4 ms·

have you considered emailing hn and asking what's going on? They're usually pretty responsive.. and I've always thought of you as a reasonable contributor to th

have you considered emailing hn and asking what's going on? They're usually pretty responsive.. and I've always thought of you as a reasonable contributor to this site.

monksy 9y ago
Well theres that Church guy that shouldn't be named here. They're not always "fair" or responsible.
- Teichopsia 9y ago
  Do you mean the guy that created the OS? I never understood why he gets downvoted if he lives with a particular situation. And why can't he be named?
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    > I never understood why he gets downvoted if he lives with a particular situation. Most of his comments that I've seen are rarely on topic, and are followed up with an artifact of his mental illness, which is tragic, but typically has no bearing on the subject. So yeah, people downvote those comments that have no bearing on the discussion.
    - sillysaurus3 9y ago
      It's true I inherited some problems. Rather than be ashamed or conceal those, I've learned it's a source of strength. When you classify those problems as "tragic," you downplay situations like TempleOS' author. Did you know youtube removed all of his 850+ videos? That was actually tragic. Archive.org has copies of most of them but no one sees them anymore. Also, did you notice? He singlehandedly built an OS. If I'm destined for a similar fate, I'll take a quiet life filled with skill. Besides, it'll be entertaining. I have quite a show planned!
      - pavel_lishin 9y ago
        His problems are tragic. His life is innumerably more difficult because he's schizophrenic. His career and his personal relationships have suffered, and the last I heard he's effectively homeless, living out of a vehicle. His life is filled with skill, but it is not quiet, and you're coming awful close to calling his struggles entertaining. (I know it's not what you meant to say.) Let's not romanticize what he's going through. I'm not sure what your problems are like, but I'm glad you've found a positive way of dealing with them. Terry's videos being gone is actually pretty tragic; they were interesting, and his accomplishments can't be denied, and should be documented.
        sillysaurus3 9y ago
        Let's not romanticize what he's going through. Actually, let's. He can't control himself. He has no choice but to experience life through his eyes. He's excluded from pretty much every group he tries to join. Yet he persists. Not only do I respect that, but I am starting to see why everyone conceals any whiff of mental illness. As soon as you reveal this fact, you become labeled and publicly known. And for people obsessed with their reputation, that'd be a risk. In the same way you can't control whether you're gay, you can't control whether you have certain problems. Mine are nothing like schizophrenia, so it was a little amusing to be given the same treatment. But if hypothetically it were true that I suffered from some, your reaction would be to shake your head and call it tragic. That says a lot about the community. No one can force anyone else to care. But it's a problem I've thought about a lot. Are we doomed to the Reddit and HN duopoly + faux-edgy 4chan? And Reddit is inherently balkanized due to the nature of subreddits. If you want to talk about problems with like-minded people, your options are severely limited. You pretty much have to create a throwaway or retreat to safe spaces. I've benefitted from both. Can we do better? One experiment was to invite people to message me on keybase: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16089930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16089930 The response was awesome. A lot of them opened up about some really heavy things. We talked philosophy, morals, and mainly just gave people a shoulder to lean on when they needed it. I don't know whether it had much effect. I could tell some people didn't get much out of it, though I tried. But for others it was like uncorking a bottle, and there were often fascinating people on the other side of the screen. This suggests a way forward, but I'm not sure what. It doesn't scale. But maybe it doesn't need to. I have time. The thing is, when you bring people like this together, and they act as a unit, they can have an impact on the world. It's a force to harness. Yet they never get this opportunity, because we're all so busy with our own lives. Why put up with someone's nonsense? Why not just hit that block button if they're giving you trouble? Poof. That's little consolation to the human on the receiving end. We have no choice but to experience life as the master of our own existence, confined to the limits of our skull. Your thoughts are immediate; no words are required. Everything seems so obvious to you, because you're at the center of it. You're forced to be. That poses a problem for people whose minds don't fit society's tight molds. As a community, our reaction has been to dismiss these stories as tragic and to move on with our lives, or to quietly prune them so they can't bother anyone. But as one of the pruned, I can tell you that it's a lonely existence. My hypothesis is that there is a way to build a place for everyone to come together. Terry's case is difficult, because he seems unable to prevent himself from copy-pasting gigantic walls of text (among other things). But if you were to actually explain to him that the problem is the walls of texts, he at least has a target to aim for that he can occasionally hit. Maybe not often, and maybe only once a month, but those few times would bring him happiness. That's only possible if you're willing to actually speak with them. I'm not sure yet how to accomplish this, but I'm resolved to try. Slack might be part of it. The overall point is that it's not helpful to shake one's head and label them. From a game theory point of view, it's better to harness everyone's talents rather than isolate and deny them just because of some mistakes.
