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As for "negatively impacting your ability to interact with the site", that refers to the practice of slowbanning and hellbanning. Slowbanning is what it sounds

by jrajav 14y ago

As for "negatively impacting your ability to interact with the site", that refers to the practice of slowbanning and hellbanning. Slowbanning is what it sounds like - the site will be slower for you, sometimes just a little and sometimes a lot. The idea there is to subconsciously encourage you to visit the site less and to contribute less when you do. Hellbanning is more extreme. When you're hellbanned, nothing you contribute will be visible to anyone else, but it won't look like anything's wrong to you. (However, people with enough karma can elect to see your contributions regardless. This is why you'll sometimes see people kindly pointing out someone's hellbanned state.)

JDGM 14y ago
"Slowbanning is what it sounds like - the site will be slower for you, sometimes just a little and sometimes a lot. The idea there is to subconsciously encourage you to visit the site less and to contribute less when you do." That's hysterical. Hellbanning I'd heard of, but that...that's brilliant. Thanks very much too for directly addressing that specific bit of my OP :)
- kmfrk 14y ago
  It might be, up until the point where you're on the receiving end of it.
gingerlime 14y ago
That's really interesting to know. I'm very curious about the technical aspects of slowbanning - how is this accomplished without "wasting" valuable server resources? I've asked a somehow related question[1] on stackoverflow but got no replies... maybe this can help solve the mystery? [1]http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15131671/throttling-http-api-calls-with-delay http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15131671/throttling-http-...
- brudgers 14y ago
  My inference (from hellbanning and rumors of a unique YC alumni topbar) is that there is a closure over each username. If that is the case, then http requests can be assigned various priorities within the queue...or the closure could include something equivalent to: (let ((sleep 1000)... Closures would certainly be a lispy way of doing things.
michaelochurch 14y ago
The one thing I wish had more transparency is the inconsistency around reply-delays. Some people get less time than others. Between the "average karma" statistic (I used to care about that and avoid posting non-primaries; now I don't care) and reply-delays, HN penalizes nested discussions, and that's probably a good thing for most discussions but it does have drawbacks.
- JDGM 14y ago
  "Between the "average karma" statistic (I used to care about that and avoid posting non-primaries; now I don't care) and reply-delays, HN penalizes nested discussions, and that's probably a good thing for most discussions but it does have drawbacks." Interesting. I don't think I quite follow how "non-primaries" (which means..."replies"?) harm one's average karma statistic, and how the average karma statistic + reply-delays penalise nested discussion, could you clarify?
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    "Primary" means a post that is primary in the thread. I suppose it would have been clearer to say "reply" instead of "non-priamry". Your average karma gets hit because primaries tend to get much higher karma than replies-to-replies-to-replies that few people read. My primaries probably average 15-20, but I have a lot of 1-pointers in nested discussions that I think are better than the 50+ primaries.
    - JDGM 14y ago
      Got it! Thanks.

by jrajav 14y ago

JDGM 14y ago

"Slowbanning is what it sounds like - the site will be slower for you, sometimes just a little and sometimes a lot. The idea there is to subconsciously encourage you to visit the site less and to contribute less when you do." That's hysterical. Hellbanning I'd heard of, but that...that's brilliant. Thanks very much too for directly addressing that specific bit of my OP :)

kmfrk 14y ago
It might be, up until the point where you're on the receiving end of it.

gingerlime 14y ago

That's really interesting to know. I'm very curious about the technical aspects of slowbanning - how is this accomplished without "wasting" valuable server resources? I've asked a somehow related question[1] on stackoverflow but got no replies... maybe this can help solve the mystery? [1]http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15131671/throttling-http-api-calls-with-delay http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15131671/throttling-http-...

brudgers 14y ago
My inference (from hellbanning and rumors of a unique YC alumni topbar) is that there is a closure over each username. If that is the case, then http requests can be assigned various priorities within the queue...or the closure could include something equivalent to: (let ((sleep 1000)... Closures would certainly be a lispy way of doing things.

michaelochurch 14y ago

The one thing I wish had more transparency is the inconsistency around reply-delays. Some people get less time than others. Between the "average karma" statistic (I used to care about that and avoid posting non-primaries; now I don't care) and reply-delays, HN penalizes nested discussions, and that's probably a good thing for most discussions but it does have drawbacks.

JDGM 14y ago
"Between the "average karma" statistic (I used to care about that and avoid posting non-primaries; now I don't care) and reply-delays, HN penalizes nested discussions, and that's probably a good thing for most discussions but it does have drawbacks." Interesting. I don't think I quite follow how "non-primaries" (which means..."replies"?) harm one's average karma statistic, and how the average karma statistic + reply-delays penalise nested discussion, could you clarify?
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  "Primary" means a post that is primary in the thread. I suppose it would have been clearer to say "reply" instead of "non-priamry". Your average karma gets hit because primaries tend to get much higher karma than replies-to-replies-to-replies that few people read. My primaries probably average 15-20, but I have a lot of 1-pointers in nested discussions that I think are better than the 50+ primaries.
  - JDGM 14y ago
    Got it! Thanks.