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> Given how many shadow banned accounts keep going on their unacceptable tirades well after they've been banned, means it is good to keep them. This position c

by rhaksw 4y ago

> Given how many shadow banned accounts keep going on their unacceptable tirades well after they've been banned, means it is good to keep them. This position completely ignores the harms that come from non-disclosure of moderation decisions. Note that while the title of this post mentions shadowbans, its discussion is about undisclosed or shadow content moderation.

fellowniusmonk 4y ago
I comment and post rarely but this account has been active for nearly 12 years, I was shadowbanned very early on for unknown reasons and someone vouched for me only in this last couple of years since I was very nearly a lurker, on review I was told there didn't seem to be anything warranting a shadowban in my comment history. Despite this experience, one that you might expect to turn me off from using HN, I am extremely pro shadow ban as a tool to protect this forums utility. Both here and in my professional online life. There are many places online where you can spend nearly infinite time writing and researching thorough rebuttals only to have them washed away in the sea of low content memes. It's nice to have a place where the gold is still in the comments and articles (as interesting as they are) serve primarily as a prompt and conversation starter for deeply knowledgeable people to share. The utility of having a thoughtful and knowledge filled space has been far higher to me then the marginal value of "having my voice heard on this account" during that period.
- manuelmoreale 4y ago
  I had a similar experience to yours. Lurker for 90% of the time, only comment here and there and never spammed linked unless they were pertinent to the discussion I was commenting on. At some point I got shadowbanned and I only noticed because no one ever replied or interacted with any of my comments. It was easily solved with an email to dang asking if there was a reason why that happened. If I broke a rule, I obviously want to know because I do care about following guidelines here. It got quickly resolved and that was a very pleasing experience. But that's because I was able to ask questions to a human and a human took time to answer them. I still think shadowbanning is a good tool and a necessary one when it comes to moderation, especially because contrary to the real world, here and on most online comunities, anyone can join. IRL no random person can just join your friends circle and become part of the conversation. This is an almost exlusively online issue and all the various forms of banning are the only tools at our disposal to deal with the issue. And letting people think they're part of the comunity while preventing them to do harm is a good compromise. I'll wait for the day when a clever dev decides to use GPT to make a bot whose sole purpose is to engage with shadowbanned account.

by rhaksw 4y ago

fellowniusmonk 4y ago

I comment and post rarely but this account has been active for nearly 12 years, I was shadowbanned very early on for unknown reasons and someone vouched for me only in this last couple of years since I was very nearly a lurker, on review I was told there didn't seem to be anything warranting a shadowban in my comment history. Despite this experience, one that you might expect to turn me off from using HN, I am extremely pro shadow ban as a tool to protect this forums utility. Both here and in my professional online life. There are many places online where you can spend nearly infinite time writing and researching thorough rebuttals only to have them washed away in the sea of low content memes. It's nice to have a place where the gold is still in the comments and articles (as interesting as they are) serve primarily as a prompt and conversation starter for deeply knowledgeable people to share. The utility of having a thoughtful and knowledge filled space has been far higher to me then the marginal value of "having my voice heard on this account" during that period.

manuelmoreale 4y ago
I had a similar experience to yours. Lurker for 90% of the time, only comment here and there and never spammed linked unless they were pertinent to the discussion I was commenting on. At some point I got shadowbanned and I only noticed because no one ever replied or interacted with any of my comments. It was easily solved with an email to dang asking if there was a reason why that happened. If I broke a rule, I obviously want to know because I do care about following guidelines here. It got quickly resolved and that was a very pleasing experience. But that's because I was able to ask questions to a human and a human took time to answer them. I still think shadowbanning is a good tool and a necessary one when it comes to moderation, especially because contrary to the real world, here and on most online comunities, anyone can join. IRL no random person can just join your friends circle and become part of the conversation. This is an almost exlusively online issue and all the various forms of banning are the only tools at our disposal to deal with the issue. And letting people think they're part of the comunity while preventing them to do harm is a good compromise. I'll wait for the day when a clever dev decides to use GPT to make a bot whose sole purpose is to engage with shadowbanned account.