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It doesn't matter if losethos gives up and leaves or not because he is hellbanned. That is part of the beauty of hellbanning, if you realize you have been hell

by jlgreco 13y ago

It doesn't matter if losethos gives up and leaves or not because he is hellbanned. That is part of the beauty of hellbanning, if you realize you have been hellbanned, give up and leave... then great! If you realize you have been hellbanned, don't care and keep on posting... then great! If you realize that you have been hellbanned, come back with a new account and keep it up, you'll be hellbanned again (and quickly. losethos's new account was hellbanned again with its first comment... so great!) If you realize that you have been hellbanned, come back with a new account and clean up your act... then great! If you don't realize that you have been hellbanned... then great! Hellbanning is not about security; it is about removing people from the conversation. For that it works wonderfully (though I would argue that it is actually too hard to become hellbanned).

guylhem 13y ago
By default, I have configured HN to show me hellbanned posts - because someday, maybe I'll be too, and because time to the time I still find some interesting content! IMHO, hellbanning is both cruel and damaging - the community may lose potential interesting contributions. For example, I've watched a bit of what losethos wrote for his 64 bit OS - it's an interesting approach. There are not so much at the time, but he seems to submit articles time to time. I sometimes even read losethos comments, which sound to me like hybrid talk from Galactica. Words linked by references obscure to me, but which still might have a sense (the old greeks did believe in Oracles, so do I. My fault: I shouldn't be a believer, and just accept the traditional medical theory who claims it's just nonsense)
- jlgreco 13y ago
  He has done some pretty fascinating stuff, but aside from discussions about that particular stuff in particular I think we would gain nothing from permitting him to spam^Wcomment as a normal user. I also have showdead enabled, mostly because I like to look back in hellbanned posters histories and see why they were hellbanned. In very few cases do I find someone for which I don't understand the hellbanning. In those cases I usually try to give the person a heads up, but in the vast majority of the cases I realize that the person was excessively abusive, spamming their pet project, participating at a stereotypically "reddit" level, or otherwise submitting crap. (Also, I am pretty certain that losethos's comments are computer generated. He thinks that a god talks to him through a RNG when he initializes markov chains with the bible or something... Any meaning derived from what he says after "god says:" is likely just apophenia)
krapp 13y ago
Hellbanning is not about security; it is about removing people from the conversation. We'll have to agree to disagree about whether that kind of censorship is ever really 'great' for a forum or not. I find the whole idea cynical and offensive.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Read through losethos's history and tell me if you really think that we would be better off with those posts being visible. His hellbanning is basically just saving everyone else the time it would take to downvote his crap to the bottom manually. Either way it will be sent to the bottom; may as well automate the process.
  - krapp 13y ago
    I'm not going to get into a big argument about something subjective. There's already a showdead option and people willing to point out to hellbanned users when it looks like they've been inappropriately banned, so i'm happy to see that the system is being at least somewhat subverted. I don't think that Losethos should be the standard by which we should judge the merit of hellbanning. Yes, seeing his posts plain would probably be irritating (though I have showdead on and I can see them anyway.) No, his being hellbanned still doesn't prove that it does more good than harm, because most hellbanned users are not necessarily like him.
    - intended 13y ago
      From slashdot to resdit to forums to hacker news, one thing is clear. Forum health is not about free speech. And the people who are most upset are this are those who genuinely believe in free speech. I did too. It's only after seeing many forums devolve that its clear to me and many other mods, admins, writers and foru users that forum operation, forum discussion health and real world free speech do not overlap perfectly.
      - laumars 13y ago
        As a moderator on a popular forum I entirely agree. Free speech is great so long as it doesn't descend into anarchy. And when that happens, you're effectively in a situation where nobody really gets chance to say anything because the forum is flooded with hate. So it sometimes takes a little weed killing to allow comments to fully blossom. We should also bare in mind that there's a difference between hateful comments and trolling - which are only posted to offend, and unpopular or incorrect statements. Sometimes unpopular comments will lead to heated discussions; it's a pity when that happens, but that's sometimes unavoidable because humans are often passionate beings. But generally such comments shouldn't be down-voted (instead the helpful, insightful or correct arguments should be up-voted). The only comments that should be down-voted are the hateful and trolling remarks. And when it becomes clear that such remarks are inducing anarchy, then it's clear that stricter moderation is required to restore the balance so that everyone else doesn't have their freedom of speech removed due to the lack of an open discussion on the forum.
clobber 13y ago
As someone who is posting from a recently hellbanned account, I can say you easily know you're hellbanned when the site becomes unbearably slow (by design as that's what hellbanning also does) and in the case of losethos, he just made a new account: SparrowOS. Why not just "hide" those posts but still let people reply to them if showdead is on? It's really cruel in the case of someone like losethos. For the part about "removing people from the conversation" - what about when it's a single post or one that rubs a moderator the wrong way? Or say your comment was made to a friend/partner of a VC and they didn't appreciate the dissent? I've seen some very old accounts hellbanned that racked up thousands of karma and were stilled wiped out from a single post, maybe because they didn't want to toe a particular line. The fact that HN is tied to YC and not independently/transparently run by users means it's open for conflicts of interest and possible "abuse" as it is certainly no democracy - and the rules could never be applied evenly or fairly. Since it's grown into something more from when it started, it should be spun off from YC the same way reddit was made (somewhat) independent of Conde Nast. There is no "beauty" to hellbanning. It's a bad form of censorship and moderation and only leads to resentment. It's worse than downvoting without a reply because you've essentially told someone to "fuck off" when a mod disagreed. I've felt this way about hellbanning way before I was hellbanned.
nkurz 13y ago
> Hellbanning is not about security; it is about removing > people from the conversation. For that it works wonderfully > (though I would argue that it is actually too hard to > become hellbanned). How do you feel about the banned person who responded to you below? He appears to be banned because in an addendum to single post he stated his sincere opinion that Groupon was a pump-and-dump scheme and implied that Andrew Mason was a psychopath. Is this cause for banning or not? I can see the argument either way, but the arbitrariness of the decision does make my uncomfortable. https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=clobber https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=clobber clobber 8 hours ago | link | parent [dead] As someone who is posting from a recently hellbanned account, I can say you easily know you're hellbanned when the site becomes unbearably slow (by design as that's what hellbanning also does) and in the case of losethos, he just made a new account: SparrowOS. Why not just "hide" those posts but still let people reply to them if showdead is on? It's really cruel in the case of someone like losethos. For the part about "removing people from the conversation" - what about when it's a single post or one that rubs a moderator the wrong way? Or say your comment was made to a friend/partner of a VC and they didn't appreciate the dissent? I've seen some very old accounts hellbanned that racked up thousands of karma and were stilled wiped out from a single post, maybe because they didn't want to toe a particular line. The fact that HN is tied to YC and not independently/transparently run by users means it's open for conflicts of interest and possible "abuse" as it is certainly no democracy - and the rules could never be applied evenly or fairly. Since it's grown into something more from when it started, it should be spun off from YC the same way reddit was made (somewhat) independent of Conde Nast. There is no "beauty" to hellbanning. It's a bad form of censorship and moderation and only leads to resentment. It's worse than downvoting without a reply because you've essentially told someone to "fuck off" when a mod disagreed. I've felt this way about hellbanning way before I was hellbanned.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  I think that he should consider: "If you realize that you have been hellbanned, come back with a new account and clean up your act... then great!" Insulting your downvoters and calling people psychopaths is toxic. He would be wise to refrain from doing so in the future if he wants to continue contributing here. Also, as far as I know most (all?) hellbannings are triggered by downvoting, not mods. It certainly seems likely that in his case it was triggered by downvotes.