    - Teichopsia 9y ago
      I know, but it doesn't change the fact that it doesn't make any sense to me. It's publicly known that he has a mental illness. I would also like to believe it is generally known that solitude can, and generally will make a situation worse. I see it as he is trying to reach out, but he is downvoted because why? What effects does a downvoted have on someone? I know I feel bad and I'm generally a person that says "eff it" to a lot of things. I would also like to believe people, especially here on HN, who are much smarter than myself, or so I would like to believe, have all read the same articles and comments I have over the years. One doesn't need to engage if one does not want to, but where the hell is the humanity? Sorry, the more I think about this the more upset I get.
      - pavel_lishin 9y ago
        Not everyone on HN is familiar with him. And HN isn't really a social club, or a support group. Terry's in a shitty place, but this isn't the place to go to get help, and an upvote isn't going to address the issues in his life. Besides, where does that policy end? Will we let Torvalds post free-verse poetry? Should Brendan Eich be allowed to write political screeds?
        Teichopsia 9y ago
        I wasn't advocating for up votes, but anyhow, I see your point. Thanks for your time.
    - sillysaurus3 9y ago
      Hey, I'm sorry. My earlier reply to you was way out of left field. I was so terrified to post any of this or to speak publicly about anything that it was very hard to read the replies. I was sort of skimming them holding my breath for the inevitable backlash. I happened to read your reply, and it happened to be nearly a verbatim description of me, completely by chance. And me replying about Terry was also by chance, since Terry was the first example that popped into my head of someone who has it way worse. The truth is, I've been struggling with a few mental problems, and it's been very difficult. Partly because of how carefully you have to conceal them so as not to be labeled and shunned, or at least treated differently. Somehow in the heat of the moment, it all made complete sense that my mental instability was so obvious that people were talking about it. And I was so stressed about the entire situation that I immediately started replying without thinking. That's more than a little stupid, on a few axes. But um.. hi. I have a few problems. They're not so bad. And I try to remember to be thankful that at least it's not anywhere close to what Terry's going through. But they do get in the way of social interactions. This whole thread is arguably some evidence of it. Suffice to say, I empathize strongly with Terry and I wish that there were a way to include him in some activities. When you're completely isolated by almost everyone you care about, it starts to get to you after awhile. I don't know what's up with me but I'm just going to take a break and focus on making the alt-HN good. Sorry again. I tried to find your email but it's hard to locate. In hindsight my replies to you are incredibly embarrassing (more like mortifying, but whatever).
      - pavel_lishin 9y ago
        I don't think it was out of left field, and I've had similar discussions about Terry here in the past. I can definitely understand why you emphasize with Terry, and why you leapt to his defense. It's good to see that he's got allies and people willing to speak for him - too many people aren't really willing to try to understand what he's going through, and just paint him as a villain. Other people, though, take the opposite approach and paint him as a saint, willing to paint over the negatives. > I was so stressed about the entire situation that I immediately started replying without thinking. You're not alone, there are plenty of times when I read comments I made the night before and wince at what I've said. :P If you want to talk, my email address is my HN username with a period instead of an underscore at gmail; it's probably a better way to have this sort of discussion.
