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"A hellbanned user is invisible to all other users, but crucially, not himself. From their perspective, they are participating normally in the community but nob
by tyrelb 15y ago
"A hellbanned user is invisible to all other users, but crucially, not himself. From their perspective, they are participating normally in the community but nobody ever responds to them. They can no longer disrupt the community because they are effectively a ghost. It's a clever way of enforcing the "don't feed the troll" rule in the community. When nothing they post ever gets a response, a hellbanned user is likely to get bored or frustrated and leave. I believe it, too; if I learned anything from reading The Great Brain as a child, it's that the silent treatment is the cruelest punishment of them all."
from coding horror...
neat idea! never heard of it until now...
- mrkmcknz 15y agoI didn't know of that practice before now. Personally I love the quality of HN posts and comments and I feel the crowd here is one I love being part of. If hell-banning contributes towards that then it's working. After all like mentioned you can always send an email asking for the action to be revoked.
- endianswap 15y agoThe crucial detail is that the author didn't know he was hellbanned, so he didn't know to look into it.
- glimcat 15y agoIt's an old idea, but one usually dismissed as ill-advised BOFH tactics which you shouldn't really implement. It's less "don't feed the troll" than "let's troll the troll at the expense of community trust." I'm disappointed to learn that it's in use here.