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Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

#91

Post by w1ntermute »

bane wrote: post #59
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…

Don't feel bad, almost half my posts get killed immediately because somebody doesn't think news about Android, and the sites that report positive things about the OS, should be on HN, but I can submit Daring Fireball and Apple Insider news all day.

Yeah, it's always pissed me off how much speculation about Apple products manages to make it to the front page, when similar articles about Android devices would never have a chance.

Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

#92

Post by arcameron »

I've been hellbanned at least a few times while trying to show HN the OSS project I've been working on :(

In /r/programming on reddit, it was shadowbanned as soon as it was posted. It's pretty frustrating and it's making me want to contribute to HN less.

https://chat.echoplex.us https://github.com/qq99/echoplexus

Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

#93

Post by darxius »

bluehex wrote: post #3

The only pattern I've noticed is that many of the hellbanned users only ever link to only a single domain -- probably their own.

This is also something I never understood. Who cares if I submit tons of (non-duplicate) links from my own domain. If the community doesn't like them, they won't get upvoted and will disappear. Same goes for the opposite.

Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

#96

Post by jfriedly »

bnr wrote: post #62
jfriedly wrote: post #27

An 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.

Their posting frequency dropped significantly over the past year, probably as a result of never receiving any upvotes. At the time they were (presumably) hellbanned, they were posting at a rough average of one post per day, and it's much less frequent now. They seem to go for a week or two period in which they'll post several links, then forget about HN for a while.

I won't try to defend all of their posts; most of them are things that I don't even find interesting. But it seems that someone basically used banning as a method of cutting down on uninteresting material.

That may even be a good way of maintaining the signal-to-noise ratio on HN: if we ban the users that post many uninteresting links then the community won't have to see them. But it wasn't a tactic that I was aware of before today.

Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

#97

Post by kefka »

consz wrote: post #89
bnr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I posted here for a year after getting hellbanned before realizing. It happens.

On another account, I checked regularly for possible hellban status.

Lo and behold, I caught it about 3 days in. Of course, I didn't even use HN for the first of those 2 days.

This day, I spend more of my time on subreddits that share HN's enthusiasm and knowledge without the subterfuge of hellbans.

Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

#99

Post by wikiburner »

powertower wrote: post #64
kmfrk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a feature that slows down the site for a user under certain conditions. It's surreptitious crap like this that makes HN such a pain to use for a lot of us.

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…

We're actually having an interesting conversation here about abusive flagging, in a thread I posted earlier today that was, ironically enough, abusively flagged:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6155513

Re: Ask PG: Why is everybody hellbanned?

#100

Post by ryanSrich »

w1ntermute wrote: post #91
bane wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't feel bad, almost half my posts get killed immediately because somebody doesn't think news about Android, and the sites that report positive things about the OS, should be on HN, but I can submit Daring Fireball and Apple Insider news all day.

Yeah, it's always pissed me off how much speculation about Apple products manages to make it to the front page, when similar articles about Android devices would never have a chance.

The Silicon Valley/Bay Area ballwashing is half the reason why I don't submit posts anymore. This place is less about hackers and more about trendy startups.
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