  - monksy 9y ago
    Not the temple os guy. (Church is part of his last name) It was a different guy that was more active on hacker news. He was also really critical of Silicon Valley.
sillysaurus3 9y ago
You are too... Thank you. The situation is hopeless. I've tried. But sometimes I'm asshole, and they expect people to bow to them and speak in just the right way for anything to happen. I started off by trying to be nice, but I rambled a lot. They said they simply don't read emails that long. So I tried short + nice. I started with a simple request. "Why am I not allowed to upvote anything?" The answer is because I was upvoting too much fluff. Oh. Ok. I promised to be more careful and judicious. Then I asked "May I have my upvoting privileges back?" They said "After we see a pattern, and only if you don't bug us anymore." There are two ways to react to that. One is to be happy that they're willing to work with me. The other is to be disgusted and reject their notion of moderation. I choose the latter. (Unfortunately, that necessitates building an entire clone of HN. So that's what I've been doing.) Why such a strong reaction? Because this has been going on since late November. This has been a long and epic back and forth between them and me. Worse, when you open up an email to hn@ycombinator.com, it's because you need something from them. You're only doing it because you're forced to. And whenever I get forced to bow to someone, it upsets me. I can't help it. I want to understand, and I genuinely want to change. But that requires talking to people like an actual human, not as an annoyance you wish would vanish. That appears to be too much to ask. The result is that most of my emails to hn@yc wavered between angry and upset. Sometimes I wrote things that were deeply unfair to them. Some were simply crazy. I was angry about having to spend so much of my life wondering whether I'm penalized or why I can't upvote or whether I'm saying the right things. Since they whine whenever I post their emails, I'm limited to only posting mine. Here was my response to "[We'll give you your upvoting privileges back] after we see a pattern, and only if you don't bug us anymore": --- Never mind. I don't answer to you. It's not your community. It's everyone's. I was looking for mutual understanding. You're expecting subservience. Nah. I promised to be more careful with my upvotes. I meant it. It's not right to demand proof for such a small request. I already gave you reason to believe I would comply, and my word as a community member. And since that's a preview of things to come, I will break off my attempts here. Best of luck, gents. (That's genuine and heartfelt, for what it's worth. I really do like both of you and wish you success.) ----------- Then my last email to them, two weeks later (a couple weeks ago): I think you put on the ranking penalty again. Inline image 1 If this is true, it's unspeakably frustrating that you won't talk to users beforehand. Take off my rate limit. Take off the ranking penalty. Give me back my voting privileges. This isn't even about me. I don't like that you treat your users like this. It's wrong that you keep doing this with no explanation and no recourse. I've met people that have experienced the same treatment. Further evidence: Inline image 2 You expect users' comments to get better when you treat them like dirt? Really? Most people don't even know you behave this way. And there's no way to tell them, because you've ensured you cannot ever speak about HN on HN. It's been since December that I've had to endure these penalties in one form or another. There's not much choice other than to start writing about this. ------- That about sums it up. As you can see, I've been mostly excluded from the day to day back-and-forth. My comments immediately start at the bottom: https://imgur.com/vOJLWbN https://imgur.com/vOJLWbN And they stay there: https://imgur.com/0DdNomp https://imgur.com/0DdNomp I'm not saying this was a good comment I just wrote, but if you wanted to read it, you'd have to collapse 10 comments to get to this one. The most annoying part of all this is that I have no one to talk to. Most people get tired of the topic quickly. Others just apologize for the way the mods are acting and say that they're right, my comments are bad and I should feel bad. Maybe that's true. And then any time I find anyone here to talk to – the only place I've had since I was 19 where I really feel like I can be myself – the thread just gets collapsed anyway and I get yelled at for speaking. So when I see Upwork or other sites abusing their users, it immediately sends me into "Yeah, I know that feeling" mode. We have nowhere else to go. Everyone knows HN, so everyone goes here. Think about that. You have no options to even slightly disagree with policy. I don't think I'll be successful on a new site. There's roughly a 0% chance. But it's the only thing I can do. Between that or being servile, I'll take the nil chance. Y'know, if someone really wanted to influence my actions, all they had to do was just say "Yo, I hear you, but