3 ms·

I made a comment few weeks ago that was made with good intent bit criticized how the west and western companies look and treat non-western and non-democratic co

by _8j50 4y ago

I made a comment few weeks ago that was made with good intent bit criticized how the west and western companies look and treat non-western and non-democratic countries and undermine their sovreignity. My HN posting habbits have not changed, used HN for 5yrs+ but right after that point I will spend a long time composing a comment and the get "you're posting too fast" throttling my post rate and a few other "shadow" limits I noticed. I would have maybe 30min for HN and other sites like this so I would read comments/posts and maybe reply 3-4 posts in ~1-2h window (30min spread over that time), nothing changed on my end and I am not spamming anyone. I may say things that sound offensive but unless you assume I am commenting in bad faith, I take care to post something valuable and relevant that won't ruffle anyone's feathers too much. Who knows, I hate shadow moderation but I have no proof there is one on HN either other than circumstantial stuff like this and for what reason? Is it over a misunderstanding? Something I can correct? I never been much of a joiner so it isn't just HN, everywhere I go I disagree with everyone that holds on strongly to any bubble or hive mind, I don't think that can be avoidee if you pursue truth with sincerity and apply critical thinking. But I also know it isn't just what you say but how you say it that matters, so I am confused a bit. I have seen deleted comments long after the edit time expires just not on my own to answer your question. All this said though, this a YC site with a specific audience and goals not a general purpose social media so I understand having to accept more moderation especially given the resource constraints of the moderators. Just glad I didn't get banned I guess? Enjoy the holidays.

petodo 4y ago
You can create new account without email or any other verification, so it's not really that big deal if your account was completely banned (worst case you will lose your favorites and upvotes history). You will just lose downvoting feature until you reach again 500 karma I think, which I don't care about anyway, personally I'd find site better, if there was no downvote feature at all for everyone and all comments were visible and distinguished only by number of upvotes. Btw I agree there should be very clear information about comment/post time limits, because it feels they are not applied equally to everyone and you can't really respond even to people responding to you. Then it seems like you can't provide arguments, while the reality is you are time limited while other people keep discussing about what you said. It would be better if these time limits didn't apply at least in your own reply thread where you are parent, only in other parents so you can't spam others. But honestly I don't have problem with time limits if they were transparently communicated. I had to create new account since my account was brigaded or destroyed by bots, no matter what I posted pretty much everything receiving (insta)downvotes (sometimes within seconds), no such problems with new account (so much for this being conspiracy in my head).
- _8j50 4y ago
  Yup, I have seen that with bots too lol. I have an idea for a social network (for a lack of an adequate word), one of the rules would be you can't downvote without a comment and most moderation happens at the edge (clients apply moderation by user controlled settings) but harmful and illegal content can also be moderated through 51% consent of participants electing/certifying censorship authority in the authority domain. With HN though, i wonder how much is manual vs algorithmic reaction to downvotes/flagging. Either way shadow modding goes against honest and valuable discord.
- realworldperson 4y ago
  > You will just lose downvoting feature until you reach again 500 karma I think, which I don't care about anyway, personally I'd find site better, if there was no downvote feature at all for everyone and all comments were visible and distinguished only by number of upvotes. This. That stupid color-/intensity-fading is one of a kind. Often these are just comments that brush against the grain / groupthink, but nevertheless are at least worthy of skim-reading, if not more! (Or flag it as offensive to or whatever, but keep it readable!)
  - dang 4y ago
    You can always click on a comment's timestamp to go to its page, and there you will find it in all its #000000 glory.
  - Kiro 4y ago
    Interesting. This is the first time I've seen [banned]. I thought HN only used shadowbans.
dang 4y ago
We rate-limit accounts when they post too many low-quality comments too quickly and/or get involved in flamewars: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20rate%20limit&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... I'm sorry, I know it's annoying, but it's one of the few (crude) software tools we have to try to dampen the decline of the site. If you build up a track record of not doing that, we'd be happy to take the rate limit off. I took a quick look at your recent comments and am still seeing some of those (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34118788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34118788).
- _8j50 4y ago
  You never told me this so I didn't know, short of email there is now way to contact you without a public post either. How would I know you would consider light humor in that specific context (with positive upvotes) "low quality", the humor and sarcasm behind the rate of poor quality products from Google resulting in a continuous stream of HN posts like "Tell HN:Help, google locked me out" was the value in my comment, if I don't know that you consider something like that low value and why that is, I will just continue to post the same type of comments forever? There are many ways you can show me my account is in such a state as well so I can evaluate the quality of my post. Again, I don't criticize the measures you take just the lack of transparency and communication. I have no desire to debate your rules, just to undersrand them so that I can follow them. I think you know like a sibling comment mentioned, how easy it is to just create a new account or be hostile/uncooperative. If you prefer that, your plan will work with most people (and eventually myself unless my writing style gives me up). Shadow moderation is an act of hostility which is unfair when we are being cooperative.
  - dang 4y ago
    Sorry for the delay in replying. We do intend to replace this system with something that gives people more explicit feedback. I agree that not getting such feedback is a problem.

