The trouble with incurring Dan's wrath is that he's right 99% of the time. That gives the impression that he's omniscient and benevolent, since 99 out of 100 random people will back his decisions.
That puts those of us in the 1% in a terrible position. It's difficult to even figure out whether you did something wrong. And if you conclude that – against the odds – you seem to be innocent, what do you do?
Dan has also given the impression that the community stands by his decisions. This is often not true, but he uses software tricks to make it appear true. As an example, he often flags comments manually, which immediately and unconditionally kills them and marks them as [flagged]. You can tell he does this, because it says [flagged] rather than [flagged] [dead]. I have been quietly gathering evidence for some time now: https://imgur.com/a/2GwVibp
The worst part is, all attempts at trying to discuss the situation are ruthlessly rejected. And since you're bucketed into the same category as some very unsavory people, no one who cares will side with you. And all the rest don't care.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18153219 Not 30 minutes ago, I tried – for the dozenth time – to extend an olive branch and agree to focus on the site's goal of gratifying intellectual curiosity. It was immediately rejected.
As someone who is trying to write a book on Lisp, this must be the ultimate proof that the site is no longer about attracting bookish people. That may have been the original aim, but HN is now intended to be an entertainment site. If your comments do not entertain, expect to be hit. Hard. And the surest way to not entertain is to comment about social issues.
Dan also likes to frame his moderation decisions as reasonable, and will go to great lengths to make them seem that way. For example, all of my accounts were banned two weeks ago, for three months. Dan called this a "probation", which is precisely the opposite of what probation is. He also said that it was possible to continue using HN, since there is a fine vouching system that will grab the good comments.
Very few people read dead comments. I know. I've measured. Effectively, if you're hellbanned, you're screwed. But you turn out to be screwed for a subtle but important reason: It's impossible to post more than two comments every 5 hours. This is a sharp increase from the old limit of five comments every three hours. And if you have made any comment within the last 5 hours, you cannot submit anything. Any attempt to do so will be met with "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks."
HN also uses many tricks that make it appear the community is against you, when in fact it is the software. For example, I am reasonably certain that there exists a setting which will automatically downvote your comments in certain circumstances. Such a setting has the uncomfortable effect that it is completely impossible to present any evidence of it without appearing to be completely unhinged.
All of this is to say:
Thanks, now I'm regretting not going with the pithier 'ur mom has 5M monthly users' a little less.
Please don't regret having original thoughts. HN is in the terrible position of having so much inertia that it no longer matters whether a moderator is behaving badly, or whether he is using software tricks to make it seem like the community is on his side. And since he is the de facto leader of HN, there is much to gain by being on his side, and much to lose by speaking out.
And again, 99% of his decisions are correct. But when he makes 100 decisions a day, there are a growing number who are the recipient of harsh actions with no recourse. Any attempt at pointing this out is quickly and immediately silenced, and used as evidence that you deserve to be silenced.
-- sillysaurus3, palish, shawn. The condemned. Proudly an HN community member for 11 years. I miss you guys.