[throwit99]

I had this happen to me when I critiqued a YC backed company. Had a few thousand in 'meaningless internet karma points'. You pretty soon realise after a few further comments anyway, so I doubt it's actually effective.

It's pretty mean spirited though - generally a "douchebag" move. It'd be like having a bad employee, but instead of firing him, or discussing his work, just don't bother paying him any more.

After being hellbanned I actually realised that commenting on internet forums is toxic, generally a waste of time, and not productive. So I quit. At the start, you sort of care about "karma". But you end up realising it's a measure of two things. 1. How much time you waste commenting on the internet, and 2. How much you can agree with the groupthink echo-chamber.

But for those that like spending time commenting, I would have thought following a subreddit model would work better here, with the growth. Spread the power out. If I get hellbanned from the "rust is the future!!!" subhackernews, big whoop.

It'd also help with filtering out all the non-interesting (self driving cars) stories.

But then perhaps it'd basically be reddit at that stage which would defeat the point...

[dang]

Ever notice how people who make claims about why they got banned never provide links to the posts in question? That's because their claims are nearly always false. If users could look at the actual record, their perennial sob story of perfectly reasonable behavior struck down by bullying censors would evaporate. So they make new accounts and post linkless statements designed to be unanswerable.

We don't ban people because they "critiqued a YC backed company".

Edit: Some of the replies have made good points, and I realize that I overreacted. Sorry about that. Please shoot us an email at [e-mail] if you feel your account was banned unfairly. We're always happy to look into this—there's no question that we make mistakes; the most I can claim is that we're eager to, and do, correct them when they're brought to our attention.

[glimcat]

* Ever notice how people who make claims about why they got banned never provide links to the posts in question? That's because their claims are nearly always false. If users could look at the actual record, their perennial sob story of perfectly reasonable behavior struck down by bullying censors would evaporate. *

When that kind of response comes from the site's moderator, I really don't see the level of toxicity improving any time soon.

It's likely statistically factual, but in context it's just another of the "mean, stupid things" that Paul Graham called you out as being here to address. And you appear to have done nothing to investigate whether the previous user's post was factually correct before slinging personal accusations.

If this gets me hellbanned too, so be it. Conversation and community on this site is a toxic mess that leaves people afraid to post anything. The main good thing is following users like patio11 and tptacek.

http://blog.ycombinator.com/meet-the-people-taking-over-hack...

[gohjo]

No, here's what you do:

1) you ban people who are rude and who you disagree with philosophically, while you do NOT ban the equally rude people who you agree with.

For evidence of the above, look at users like etherael (and his other names; not sure if he tors/vpns or if you can find them), who are raging assholes on a semi-routine basis, but who aren't banned because Libertarian BitCoin Lover matches your values. And let's face facts, you're less willing to ban people who agree with you, even if they're toxic assholes.

If you banned people who you agreed with for the same exact crimes as those you disagree with HN would be a better place.

As it stands, people who agree with you are allowed to be ruder and more toxic than people who disagree with you. This is used as a game by some of HN's worst users who brag on IRC about how it's fun to try to engage in flamewars where they don't get banned but the other individual does.

edit:

Not to mention other game that's played by a lot of folks, which is to be as big of a dick as is possible without actually using openly aggressive language. The goal there being to generate an emotional reaction while retaining some semblance of plausible deniability, because everybody knows that you won't ban them for "polite" taunting, even if it's toxic shit that can't go anywhere useful or interesting.

[yummyfajitas]

So on the topic of unfair bans and the new system, here is a useful way for you to both improve transparency and figure out for yourself if the new system is working.

Post a list of comments which were [dead]ed under the new system but would not have been [dead]ed under the old system.

If the list contains a bunch of comments like "u r a gay homoz", you'll make a pretty convincing case (both to yourself and everyone else) that the new system is awesome. If the list contains a bunch of "I'm concerned about the security implications of ordinary users putting significant money into bitcoin..." then maybe the new system isn't so awesome.

[edit: I realize it's probably too late for this to be seen, perils of posting from IST.]

[rudolf0]

>Ever notice how people who make claims about why they got banned never provide links to the posts in question?

>their claims are nearly always false.

>perennial sob story

Hmm, I wonder where these fall on Graham's disagreement pyramid...

Seriously, how hard is it to tell the guy "shoot me an email and I'll look into the ban" and then make your judgment after that? Maybe the guy's bullshitting us. Or maybe he really was banned unjustly. How can you possibly know?

[eksith]

What are your thoughts on this episode? https://jcs.org/notaweblog/2012/06/13/hellbanned_from_hacker...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I haven't been banned here. Yet.

