I know, its US, LotF, based. So, yes, to me, it seems a contradiction. Not sure how it could one could argue different.

If there is reason for the contradiction, then fine. Im not completely contradiction as such. Doesn't make it wrong to point it out though.

Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

#138

Post by eshvk »

alan_cx wrote: post #136
eshvk wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These sites like to promote themselves as communities, and to be banned from a community with no explanation, due process or right to appeal is awful. It can literally alter, even ruin lives. This, AFAIK, doesn't happen in the "real" world". I don't see why virtual communities get some sort of impunity. Sure it happens in the real world. A real world community like an HOA. It is a private property. A private proper…

Could you never resolve a HOA issue in a court, independently?

I don't have a house; however my brief experience from what I have seen is that the HOA is overwhelmingly favored. Unlike an Internet forum, not reading the TOS doesn't actually work as an excuse. Even for tearjerker issues involving veterans and flags.

Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

#139

Post by eshvk »

alan_cx wrote: post #137
eshvk wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially for HN, in the land of the free. Whatever gave you that idea? This is a forum owned by a private individual. The individual's interests in computer science, painting, startups and leadership probably influenced how the forum started. Sure, there are some people with libertarian tendencies here. It doesn't necessarily mean that everyone top down automatically thinks Tor is a holy cow. In fact, there were…

Which idea? HM seems to be a place sympathetic to the types of people who need TOR, and as far as I know, its US, LotF, based. So, yes, to me, it seems a contradiction. Not sure how it could one could argue different. If there is reason for the contradiction, then fine. Im not completely contradiction as such. Doesn't make it wrong to point it out though.

Fair. I apologize if my message sounded snarky. Let me try to explain.

1. There are people who support TOR as a technology here in HN. There might even be people who "need" TOR and gain sympathy here. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that people who manage this forum necessarily support that viewpoint. Again, just because members of a community want something doesn't necessarily meant that private community supports that.

2. Re. LotF. I have lived in many countries. Of all the places that I have lived in, this would be the only country that would make a comfortable, free place for people like me. If ever I decided to call a place home, America would be it. However, I am practical enough to understand that LotF is an ideal. In practice, there are lots of things that happen and have happened that make that statement relatively meaningless. So yes, America is more free than a lot of the world; more accepting than a lot of the world; yet it is not free by the abstract ideals set out in it's founding.

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