4 ms·

I had no idea this kind of thing happened. I've never seen it (and known what I was looking at anyway). I have, however, looked at some hellbanned accounts to

by dhimes 11y ago

I had no idea this kind of thing happened. I've never seen it (and known what I was looking at anyway). I have, however, looked at some hellbanned accounts to see what caused the hellbanning and sometimes it's not apparent- that is, replies that aren't particularly insulting or vapid or anything obviously antisocial. I figured they were banned for some other reason- like sneaking advertisements in or something (that are now removed).

DanBC 11y ago
Sometimes accounts get caught in an accidental hellban. In that case (if you've gone through the history and can't find anything obvious) you might want to email dang to let him know, or email the person to let them know. Or you could vouch for the person's posts. I think enough vouching would mean the account becomes unbanned? (Of course, this is just my opinion. I have no idea if it's true.)
tomjen3 11y ago
Another account of mine was hellbanned for triggering some automated response based on voting patterns - which were very suspicious, but had a legitimate reason (specifically I downvoted comments that were of topic, which was most if not all the comments in that thread).
- nitrogen 11y ago
  It would be nice if HN had some way to say, "this whole sub-thread together tanks the SNR". Sometimes a thread will go wildly off topic, but there are so many replies off the topic that more interesting on-topic points can't be raised above the noise. Sometimes I wonder if this could be a deliberate astroturfing strategy. One recent example was a useless conversation about whether the US was a democracy or a republic, with 10 different people saying the same thing. Those 10 comments with replies fill several scrolling pages, so the real topic of conversation is buried.
  - p4wnc6 11y ago
    On the other hand, you could argue that if a comment generates substantive replies (as opposed to just replies that say "this is off topic") then it's actually pretty strong evidence that the community feels the comment is on topic. In fact, I think it would be a good thing if it was made impossible for moderators to detach comments that receive enough up-votes, or have child comments (especially comments that disagree) with many up-votes. In those cases, it's clear that community members get value from the comment, which should infinitely override bespoke opinions of whether it's "on topic enough" to remain -- those subjective opinions ought to count for way less than simply observing whether there are up votes or replies.
    - nitrogen 11y ago
      It only takes about ten redundant comments (wild guess number) to derail a thread for thousands of would-be participants. This doesn't indicate community value; at best it indicates accidental nerd sniping, and at worst could be a coordinated attack on what would otherwise be a productive discussion, from which more people could derive far greater value.
      - p4wnc6 11y ago
        But the comments are drawn from the distribution of Hacker News readers. You can't presume that just because you see a thread of ten comments as an off-topic distraction that so must the other thousands of readers, especially if there are healthy replies and up votes. Your comment that it "derail[s] a thread" makes the implicit assumption that the comments are actually off-topic. If they are on-topic, but you happen to have the opinion that they aren't (even thought they are) then it's not derailing anything, it's just a healthy reflection of the comment-generating process that is "the pool of all HN readers." I think of it like the John Lennon quote: "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted." I don't have a magic answer for how to accurately detect off-topic diversions in a way that satisfied most people most of the time. All I'm saying is that upon seeing a healthy back and forth, it should give me a lot of pause that if I merely think it's off topic, I am probably wrong, and it's just an opinion that should not be indulged by moderator activity.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  It makes sense to me for someone to down vote the most top-level comment that led to an off-topic thread. But then further down voting comments that are replies within that thread makes little sense, and could be mistaken by some as vindictive down voting (which is likely why the automatic ban you describe exists). Further, if there are enough replies in a given thread such that your down votes on all of them were enough to lead to a ban, it strongly suggests that the thread really was on-topic, that it generated valuable interest and discussion, and that actually it's just a controversial thread (one you may not like perhaps), but clearly not off topic. I do see this a lot on HN. When a thread is controversial in a way that HN group-think disapproves of, then "off topic" is used as an inappropriate excuse to down vote it, try to derail any discussion about it, etc. For example, I think effectively all of the stuff from the subreddit TheRedPill is utter nonsense, and it's often very controversial and I dislike it when some of it appears here at HN. But it's rarely actually off topic when it's brought up, and it generates actual community interest (usually from people who rightfully point out how problematic and baseless it is). I'd rather that controversial topics and tangents, even when they are things I don't like, are permitted when they clearly generate community engagement, than to basically have some implicit HN blacklist of disallowed topics that are facetiously treated as off-topic as a way to simply exclude unapproved opinions.
kstenerud 11y ago
Posts don't get removed, even if they're ads. Do a perusal of hellbanned accounts and you'll find about 20% of them didn't deserve to be. In fact, a large chunk of that 20% continue posting, blissfully unaware that they've been hellbanned.
FD3SA 11y ago
You must be new here. Try mentioning anything to do with sexual dimorphism and/or genetics. You'll be banned within the hour, most likely by 'dang' himself. I've apparently skirted the line quite a few times myself, but I'm definitely under a few rate restrictions and/or shadowbans. It's comical how closely the HN community adheres to the stereotypical programmer trope. Zero knowledge of anything outside a very narrow scope, no life experience or perspective with the empirical sciences, viciously dictatorial with any power, etc... I visit this place out of habit more than anything else. There are a few smart guys here and there, but mostly very confused and undeveloped human beings with a very narrow experience of life. Oh well, that's humanity in a nutshell I guess.