there are important reasons we can't allow topics like that on HN." Or "This is too axe-grindy, and you've been posting a lot of those. Would you mind restraining yourself?" Or "That was kind of an uninformed opinion. Would you mind putting more effort into your comments?" I guess they're worried people would flip out if they did that. But it's just the opposite for me. It's a sign that they're actually asking a community member, proactively, rather than hitting them with a stick and waiting for them to notice. Ironically, whenever users are banned, they get a public reply. Either way, I don't really matter, so nothing will change. The two ways to change the situation are to shut up and act differently or to become someone who matters. Maybe I'll succeed at the latter. The thing is, I get it. I really do. I can only imagine how hard their job is. The amount of deftness and thought that goes into every interaction with the community cannot be overstated. Most other communities screw up, but HN has made almost zero tactical mistakes over the last decade. Evidently, their strategy is working. I just don't like that it's dehumanizing. They treat you like pawns. And if they don't treat you that way, it's because they are nice and cordial at first (I remember those days...). But you better not express anger or send them rants. We live under the thumb. Annoyingly, even now, I'm wavering back and forth about whether to even post this. I'm torn between wanting to respect HN's goals of intellectual gratification and my own personal selfishness of wanting to speak about this. And then I remember that we are only allowed to talk about exactly the topics they approve of, and nothing else. And then I remember that I had to spend weeks before I even understood the nature of the penalties I was receiving. How I'd try to upvote someone and nothing would happen, and so I convinced myself it must've been a bug or a caching problem. How I really believed that these people were smarter than me and had no interest in psychologically manipulating their users. Note that although this comment is long, it elides much of the interaction between the moderators and myself. If you want a clearer picture of what precisely happened, whoever happens to read this can email me. But it's really important to me to be portraying accurate portraits – nothing here is exaggerated or unfair. Part of what protects the mods is that everyone believes they are reasonable people who don't have a single bullying bone in their body, so you lose credibility any time you try to suggest otherwise. The most interesting discovery is that throughout this process, the response has consistently been: We can't treat you any differently than everyone else. In a way, I respect that. But that also implies there are many others in exactly the same situation. Maybe I'll find those people and we can go build a treehouse. It'll be fun.

have you considered emailing hn and asking what's going on? They're usually pretty responsive.. and I've always thought of you as a reasonable contributor to this site.

monksy 9y ago

Well theres that Church guy that shouldn't be named here. They're not always "fair" or responsible.

Teichopsia 9y ago
Do you mean the guy that created the OS? I never understood why he gets downvoted if he lives with a particular situation. And why can't he be named?
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  > I never understood why he gets downvoted if he lives with a particular situation. Most of his comments that I've seen are rarely on topic, and are followed up with an artifact of his mental illness, which is tragic, but typically has no bearing on the subject. So yeah, people downvote those comments that have no bearing on the discussion.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    It's true I inherited some problems. Rather than be ashamed or conceal those, I've learned it's a source of strength. When you classify those problems as "tragic," you downplay situations like TempleOS' author. Did you know youtube removed all of his 850+ videos? That was actually tragic. Archive.org has copies of most of them but no one sees them anymore. Also, did you notice? He singlehandedly built an OS. If I'm destined for a similar fate, I'll take a quiet life filled with skill. Besides, it'll be entertaining. I have quite a show planned!
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      His problems are tragic. His life is innumerably more difficult because he's schizophrenic. His career and his personal relationships have suffered, and the last I heard he's effectively homeless, living out of a vehicle. His life is filled with skill, but it is not quiet, and you're coming awful close to calling his struggles entertaining. (I know it's not what you meant to say.) Let's not romanticize what he's going through. I'm not sure what your problems are like, but I'm glad you've found a positive way of dealing with them. Terry's videos being gone is actually pretty tragic; they were interesting, and his accomplishments can't be denied, and should be documented.