by jlgreco 13y ago

guylhem 13y ago

By default, I have configured HN to show me hellbanned posts - because someday, maybe I'll be too, and because time to the time I still find some interesting content! IMHO, hellbanning is both cruel and damaging - the community may lose potential interesting contributions. For example, I've watched a bit of what losethos wrote for his 64 bit OS - it's an interesting approach. There are not so much at the time, but he seems to submit articles time to time. I sometimes even read losethos comments, which sound to me like hybrid talk from Galactica. Words linked by references obscure to me, but which still might have a sense (the old greeks did believe in Oracles, so do I. My fault: I shouldn't be a believer, and just accept the traditional medical theory who claims it's just nonsense)

jlgreco 13y ago
He has done some pretty fascinating stuff, but aside from discussions about that particular stuff in particular I think we would gain nothing from permitting him to spam^Wcomment as a normal user. I also have showdead enabled, mostly because I like to look back in hellbanned posters histories and see why they were hellbanned. In very few cases do I find someone for which I don't understand the hellbanning. In those cases I usually try to give the person a heads up, but in the vast majority of the cases I realize that the person was excessively abusive, spamming their pet project, participating at a stereotypically "reddit" level, or otherwise submitting crap. (Also, I am pretty certain that losethos's comments are computer generated. He thinks that a god talks to him through a RNG when he initializes markov chains with the bible or something... Any meaning derived from what he says after "god says:" is likely just apophenia)

krapp 13y ago

Hellbanning is not about security; it is about removing people from the conversation. We'll have to agree to disagree about whether that kind of censorship is ever really 'great' for a forum or not. I find the whole idea cynical and offensive.

