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I think hellbanning has its place. There are people who join websites with no intent of contributing -- who want to make trouble, to troll, to harass, to creat
by lotharbot 11y ago
I think hellbanning has its place. There are people who join websites with no intent of contributing -- who want to make trouble, to troll, to harass, to create link-juice for other sites, or otherwise benefit themselves at the expense of others. An ordinary ban simply invites them to return under a new name and keep it up. A hellban both stops their negative influence from propagating, and stops them from realizing that it's time to make a new account.
The problem, of course, is that sometimes people actually do intend to contribute but are caught in a hellban because they made a single mistake, or possibly even because they said something that bothered a moderator but was completely reasonable for them to have said. Allowing users to "vouch" is a nice counter to this -- if we see a genuine contributor who has been mistakenly flagged as a troll, we the community can fix it.
This is a fantastic change.
- hueving 11y agoDid you miss the part where a troll/spammer can just create a new account? It's trivial to see if you're hellbanned (incognito window).
- DanBC 11y agoBut spammers don't tend to just make new accounts. And it's fine that trolls create new accounts - their new accounts get banned quickly if they troll in their new account. And we don't know if there are methods that detect account hopping. I suspect that there are.
- lotharbot 11y agoI'm well aware of that step. But not every troll or spammer is. How many trolls or spammers actually research the target forum well enough to know that they use such a moderation style? It seems to be a very small number, given how many trolls and spammers get hellbanned and keep on posting, compared to how few seem to create new accounts immediately.