      - sillysaurus3 9y ago
        Let's not romanticize what he's going through. Actually, let's. He can't control himself. He has no choice but to experience life through his eyes. He's excluded from pretty much every group he tries to join. Yet he persists. Not only do I respect that, but I am starting to see why everyone conceals any whiff of mental illness. As soon as you reveal this fact, you become labeled and publicly known. And for people obsessed with their reputation, that'd be a risk. In the same way you can't control whether you're gay, you can't control whether you have certain problems. Mine are nothing like schizophrenia, so it was a little amusing to be given the same treatment. But if hypothetically it were true that I suffered from some, your reaction would be to shake your head and call it tragic. That says a lot about the community. No one can force anyone else to care. But it's a problem I've thought about a lot. Are we doomed to the Reddit and HN duopoly + faux-edgy 4chan? And Reddit is inherently balkanized due to the nature of subreddits. If you want to talk about problems with like-minded people, your options are severely limited. You pretty much have to create a throwaway or retreat to safe spaces. I've benefitted from both. Can we do better? One experiment was to invite people to message me on keybase: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16089930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16089930 The response was awesome. A lot of them opened up about some really heavy things. We talked philosophy, morals, and mainly just gave people a shoulder to lean on when they needed it. I don't know whether it had much effect. I could tell some people didn't get much out of it, though I tried. But for others it was like uncorking a bottle, and there were often fascinating people on the other side of the screen. This suggests a way forward, but I'm not sure what. It doesn't scale. But maybe it doesn't need to. I have time. The thing is, when you bring people like this together, and they act as a unit, they can have an impact on the world. It's a force to harness. Yet they never get this opportunity, because we're all so busy with our own lives. Why put up with someone's nonsense? Why not just hit that block button if they're giving you trouble? Poof. That's little consolation to the human on the receiving end. We have no choice but to experience life as the master of our own existence, confined to the limits of our skull. Your thoughts are immediate; no words are required. Everything seems so obvious to you, because you're at the center of it. You're forced to be. That poses a problem for people whose minds don't fit society's tight molds. As a community, our reaction has been to dismiss these stories as tragic and to move on with our lives, or to quietly prune them so they can't bother anyone. But as one of the pruned, I can tell you that it's a lonely existence. My hypothesis is that there is a way to build a place for everyone to come together. Terry's case is difficult, because he seems unable to prevent himself from copy-pasting gigantic walls of text (among other things). But if you were to actually explain to him that the problem is the walls of texts, he at least has a target to aim for that he can occasionally hit. Maybe not often, and maybe only once a month, but those few times would bring him happiness. That's only possible if you're willing to actually speak with them. I'm not sure yet how to accomplish this, but I'm resolved to try. Slack might be part of it. The overall point is that it's not helpful to shake one's head and label them. From a game theory point of view, it's better to harness everyone's talents rather than isolate and deny them just because of some mistakes.
  - Teichopsia 9y ago
    I know, but it doesn't change the fact that it doesn't make any sense to me. It's publicly known that he has a mental illness. I would also like to believe it is generally known that solitude can, and generally will make a situation worse. I see it as he is trying to reach out, but he is downvoted because why? What effects does a downvoted have on someone? I know I feel bad and I'm generally a person that says "eff it" to a lot of things. I would also like to believe people, especially here on HN, who are much smarter than myself, or so I would like to believe, have all read the same articles and comments I have over the years. One doesn't need to engage if one does not want to, but where the hell is the humanity? Sorry, the more I think about this the more upset I get.
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      Not everyone on HN is familiar with him. And HN isn't really a social club, or a support group. Terry's in a shitty place, but this isn't the place to go to get help, and an upvote isn't going to address the issues in his life. Besides, where does that policy end? Will we let Torvalds post free-verse poetry? Should Brendan Eich be allowed to write political screeds?
