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Off-topic: I notice you've been banned for quite awhile. Some of your comments are pretty good. Some are not-so-great, mostly the outrage/political comments.

Off-topic: I notice you've been banned for quite awhile. Some of your comments are pretty good. Some are not-so-great, mostly the outrage/political comments. It's none of my business, but have you considered emailing hn@ycombinator.com, apologize for whatever got you banned, and promise not to do it again? The mods are more than fair and in my experience that will earn you a second chance. More than that, though, your account is named HeavenBanned, so presumably you created it after your previous account was banned. It's also an amusing name since you may have been fully aware that new accounts which are created to circumvent bans are quickly banned, so HeavenBanned would quickly become a self-fulfilling name. Therefore it seems like you're fully aware of your status, but you still comment on HN knowing that almost nobody will see your writing, except the few that have showdead turned on. While your comments are certainly welcome, I am moved by curiosity to ask: What compels you to keep commenting even though you know you're banned? Anything in particular? The phenomenon is pretty common. There are a lot of banned accounts with dozens of pages of dead comments. Sometimes the comments are meticulously written or otherwise took a lot of effort to write. But the most curious aspect is that the authors know they're banned, yet they continue to write. I've seen at least a dozen accounts like that over the years, and I've always wondered why. Why waste time writing something no one will see? Is it therapeutic, like writing in a private journal? Again, it's not unwelcome -- the dead/vouch system works quite well, so it's perfectly fine for someone to write as many autokilled comments as they want. But I love a good mystery, and so I have to ask: what drives you to do it? What drives dozens of people to do it? (It would be ironic if you had no idea you were banned and this was how you found out.)

arijun 10y ago
I have showdead set to "no" yet I see that comment--why do you think the poster is banned?
- sillysaurus3 10y ago
  I vouched it, which flipped the comment from dead to alive. (Vouching is one of the coolest HN features, but I worry that if too many people know about it, they'll start using it injudiciously.)
  - mattmanser 10y ago
    More than one person needs to vouch for it and they review them apparently. 30 karma threshold to vouch too: https://blog.ycombinator.com/two-hn-announcements/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/two-hn-announcements/
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Cthulhu_ 10y ago
> (It would be ironic if you had no idea you were banned and this was how you found out.) It's called shadow banning or stealth banning [1] and it's probably the most effective way to keep a community clean; explicit bans will anger the user and make them try and circumvent them by using proxies and multiple accounts, often to the point of just posting porn or other offensive stuff. Very hard to get that fixed. Shadow banning on the other hand hides the offensive content from the users, without the user doing it knowing - they can troll all they want, but shadow banning takes away their audience and thus the fun of it. But yeah, telling people "ur banned" defeats the purpose and I'd really like people to stop doing that. The HN system isn't obvious though. Should have a help link if you can see hidden comments at least. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_banning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_banning
- sillysaurus3 10y ago
  I asked dang last year whether it was ok to do this, and he said it wasn't a big deal. I was careful to choose someone who knew they were banned -- my entire question revolves around the fact that people who know they're banned still post a lot of HN comments, even for months. They do it in spite of being banned, which is curious enough that I'd like to ask them why.
  - arcticfox 10y ago
    > (It would be ironic if you had no idea you were banned and this was how you found out.) > I was careful to choose someone who knew they were banned These statements seem inconsistent to me
    - sillysaurus3 10y ago
      It was a joke. Their name is HeavenBanned, so they're obviously fully aware of their situation. This subthread ended up being boring and cluttered up the main topic. If the mods have a problem with what I'm doing, they'll say so. In the meantime, you have both a downvote button and a flag button to employ. I think there was nothing wrong with what I did, right up until it spawned a useless subthread about whether what I did was ok. At this point it's worth detaching, which is frustrating: I really wanted to know the answer to the original mystery! Since I have to vouch a banned user's comment in order to ask them the question, there's no way to ask them without also spawning an offtopic subthread. I was hoping that people would see that it's an interesting subthread and worth giving some leeway to see where it leads. In general, it's ok for subthreads to veer off topic as long as it's intellectually interesting and substantive. Some of the most interesting comments are generated by that kind of process. But it's easy to push it too far, and it doesn't work if people get caught up in metaquestions.
HeavenBanned 10y ago
I'll be brief because I have a class to go to, but... Let's say for the sake of example, we're at a party. It's not just any party. It's a party for developers. 99% of the conversations at this party are routine, most people will say predictable things and things are kept very, very professional. As it should be! These are professionals, talking to other professionals about professional topics. Discourse is maintained and curated at a high-level at this party/conference. But, for whatever reason, they've now offered a special "room" for certain developers who want to say things that might be unprofessional, that might incite anger in some users, that might be politically incorrect, that might be not appropriate for a party setting. But! And here's the caveat: this special room is actually populated by many developers and some of the elder party-goers can VOUCH for good party-members when they see them making good points and bring the conversation out of the VIP room into the broader party. Moreover, they can keep the private conversations private and maybe nod their heads at some comments that are particularly insightful but that are taboo. It's a source of honey for the type of developers I would be talking to in real life anyway. I wouldn't discuss Marxist politics with a mealy-mouthed developer who can't even spell Afghanistan, so why waste my breath in the main room trying to convince him of a radical academic topic that uses expletives and other politically incorrect things? So let's recap: I can still go to this party. I can still have my comments seen by the people at the party who I WANT them to see. AND on top of that, when I say something insightful I have the ability to have my conversation taken out of the VIP room and into the broader party. In the meantime I would only like to talk to the developers who are a.) politically incorrect (so they turn show-dead on) b.) value minority opinions (so they turn show-dead on) and c.) enjoy giving me an upvote donation when I'm not rabble-rousing (so they turn-dead on). It's a win-win for me. Without a doubt.
dang 10y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13892152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13892152 and marked it off-topic.