by dhimes 11y ago

DanBC 11y ago

Sometimes accounts get caught in an accidental hellban. In that case (if you've gone through the history and can't find anything obvious) you might want to email dang to let him know, or email the person to let them know. Or you could vouch for the person's posts. I think enough vouching would mean the account becomes unbanned? (Of course, this is just my opinion. I have no idea if it's true.)

tomjen3 11y ago

Another account of mine was hellbanned for triggering some automated response based on voting patterns - which were very suspicious, but had a legitimate reason (specifically I downvoted comments that were of topic, which was most if not all the comments in that thread).

nitrogen 11y ago
It would be nice if HN had some way to say, "this whole sub-thread together tanks the SNR". Sometimes a thread will go wildly off topic, but there are so many replies off the topic that more interesting on-topic points can't be raised above the noise. Sometimes I wonder if this could be a deliberate astroturfing strategy. One recent example was a useless conversation about whether the US was a democracy or a republic, with 10 different people saying the same thing. Those 10 comments with replies fill several scrolling pages, so the real topic of conversation is buried.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  On the other hand, you could argue that if a comment generates substantive replies (as opposed to just replies that say "this is off topic") then it's actually pretty strong evidence that the community feels the comment is on topic. In fact, I think it would be a good thing if it was made impossible for moderators to detach comments that receive enough up-votes, or have child comments (especially comments that disagree) with many up-votes. In those cases, it's clear that community members get value from the comment, which should infinitely override bespoke opinions of whether it's "on topic enough" to remain -- those subjective opinions ought to count for way less than simply observing whether there are up votes or replies.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    It only takes about ten redundant comments (wild guess number) to derail a thread for thousands of would-be participants. This doesn't indicate community value; at best it indicates accidental nerd sniping, and at worst could be a coordinated attack on what would otherwise be a productive discussion, from which more people could derive far greater value.
    - p4wnc6 11y ago
      But the comments are drawn from the distribution of Hacker News readers. You can't presume that just because you see a thread of ten comments as an off-topic distraction that so must the other thousands of readers, especially if there are healthy replies and up votes. Your comment that it "derail[s] a thread" makes the implicit assumption that the comments are actually off-topic. If they are on-topic, but you happen to have the opinion that they aren't (even thought they are) then it's not derailing anything, it's just a healthy reflection of the comment-generating process that is "the pool of all HN readers." I think of it like the John Lennon quote: "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted." I don't have a magic answer for how to accurately detect off-topic diversions in a way that satisfied most people most of the time. All I'm saying is that upon seeing a healthy back and forth, it should give me a lot of pause that if I merely think it's off topic, I am probably wrong, and it's just an opinion that should not be indulged by moderator activity.
p4wnc6 11y ago
It makes sense to me for someone to down vote the most top-level comment that led to an off-topic thread. But then further down voting comments that are replies within that thread makes little sense, and could be mistaken by some as vindictive down voting (which is likely why the automatic ban you describe exists). Further, if there are enough replies in a given thread such that your down votes on all of them were enough to lead to a ban, it strongly suggests that the thread really was on-topic, that it generated valuable interest and discussion, and that actually it's just a controversial thread (one you may not like perhaps), but clearly not off topic. I do see this a lot on HN. When a thread is controversial in a way that HN group-think disapproves of, then "off topic" is used as an inappropriate excuse to down vote it, try to derail any discussion about it, etc. For example, I think effectively all of the stuff from the subreddit TheRedPill is utter nonsense, and it's often very controversial and I dislike it when some of it appears here at HN. But it's rarely actually off topic when it's brought up, and it generates actual community interest (usually from people who rightfully point out how problematic and baseless it is). I'd rather that controversial topics and tangents, even when they are things I don't like, are permitted when they clearly generate community engagement, than to basically have some implicit HN blacklist of disallowed topics that are facetiously treated as off-topic as a way to simply exclude unapproved opinions.

kstenerud 11y ago

Posts don't get removed, even if they're ads. Do a perusal of hellbanned accounts and you'll find about 20% of them didn't deserve to be. In fact, a large chunk of that 20% continue posting, blissfully unaware that they've been hellbanned.

FD3SA 11y ago

You must be new here. Try mentioning anything to do with sexual dimorphism and/or genetics. You'll be banned within the hour, most likely by 'dang' himself. I've apparently skirted the line quite a few times myself, but I'm definitely under a few rate restrictions and/or shadowbans. It's comical how closely the HN community adheres to the stereotypical programmer trope. Zero knowledge of anything outside a very narrow scope, no life experience or perspective with the empirical sciences, viciously dictatorial with any power, etc... I visit this place out of habit more than anything else. There are a few smart guys here and there, but mostly very confused and undeveloped human beings with a very narrow experience of life. Oh well, that's humanity in a nutshell I guess.