      - Teichopsia 9y ago
        I wasn't advocating for up votes, but anyhow, I see your point. Thanks for your time.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    Hey, I'm sorry. My earlier reply to you was way out of left field. I was so terrified to post any of this or to speak publicly about anything that it was very hard to read the replies. I was sort of skimming them holding my breath for the inevitable backlash. I happened to read your reply, and it happened to be nearly a verbatim description of me, completely by chance. And me replying about Terry was also by chance, since Terry was the first example that popped into my head of someone who has it way worse. The truth is, I've been struggling with a few mental problems, and it's been very difficult. Partly because of how carefully you have to conceal them so as not to be labeled and shunned, or at least treated differently. Somehow in the heat of the moment, it all made complete sense that my mental instability was so obvious that people were talking about it. And I was so stressed about the entire situation that I immediately started replying without thinking. That's more than a little stupid, on a few axes. But um.. hi. I have a few problems. They're not so bad. And I try to remember to be thankful that at least it's not anywhere close to what Terry's going through. But they do get in the way of social interactions. This whole thread is arguably some evidence of it. Suffice to say, I empathize strongly with Terry and I wish that there were a way to include him in some activities. When you're completely isolated by almost everyone you care about, it starts to get to you after awhile. I don't know what's up with me but I'm just going to take a break and focus on making the alt-HN good. Sorry again. I tried to find your email but it's hard to locate. In hindsight my replies to you are incredibly embarrassing (more like mortifying, but whatever).
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      I don't think it was out of left field, and I've had similar discussions about Terry here in the past. I can definitely understand why you emphasize with Terry, and why you leapt to his defense. It's good to see that he's got allies and people willing to speak for him - too many people aren't really willing to try to understand what he's going through, and just paint him as a villain. Other people, though, take the opposite approach and paint him as a saint, willing to paint over the negatives. > I was so stressed about the entire situation that I immediately started replying without thinking. You're not alone, there are plenty of times when I read comments I made the night before and wince at what I've said. :P If you want to talk, my email address is my HN username with a period instead of an underscore at gmail; it's probably a better way to have this sort of discussion.
- monksy 9y ago
  Not the temple os guy. (Church is part of his last name) It was a different guy that was more active on hacker news. He was also really critical of Silicon Valley.

sillysaurus3 9y ago

You are too... Thank you. The situation is hopeless. I've tried. But sometimes I'm asshole, and they expect people to bow to them and speak in just the right way for anything to happen. I started off by trying to be nice, but I rambled a lot. They said they simply don't read emails that long. So I tried short + nice. I started with a simple request. "Why am I not allowed to upvote anything?" The answer is because I was upvoting too much fluff. Oh. Ok. I promised to be more careful and judicious. Then I asked "May I have my upvoting privileges back?" They said "After we see a pattern, and only if you don't bug us anymore." There are two ways to react to that. One is to be happy that they're willing to work with me. The other is to be disgusted and reject their notion of moderation. I choose the latter. (Unfortunately, that necessitates building an entire clone of HN. So that's what I've been doing.) Why such a strong reaction? Because this has been going on since late November. This has been a long and epic back and forth between them and me. Worse, when you open up an email to hn@ycombinator.com, it's because you need something from them. You're only doing it because you're forced to. And whenever I get forced to bow to someone, it upsets me. I can't help it. I want to understand, and I genuinely want to change. But that requires talking to people like an actual human, not as an annoyance you wish would vanish. That appears to be too much to ask. The result is that most of my emails to hn@yc wavered between angry and upset. Sometimes I wrote things that were deeply unfair to them. Some were simply crazy. I was angry about having to spend so much of my life wondering whether I'm penalized or why I can't upvote or whether I'm saying the right things. Since they whine whenever I post their emails, I'm limited to only posting mine. Here was my response to "[We'll give you your upvoting privileges back] after we see a pattern, and only if you don't bug us anymore": --- Never mind. I don't answer to you. It's not your community. It's everyone's. I was looking for mutual understanding. You're expecting subservience. Nah. I promised to be more careful with my upvotes. I meant it. It's not right to demand proof for such a small request. I already gave you reason to believe I would comply, and my word as a community member. And since that's