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That's all well and good, but let's take a look at what the trigger was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5615120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=561512

by eksith 13y ago

That's all well and good, but let's take a look at what the trigger was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5615120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5615120 . If you ran a community -- and realistically there's nothing stopping you from doing so -- would you tolerate that kind of nonsense? I know I wouldn't want to hang around there if you did. You're right (to continue going slightly meta), it's a policy of elitism, but in the same vein as Wikipedia. They too are still around as a result. Side note: Quality is quantifiable to a degree and is by no means a fictional notion.

Helianthus 13y ago
If the mountains of downvotes don't do the trick you can ban accounts directly. Hellbanning is cowardly and ineffective. This isn't Wikipedia, it's a discussion forum--and the discussion pages on Wikipedia are moderated fairly and openly. I didn't mean that quality as a whole was fictional, I meant that the notion of quality this policy is attempting to enact was fictional/unattainable. Flame wars still happen. People still complain about the nastiness of HN comments. It's a discussion forum: angry conversation is what it's for. Hellbanning does absolutely nothing to improve 'quality of discourse,' it just makes this place nastier.
- Intermernet 13y ago
  Discussion forums are for discussion. Angry conversation is an emergent property of some discussions, on the net or off, but not the sole response to anything you may disagree with. My own opinion on hell-banning or any other forms of account "punishment" is that it is, as you say, cowardly and ineffective, as long as the user has no idea that it has occurred. Either inform the user, or completely ban the account. Otherwise you're leaving people screaming into the wind when you could just tell them no-one is listening.
  - kristiandupont 13y ago
    The whole point is that it's not about punishment, it's about preserving the tone. Telling somebody "you've been banned" will make them upset. Some people get severely offended and they want to fight. So they go and create new accounts and start over, or they seek revenge in other ways. It can be very time consuming to deal with. Granted, this will still happen because some people will realize that they've been hellbanned, but the ones that simply get the impression that people aren't responding to their trolling will get bored with it and go away. Which is a win.

by eksith 13y ago

Helianthus 13y ago

If the mountains of downvotes don't do the trick you can ban accounts directly. Hellbanning is cowardly and ineffective. This isn't Wikipedia, it's a discussion forum--and the discussion pages on Wikipedia are moderated fairly and openly. I didn't mean that quality as a whole was fictional, I meant that the notion of quality this policy is attempting to enact was fictional/unattainable. Flame wars still happen. People still complain about the nastiness of HN comments. It's a discussion forum: angry conversation is what it's for. Hellbanning does absolutely nothing to improve 'quality of discourse,' it just makes this place nastier.

Intermernet 13y ago
Discussion forums are for discussion. Angry conversation is an emergent property of some discussions, on the net or off, but not the sole response to anything you may disagree with. My own opinion on hell-banning or any other forms of account "punishment" is that it is, as you say, cowardly and ineffective, as long as the user has no idea that it has occurred. Either inform the user, or completely ban the account. Otherwise you're leaving people screaming into the wind when you could just tell them no-one is listening.
- kristiandupont 13y ago
  The whole point is that it's not about punishment, it's about preserving the tone. Telling somebody "you've been banned" will make them upset. Some people get severely offended and they want to fight. So they go and create new accounts and start over, or they seek revenge in other ways. It can be very time consuming to deal with. Granted, this will still happen because some people will realize that they've been hellbanned, but the ones that simply get the impression that people aren't responding to their trolling will get bored with it and go away. Which is a win.