by _8j50 4y ago

petodo 4y ago

You can create new account without email or any other verification, so it's not really that big deal if your account was completely banned (worst case you will lose your favorites and upvotes history). You will just lose downvoting feature until you reach again 500 karma I think, which I don't care about anyway, personally I'd find site better, if there was no downvote feature at all for everyone and all comments were visible and distinguished only by number of upvotes. Btw I agree there should be very clear information about comment/post time limits, because it feels they are not applied equally to everyone and you can't really respond even to people responding to you. Then it seems like you can't provide arguments, while the reality is you are time limited while other people keep discussing about what you said. It would be better if these time limits didn't apply at least in your own reply thread where you are parent, only in other parents so you can't spam others. But honestly I don't have problem with time limits if they were transparently communicated. I had to create new account since my account was brigaded or destroyed by bots, no matter what I posted pretty much everything receiving (insta)downvotes (sometimes within seconds), no such problems with new account (so much for this being conspiracy in my head).

_8j50 4y ago
Yup, I have seen that with bots too lol. I have an idea for a social network (for a lack of an adequate word), one of the rules would be you can't downvote without a comment and most moderation happens at the edge (clients apply moderation by user controlled settings) but harmful and illegal content can also be moderated through 51% consent of participants electing/certifying censorship authority in the authority domain. With HN though, i wonder how much is manual vs algorithmic reaction to downvotes/flagging. Either way shadow modding goes against honest and valuable discord.
realworldperson 4y ago
> You will just lose downvoting feature until you reach again 500 karma I think, which I don't care about anyway, personally I'd find site better, if there was no downvote feature at all for everyone and all comments were visible and distinguished only by number of upvotes. This. That stupid color-/intensity-fading is one of a kind. Often these are just comments that brush against the grain / groupthink, but nevertheless are at least worthy of skim-reading, if not more! (Or flag it as offensive to or whatever, but keep it readable!)
- dang 4y ago
  You can always click on a comment's timestamp to go to its page, and there you will find it in all its #000000 glory.
- Kiro 4y ago
  Interesting. This is the first time I've seen [banned]. I thought HN only used shadowbans.

dang 4y ago

We rate-limit accounts when they post too many low-quality comments too quickly and/or get involved in flamewars: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20rate%20limit&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... I'm sorry, I know it's annoying, but it's one of the few (crude) software tools we have to try to dampen the decline of the site. If you build up a track record of not doing that, we'd be happy to take the rate limit off. I took a quick look at your recent comments and am still seeing some of those (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34118788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34118788).

_8j50 4y ago
You never told me this so I didn't know, short of email there is now way to contact you without a public post either. How would I know you would consider light humor in that specific context (with positive upvotes) "low quality", the humor and sarcasm behind the rate of poor quality products from Google resulting in a continuous stream of HN posts like "Tell HN:Help, google locked me out" was the value in my comment, if I don't know that you consider something like that low value and why that is, I will just continue to post the same type of comments forever? There are many ways you can show me my account is in such a state as well so I can evaluate the quality of my post. Again, I don't criticize the measures you take just the lack of transparency and communication. I have no desire to debate your rules, just to undersrand them so that I can follow them. I think you know like a sibling comment mentioned, how easy it is to just create a new account or be hostile/uncooperative. If you prefer that, your plan will work with most people (and eventually myself unless my writing style gives me up). Shadow moderation is an act of hostility which is unfair when we are being cooperative.
- dang 4y ago
  Sorry for the delay in replying. We do intend to replace this system with something that gives people more explicit feedback. I agree that not getting such feedback is a problem.