But in the places I have been banned, it's not been my fault. The people who say "we don't ban people because of X" are, like most people, just telling themselves a pleasant lie.

There's that one guy, who while never doing anything outrageously obnoxious, rubs you the wrong way. And eventually you're going to find something borderline or even milder than that, and use your petty powers. This is human nature, I'd almost certainly do the same. Everyone would.

[amyhoy]

Hi there.

Why not tell me why I was hellbanned then?

Here's my comment history. Such bullying, so horrible, wow: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ahoyhere

The only conclusion is that HN hellbans dissent. I'm about as far from a troll as you can get.

It's your platform; do what you want. But don't lie about it.

[krapp]

You don't tell people why they've been banned at all, or even when they've been banned. Is it any wonder that conspiracy theories would arise around such a purposely opaque practice?

[existencebox]

For what its worth, validity of the hellbanning aside, I do agree with the points he brought up re: emergent problems in scored boards. The karma system does tend to contribute heavily to the echo-chambery nature of many of these discussion forums; and while I certainly think HN is in a much better state than any others that come to mind, it's not immune. (Mentioning because to me, this point is far closer to home than the actual reason for the ban, yet often seems to go without effective discussion of possible remediation.)

[madrobby]

Ohai, I've been hell-banned and don't know why. I guess as someone successfully running a software business _and_ being a well-known open source person I have to place in a forum for people who want to run successful internet businesses and are into tech.

[throwit99]

Maybe you don't personally, maybe you don't as a group anymore.

As I suggested in my original post though, I have more useful things to do than look back at comments I posted years ago and compile evidence. I've moved on.

I'm sure it happens a lot more often than you realise, because in general when people get hellbanned, they come to the same realisations as me.

[danielweber]

IF someone is a genuine troll, then hell-banning is a great way of dealing with it, because it maximizes the time wasted by the troll and minimizes the time used by the moderator.

However, if the person isn't actually out-and-out to mess with your site, it sucks. I've seen lots of communities go down the tubes because the moderators get busy with life, and then Something Happens On The Forum, and moderators passive-aggressively go "fine, we're just gonna act like this, and if you don't want us to do that, then you should make the community act better!" Basically announcing that they are going to put in minimal effort to moderation, and the community definitely notices.

Professional moderation, like HN uses, seems like the best way to go.

[morganvachon]

Indeed, it's a situation where the needs of the many (HN community as a whole) outweigh the needs of the few (banned non-troll commentators). The danger lies in becoming such an elite, closed group due to blind moderation and banning even the most innocent members over a perceived slight, that the moderators themselves end up the trolls of what is left of the community.

For example, there's a certain GNU/Linux distro that is maintained by a core group of devs who have become overtly hostile to any new users of their project, and actively seek to discourage "newbies" from seeking help and getting any benefit out of the project. One would think the toxic atmosphere would have killed the distro off long ago, yet it's maintaining popularity and even seeing an uptick in a certain niche community. I certainly don't understand how it thrives with such a rotten core; yes, it's overall a very well done distro, but even the best product normally can't survive that kind of cancer.

That's not to say that HN would ever end up like that; indeed, from what I've seen they are doing an excellent job overall with maintaining and moderating this community. I just hope it continues to stay that way or improve, instead of going down a dark path towards chaos.

[bootload]

"... After being hellbanned I actually realised that commenting on internet forums is toxic, generally a waste of time, and not productive. So I quit. ..."

Yes.

... But for those that like spending time commenting, I would have thought following a subreddit model would work better here, with the growth. Spread the power out. ..."

Agreed.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

It's little different than pre-internet communities. I mean, we paint this adorable picture of small-town life from some previous golden era, in movies and in books, and even in the stories of your great-grandparents.

But people are assholes. And they found a few people they didn't like (for good reasons, for bad reasons, for none at all) and did the meatspace equivalent of hellbanishment.

Yeh, here, you're just wasting time on the internet, maybe you can stop caring about it. But people do this the world over, and there's no escaping it. This is what people do. They're mean fucks, and if you don't fit in, you're just left out in the cold.

[segmondy]

My account segmond got hell banned, it's a miracle that this is not. HN will downvote any comment that they don't like down to hell. An opinion that is disagreeable with is flagged, it's like the opposite of facebook like button. Dislike.

You don't have to spam or be disruptive. I'm putting my account name on here so folks can look at it. I was new to HN, didn't know much, had no idea I was dead. :)

This account get's a decent amount of flag too when I make unpopular opinion, I have to stop myself from censoring myself because the moment I feel like I can't talk or participate, I will just leave the community. If I can't express myself around a bunch of "hackers" then what's the point?