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HN not only shadow bans commenters, they will also poison placement of comments (algorythmically) in a sub thread based on who writes the comment.

• dang 11y ago
  We nearly always inform people when we ban their accounts: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=by:dang%20banned https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=.... Lots of software affects both story and comment rankings. "Poison" is a rather tendentious way to describe that. HN's goal is high quality in all things, to the extent it's possible. That doesn't just happen by default; systems are necessary, and it gets harder as numbers grow.
  • 001sky 11y ago
    "Poison" is a rather tendentious way to describe that NB...The words in my signature didn't come from a random sampling of the dictionary...they were from a screen grab of HN moderation tools... On the topic of changing subjects, no not really. Those words are outrageously inflamatory.
    • dang 11y ago
      Nobody found them inflammatory when they sat in the public HN source code for years, but once they appeared in an accidental screenshot, they became outrageous! We're happy to answer good-faith questions about HN moderation, but this seems like trying to stir up drama.
      • 001sky 11y ago
        The verbiage of 'poisoning the well' is a well understood figure of speech.