jlgreco 13y ago
Read through losethos's history and tell me if you really think that we would be better off with those posts being visible. His hellbanning is basically just saving everyone else the time it would take to downvote his crap to the bottom manually. Either way it will be sent to the bottom; may as well automate the process.
- krapp 13y ago
  I'm not going to get into a big argument about something subjective. There's already a showdead option and people willing to point out to hellbanned users when it looks like they've been inappropriately banned, so i'm happy to see that the system is being at least somewhat subverted. I don't think that Losethos should be the standard by which we should judge the merit of hellbanning. Yes, seeing his posts plain would probably be irritating (though I have showdead on and I can see them anyway.) No, his being hellbanned still doesn't prove that it does more good than harm, because most hellbanned users are not necessarily like him.
  - intended 13y ago
    From slashdot to resdit to forums to hacker news, one thing is clear. Forum health is not about free speech. And the people who are most upset are this are those who genuinely believe in free speech. I did too. It's only after seeing many forums devolve that its clear to me and many other mods, admins, writers and foru users that forum operation, forum discussion health and real world free speech do not overlap perfectly.
    - laumars 13y ago
      As a moderator on a popular forum I entirely agree. Free speech is great so long as it doesn't descend into anarchy. And when that happens, you're effectively in a situation where nobody really gets chance to say anything because the forum is flooded with hate. So it sometimes takes a little weed killing to allow comments to fully blossom. We should also bare in mind that there's a difference between hateful comments and trolling - which are only posted to offend, and unpopular or incorrect statements. Sometimes unpopular comments will lead to heated discussions; it's a pity when that happens, but that's sometimes unavoidable because humans are often passionate beings. But generally such comments shouldn't be down-voted (instead the helpful, insightful or correct arguments should be up-voted). The only comments that should be down-voted are the hateful and trolling remarks. And when it becomes clear that such remarks are inducing anarchy, then it's clear that stricter moderation is required to restore the balance so that everyone else doesn't have their freedom of speech removed due to the lack of an open discussion on the forum.

clobber 13y ago

As someone who is posting from a recently hellbanned account, I can say you easily know you're hellbanned when the site becomes unbearably slow (by design as that's what hellbanning also does) and in the case of losethos, he just made a new account: SparrowOS. Why not just "hide" those posts but still let people reply to them if showdead is on? It's really cruel in the case of someone like losethos. For the part about "removing people from the conversation" - what about when it's a single post or one that rubs a moderator the wrong way? Or say your comment was made to a friend/partner of a VC and they didn't appreciate the dissent? I've seen some very old accounts hellbanned that racked up thousands of karma and were stilled wiped out from a single post, maybe because they didn't want to toe a particular line. The fact that HN is tied to YC and not independently/transparently run by users means it's open for conflicts of interest and possible "abuse" as it is certainly no democracy - and the rules could never be applied evenly or fairly. Since it's grown into something more from when it started, it should be spun off from YC the same way reddit was made (somewhat) independent of Conde Nast. There is no "beauty" to hellbanning. It's a bad form of censorship and moderation and only leads to resentment. It's worse than downvoting without a reply because you've essentially told someone to "fuck off" when a mod disagreed. I've felt this way about hellbanning way before I was hellbanned.

nkurz 13y ago

> Hellbanning is not about security; it is about removing > people from the conversation. For that it works wonderfully > (though I would argue that it is actually too hard to > become hellbanned). How do you feel about the banned person who responded to you below? He appears to be banned because in an addendum to single post he stated his sincere opinion that Groupon was a pump-and-dump scheme and implied that Andrew Mason was a psychopath. Is this cause for banning or not? I can see the argument either way, but the arbitrariness of the decision does make my uncomfortable. https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=clobber https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=clobber clobber 8 hours ago | link | parent [dead] As someone who is posting from a recently hellbanned account, I can say you easily know you're hellbanned when the site becomes unbearably slow (by design as that's what hellbanning also does) and in the case of losethos, he just made a new account: SparrowOS. Why not just "hide" those posts but still let people reply to them if showdead is on? It's really cruel in the case of someone like losethos. For the part about "removing people from the conversation" - what about when it's a single post or one that rubs a moderator the wrong way? Or say your comment was made to a friend/partner of a VC and they didn't appreciate the dissent? I've seen some very old accounts hellbanned that racked up thousands of karma and were stilled wiped out from a single post, maybe because they didn't want to toe a particular line. The fact that HN is tied to YC and not independently/transparently run by users means it's open for conflicts of interest and possible "abuse" as it is certainly no democracy - and the rules could never be applied evenly or fairly. Since it's grown into something more from when it started, it should be spun off from YC the same way reddit was made (somewhat) independent of Conde Nast. There is no "beauty" to hellbanning. It's a bad form of censorship and moderation and only leads to resentment. It's worse than downvoting without a reply because you've essentially told someone to "fuck off" when a mod disagreed. I've felt this way about hellbanning way before I was hellbanned.

jlgreco 13y ago
I think that he should consider: "If you realize that you have been hellbanned, come back with a new account and clean up your act... then great!" Insulting your downvoters and calling people psychopaths is toxic. He would be wise to refrain from doing so in the future if he wants to continue contributing here. Also, as far as I know most (all?) hellbannings are triggered by downvoting, not mods. It certainly seems likely that in his case it was triggered by downvotes.