a preview of things to come, I will break off my attempts here. Best of luck, gents. (That's genuine and heartfelt, for what it's worth. I really do like both of you and wish you success.) ----------- Then my last email to them, two weeks later (a couple weeks ago): I think you put on the ranking penalty again. Inline image 1 If this is true, it's unspeakably frustrating that you won't talk to users beforehand. Take off my rate limit. Take off the ranking penalty. Give me back my voting privileges. This isn't even about me. I don't like that you treat your users like this. It's wrong that you keep doing this with no explanation and no recourse. I've met people that have experienced the same treatment. Further evidence: Inline image 2 You expect users' comments to get better when you treat them like dirt? Really? Most people don't even know you behave this way. And there's no way to tell them, because you've ensured you cannot ever speak about HN on HN. It's been since December that I've had to endure these penalties in one form or another. There's not much choice other than to start writing about this. ------- That about sums it up. As you can see, I've been mostly excluded from the day to day back-and-forth. My comments immediately start at the bottom: https://imgur.com/vOJLWbN https://imgur.com/vOJLWbN And they stay there: https://imgur.com/0DdNomp https://imgur.com/0DdNomp I'm not saying this was a good comment I just wrote, but if you wanted to read it, you'd have to collapse 10 comments to get to this one. The most annoying part of all this is that I have no one to talk to. Most people get tired of the topic quickly. Others just apologize for the way the mods are acting and say that they're right, my comments are bad and I should feel bad. Maybe that's true. And then any time I find anyone here to talk to – the only place I've had since I was 19 where I really feel like I can be myself – the thread just gets collapsed anyway and I get yelled at for speaking. So when I see Upwork or other sites abusing their users, it immediately sends me into "Yeah, I know that feeling" mode. We have nowhere else to go. Everyone knows HN, so everyone goes here. Think about that. You have no options to even slightly disagree with policy. I don't think I'll be successful on a new site. There's roughly a 0% chance. But it's the only thing I can do. Between that or being servile, I'll take the nil chance. Y'know, if someone really wanted to influence my actions, all they had to do was just say "Yo, I hear you, but there are important reasons we can't allow topics like that on HN." Or "This is too axe-grindy, and you've been posting a lot of those. Would you mind restraining yourself?" Or "That was kind of an uninformed opinion. Would you mind putting more effort into your comments?" I guess they're worried people would flip out if they did that. But it's just the opposite for me. It's a sign that they're actually asking a community member, proactively, rather than hitting them with a stick and waiting for them to notice. Ironically, whenever users are banned, they get a public reply. Either way, I don't really matter, so nothing will change. The two ways to change the situation are to shut up and act differently or to become someone who matters. Maybe I'll succeed at the latter. The thing is, I get it. I really do. I can only imagine how hard their job is. The amount of deftness and thought that goes into every interaction with the community cannot be overstated. Most other communities screw up, but HN has made almost zero tactical mistakes over the last decade. Evidently, their strategy is working. I just don't like that it's dehumanizing. They treat you like pawns. And if they don't treat you that way, it's because they are nice and cordial at first (I remember those days...). But you better not express anger or send them rants. We live under the thumb. Annoyingly, even now, I'm wavering back and forth about whether to even post this. I'm torn between wanting to respect HN's goals of intellectual gratification and my own personal selfishness of wanting to speak about this. And then I remember that we are only allowed to talk about exactly the topics they approve of, and nothing else. And then I remember that I had to spend weeks before I even understood the nature of the penalties I was receiving. How I'd try to upvote someone and nothing would happen, and so I convinced myself it must've been a bug or a caching problem. How I really believed that these people were smarter than me and had no interest in psychologically manipulating their users. Note that although this comment is long, it elides much of the interaction between the moderators and myself. If you want a clearer picture of what precisely happened, whoever happens to read this can email me. But it's really important to me to be portraying accurate portraits – nothing here is exaggerated or unfair. Part of what protects the mods is that everyone believes they are reasonable people who don't have a single bullying bone in their body, so you lose credibility any time you try to suggest otherwise. The most interesting discovery is that throughout this process, the response has consistently been: We can't treat you any differently than everyone else. In a way, I respect that. But that also implies there are many others in exactly the same situation. Maybe I'll find those people and we can go build a treehouse. It'll be fun.