arijun 10y ago

I have showdead set to "no" yet I see that comment--why do you think the poster is banned?

sillysaurus3 10y ago
I vouched it, which flipped the comment from dead to alive. (Vouching is one of the coolest HN features, but I worry that if too many people know about it, they'll start using it injudiciously.)
- mattmanser 10y ago
  More than one person needs to vouch for it and they review them apparently. 30 karma threshold to vouch too: https://blog.ycombinator.com/two-hn-announcements/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/two-hn-announcements/

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Cthulhu_ 10y ago

> (It would be ironic if you had no idea you were banned and this was how you found out.) It's called shadow banning or stealth banning [1] and it's probably the most effective way to keep a community clean; explicit bans will anger the user and make them try and circumvent them by using proxies and multiple accounts, often to the point of just posting porn or other offensive stuff. Very hard to get that fixed. Shadow banning on the other hand hides the offensive content from the users, without the user doing it knowing - they can troll all they want, but shadow banning takes away their audience and thus the fun of it. But yeah, telling people "ur banned" defeats the purpose and I'd really like people to stop doing that. The HN system isn't obvious though. Should have a help link if you can see hidden comments at least. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_banning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_banning

sillysaurus3 10y ago
I asked dang last year whether it was ok to do this, and he said it wasn't a big deal. I was careful to choose someone who knew they were banned -- my entire question revolves around the fact that people who know they're banned still post a lot of HN comments, even for months. They do it in spite of being banned, which is curious enough that I'd like to ask them why.
- arcticfox 10y ago
  > (It would be ironic if you had no idea you were banned and this was how you found out.) > I was careful to choose someone who knew they were banned These statements seem inconsistent to me
  - sillysaurus3 10y ago
    It was a joke. Their name is HeavenBanned, so they're obviously fully aware of their situation. This subthread ended up being boring and cluttered up the main topic. If the mods have a problem with what I'm doing, they'll say so. In the meantime, you have both a downvote button and a flag button to employ. I think there was nothing wrong with what I did, right up until it spawned a useless subthread about whether what I did was ok. At this point it's worth detaching, which is frustrating: I really wanted to know the answer to the original mystery! Since I have to vouch a banned user's comment in order to ask them the question, there's no way to ask them without also spawning an offtopic subthread. I was hoping that people would see that it's an interesting subthread and worth giving some leeway to see where it leads. In general, it's ok for subthreads to veer off topic as long as it's intellectually interesting and substantive. Some of the most interesting comments are generated by that kind of process. But it's easy to push it too far, and it doesn't work if people get caught up in metaquestions.

HeavenBanned 10y ago

I'll be brief because I have a class to go to, but... Let's say for the sake of example, we're at a party. It's not just any party. It's a party for developers. 99% of the conversations at this party are routine, most people will say predictable things and things are kept very, very professional. As it should be! These are professionals, talking to other professionals about professional topics. Discourse is maintained and curated at a high-level at this party/conference. But, for whatever reason, they've now offered a special "room" for certain developers who want to say things that might be unprofessional, that might incite anger in some users, that might be politically incorrect, that might be not appropriate for a party setting. But! And here's the caveat: this special room is actually populated by many developers and some of the elder party-goers can VOUCH for good party-members when they see them making good points and bring the conversation out of the VIP room into the broader party. Moreover, they can keep the private conversations private and maybe nod their heads at some comments that are particularly insightful but that are taboo. It's a source of honey for the type of developers I would be talking to in real life anyway. I wouldn't discuss Marxist politics with a mealy-mouthed developer who can't even spell Afghanistan, so why waste my breath in the main room trying to convince him of a radical academic topic that uses expletives and other politically incorrect things? So let's recap: I can still go to this party. I can still have my comments seen by the people at the party who I WANT them to see. AND on top of that, when I say something insightful I have the ability to have my conversation taken out of the VIP room and into the broader party. In the meantime I would only like to talk to the developers who are a.) politically incorrect (so they turn show-dead on) b.) value minority opinions (so they turn show-dead on) and c.) enjoy giving me an upvote donation when I'm not rabble-rousing (so they turn-dead on). It's a win-win for me. Without a doubt.

dang 10y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13892152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13892152 and marked it off-topic.