4 ms·

How are we better off with this list being secret and being kept away from us? Are you saying that we are better off not knowing what’s in this list? Why?

sanderjd 3y ago
Because keeping this kind of list secret is an effective tactic in the battle against spam, and we are all better off with less spam.
- g42gregory 3y ago
  Do you think professional spammers don't know they are on the list? I don't buy this for a second. They will immediately see that their posts are not showing up.
  - dangerlibrary 3y ago
    HN is known to use this tactic with comments, no reason to suspect they don't also use it for submissions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning
    - g42gregory 3y ago
      Are you saying that professional spammers don't know about shadow banning? All they have to do is to see if their posts are showing up without login (they won't).
      - dangerlibrary 3y ago
        You and I have no idea how HN spam detection works - that's literally what you appear to be frustrated about. Maybe they detect that the person is visiting from the same set of IPs and show the post even while logged out. (I strongly suspect that similar measures are in place to prevent bigco employees from mass upvoting their latest press release.) Maybe they use browser fingerprinting somehow. Ultimately it doesn't matter - dang et al. are going to do what seems to work for them to reduce their own workload and keep this place working as they want it to. If you don't like it there are many unmoderated forums to participate in.
        johnnyanmac 3y ago
        >If you don't like it there are many unmoderated forums to participate in. Classic reddit deflection whenever moderation is questioned. I'd rather at least try to start a dialouge before moving camp yet again. That shouldn't be my first instinct whenever some ruling I disagree with arises.
  - nickthegreek 3y ago
    It's about putting enough roadblocks in the lane that the spammers just decide to use another road.
  - sanderjd 3y ago
    I think professional spammers have no idea what news.ycombinator.com is, besides an entry in a huge list of domains in their database, and would not take the time to implement a custom tool to check whether their posts are successfully getting through here. It's just a numbers game for them.
belval 3y ago
Because it would cause largely pointless discussions about the content of the list. Maybe you feel like "yourpointofview.com" has really compelling content that you would like to discuss. The HN moderation team thinks it does not and ultimately it's their call.
dangerlibrary 3y ago
Because domains are cheap, and hellbanning submissions works well to discourage spammers.
jfim 3y ago
It's the same way that shadow banning is effective, it lets people post links that are automatically flagged, saving moderator resources.
the-printer 3y ago
OP’s comment is better suited to be taken in reference to the amount of domains banned rather than the “secrecy” of the list. I’m interested in how users are worse off with regards to anything by not knowing what sites are banned.

sanderjd 3y ago

Because keeping this kind of list secret is an effective tactic in the battle against spam, and we are all better off with less spam.

g42gregory 3y ago
Do you think professional spammers don't know they are on the list? I don't buy this for a second. They will immediately see that their posts are not showing up.
- dangerlibrary 3y ago
  HN is known to use this tactic with comments, no reason to suspect they don't also use it for submissions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning
  - g42gregory 3y ago
    Are you saying that professional spammers don't know about shadow banning? All they have to do is to see if their posts are showing up without login (they won't).
    - dangerlibrary 3y ago
      You and I have no idea how HN spam detection works - that's literally what you appear to be frustrated about. Maybe they detect that the person is visiting from the same set of IPs and show the post even while logged out. (I strongly suspect that similar measures are in place to prevent bigco employees from mass upvoting their latest press release.) Maybe they use browser fingerprinting somehow. Ultimately it doesn't matter - dang et al. are going to do what seems to work for them to reduce their own workload and keep this place working as they want it to. If you don't like it there are many unmoderated forums to participate in.
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        >If you don't like it there are many unmoderated forums to participate in. Classic reddit deflection whenever moderation is questioned. I'd rather at least try to start a dialouge before moving camp yet again. That shouldn't be my first instinct whenever some ruling I disagree with arises.
- nickthegreek 3y ago
  It's about putting enough roadblocks in the lane that the spammers just decide to use another road.
- sanderjd 3y ago
  I think professional spammers have no idea what news.ycombinator.com is, besides an entry in a huge list of domains in their database, and would not take the time to implement a custom tool to check whether their posts are successfully getting through here. It's just a numbers game for them.

belval 3y ago

Because it would cause largely pointless discussions about the content of the list. Maybe you feel like "yourpointofview.com" has really compelling content that you would like to discuss. The HN moderation team thinks it does not and ultimately it's their call.

dangerlibrary 3y ago

Because domains are cheap, and hellbanning submissions works well to discourage spammers.

jfim 3y ago

It's the same way that shadow banning is effective, it lets people post links that are automatically flagged, saving moderator resources.

the-printer 3y ago

OP’s comment is better suited to be taken in reference to the amount of domains banned rather than the “secrecy” of the list. I’m interested in how users are worse off with regards to anything by not knowing what sites are banned.