4 ms·

Are there any information/discussions about the "censoring mechanisms"?

iamelgringo 16y ago
Over the years, I've occasionally heard of people getting kickbanned from HN. It doesn't happen that often, but when it does, it's been because of egregious trolling, spamming, etc... I've also heard of one or two voting rings that got booted as well. It doesn't happen too often, however. The community here usually has pretty high commenting standards, and there's peer pressure that encourages good behavior.
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  There are some individuals that are either around for a while, or just getting started, and for whatever arbitrary reason one day all of their comments and submissions will be auto-dead. They of course aren't notified at all, so they're quite happy to keep adding comments to the site, all of which stay at 1 point and never get replied to (or even read by anyone except those with showdead on). Since there's no messaging system on this site, if they haven't bothered to add any contact information to their userpage then there's no way to let them know. I occasionally see these folks posting some pretty thoughtful comments while auto-dead, too. However, this has been a subject of discussion here a few times, and nothing has changed; I don't expect it to. I do expect that this site will be banned soon too.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - lzw 16y ago
    They could be notified by the site when they log in. People investing in thoughtful comments, or even attempting to add value to the site, who have been arbitrarily banned seems quite tragic. A community with secret rules is one to think twice about investing in. I've learned this the hard way in the past running afoul of moderators because I disagreed with one of them or their friends.
    - jackowayed 16y ago
      PG says that silent banning is the best way because trolls might keep going for awhile after being banned in that case, doing no harm because they're banned. But if they know they're banned, they'll just create another account. I'm not saying that that's the best solution. A mefi-like $5 cost to join might be better, but then a) PG has to implement the payment stuff, and b) some people will complain about us charging nontrolls to get accounts. It's possible that there could be some system where if, say, 5 people with at least 200 karma will vouch for you, it's free, but then there's even more complicated code that needs to get written, and people will complain that you can only join HN if you pay or are part of the "in crowd" that know lots of HNers. I actually think that could work really well though. If for the first month/50 karma, those people were supposed to moderate the sponsorees comments and give them feedback on what they're doing well and what they're doing badly, we might have a lot fewer complaints about all those noobs that are ruining our site.

Over the years, I've occasionally heard of people getting kickbanned from HN. It doesn't happen that often, but when it does, it's been because of egregious trolling, spamming, etc... I've also heard of one or two voting rings that got booted as well. It doesn't happen too often, however. The community here usually has pretty high commenting standards, and there's peer pressure that encourages good behavior.

thaumaturgy 16y ago
There are some individuals that are either around for a while, or just getting started, and for whatever arbitrary reason one day all of their comments and submissions will be auto-dead. They of course aren't notified at all, so they're quite happy to keep adding comments to the site, all of which stay at 1 point and never get replied to (or even read by anyone except those with showdead on). Since there's no messaging system on this site, if they haven't bothered to add any contact information to their userpage then there's no way to let them know. I occasionally see these folks posting some pretty thoughtful comments while auto-dead, too. However, this has been a subject of discussion here a few times, and nothing has changed; I don't expect it to. I do expect that this site will be banned soon too.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- lzw 16y ago
  They could be notified by the site when they log in. People investing in thoughtful comments, or even attempting to add value to the site, who have been arbitrarily banned seems quite tragic. A community with secret rules is one to think twice about investing in. I've learned this the hard way in the past running afoul of moderators because I disagreed with one of them or their friends.
  - jackowayed 16y ago
    PG says that silent banning is the best way because trolls might keep going for awhile after being banned in that case, doing no harm because they're banned. But if they know they're banned, they'll just create another account. I'm not saying that that's the best solution. A mefi-like $5 cost to join might be better, but then a) PG has to implement the payment stuff, and b) some people will complain about us charging nontrolls to get accounts. It's possible that there could be some system where if, say, 5 people with at least 200 karma will vouch for you, it's free, but then there's even more complicated code that needs to get written, and people will complain that you can only join HN if you pay or are part of the "in crowd" that know lots of HNers. I actually think that could work really well though. If for the first month/50 karma, those people were supposed to moderate the sponsorees comments and give them feedback on what they're doing well and what they're doing badly, we might have a lot fewer complaints about all those noobs that are ruining our site.