4 ms·

The whole point of shadow-banning is tricking the banned user into thinking he doesn't need to make a new account. Yes, sometimes groveling in front of the abu

The whole point of shadow-banning is tricking the banned user into thinking he doesn't need to make a new account. Yes, sometimes groveling in front of the abuser will get you a pass ("but just this once"). No, not all those abused will do it. I can't decide if a scenario where people are banned by accident is better or worse than one with evil moderators abusing their powers.

namenotrequired 13y ago
I can't decide if a scenario where people are banned by accident is better or worse than one with evil moderators abusing their powers. Would it be correct to paraphrase this as "Perhaps I'd rather be the victim of evil abuse than of a human error"? I'm simply wondering if I'm misinterpreting this or if it's a difference in values.
- TheLoneWolfling 13y ago
  I took it as "I'm not sure which alternative is worse: incompetence or malice" Of course it's not my comment, so take this with a grain of salt.
  - stefantalpalaru 13y ago
    Your interpretation is correct.
dang 13y ago
Oh, good grief. "Grovelling in front of the abuser?" I've been doing this job since October 2012 and I can't remember a single case where we refused a polite request, or even most rude ones. I'm pretty sure it's not we who are committing the abuses here. One of the secondary reasons why I asked PG to out me is that it's super frustrating not to be able to defend the site and the team when people make sinister and unfair insinuations. I'll probably get it out of my system in a few days, but hoo boy has that been frustrating.
- hueving 13y ago
  >Oh, good grief. "Grovelling in front of the abuser?" I've been doing this job since October 2012 and I can't remember a single case where we refused a polite request, or even most rude ones. Groveling is the perception that some of the people (including me) have when deciding what to do when they get shadow-banned. So I just end up dropping the old account and any reputation it may have gained over its lifetime to start over. I understand that it's dramatic, but from the outside it feels like a process of begging for forgiveness for committing some infraction you don't even understand. To rub salt in the wound, we aren't even given the dignity of knowing when we have uttered words that violate the secret book of acceptable comments. We just have to infer after a sudden decline in comment engagement that we have been shadow-banned. This is infuriating to say the least. For a site to have a sanctioned method of giving regular users a permanent punishment which causes them to pour effort into providing comments that land muted is repulsive to me. I apologize for ranting, but I have yet to see a strong logically sound defense of this practice. It's one of the worst 'fuck-you' features I've seen a site implement towards its users that make critical comments. Critical discourse is what makes this site great! Unaccountable shadow-bans chill critical discourse regardless of their intent. I beg you to reconsider the practice in its current form. As I mentioned elsewhere, someone intentionally trolling will verify that they aren't shadow-banned anyway. The people shadow-banning hurts the worst are the ones who don't expect to be shadow-banned (i.e. genuine commenters).
  - dang 13y ago
    Okay, I hear you and appreciate that you put some real feeling into what you wrote there. That's genuinely helpful—more than you might think—and quite rare. If it's true that what people really need is feedback about what they're doing that's inappropriate for HN, and if we'd only give it to them then they would respond by adjusting their behavior, then I have to agree with you: we should find a way to give that feedback. It would be a clear path to improving the site and correcting some of its dysfunction. I'm not sure that it is true, but I hope it is and am willing to test the idea. But we'd need a way to do it that would scale.
    - 13y ago
DanBC 13y ago
Accidental bans are easy to overturn with a short email. Politeness can't hurt. Politeness is not "grovelling"; politeness is the lubrication that makes dealing with day to day life easier.
- hueving 13y ago
  >Politeness is not "grovelling" I don't think he's referring to the tone of the email. The process of even having to ask for your account back is "grovelling".

namenotrequired 13y ago

I can't decide if a scenario where people are banned by accident is better or worse than one with evil moderators abusing their powers. Would it be correct to paraphrase this as "Perhaps I'd rather be the victim of evil abuse than of a human error"? I'm simply wondering if I'm misinterpreting this or if it's a difference in values.

TheLoneWolfling 13y ago
I took it as "I'm not sure which alternative is worse: incompetence or malice" Of course it's not my comment, so take this with a grain of salt.
- stefantalpalaru 13y ago
  Your interpretation is correct.

dang 13y ago

Oh, good grief. "Grovelling in front of the abuser?" I've been doing this job since October 2012 and I can't remember a single case where we refused a polite request, or even most rude ones. I'm pretty sure it's not we who are committing the abuses here. One of the secondary reasons why I asked PG to out me is that it's super frustrating not to be able to defend the site and the team when people make sinister and unfair insinuations. I'll probably get it out of my system in a few days, but hoo boy has that been frustrating.

hueving 13y ago
>Oh, good grief. "Grovelling in front of the abuser?" I've been doing this job since October 2012 and I can't remember a single case where we refused a polite request, or even most rude ones. Groveling is the perception that some of the people (including me) have when deciding what to do when they get shadow-banned. So I just end up dropping the old account and any reputation it may have gained over its lifetime to start over. I understand that it's dramatic, but from the outside it feels like a process of begging for forgiveness for committing some infraction you don't even understand. To rub salt in the wound, we aren't even given the dignity of knowing when we have uttered words that violate the secret book of acceptable comments. We just have to infer after a sudden decline in comment engagement that we have been shadow-banned. This is infuriating to say the least. For a site to have a sanctioned method of giving regular users a permanent punishment which causes them to pour effort into providing comments that land muted is repulsive to me. I apologize for ranting, but I have yet to see a strong logically sound defense of this practice. It's one of the worst 'fuck-you' features I've seen a site implement towards its users that make critical comments. Critical discourse is what makes this site great! Unaccountable shadow-bans chill critical discourse regardless of their intent. I beg you to reconsider the practice in its current form. As I mentioned elsewhere, someone intentionally trolling will verify that they aren't shadow-banned anyway. The people shadow-banning hurts the worst are the ones who don't expect to be shadow-banned (i.e. genuine commenters).
- dang 13y ago
  Okay, I hear you and appreciate that you put some real feeling into what you wrote there. That's genuinely helpful—more than you might think—and quite rare. If it's true that what people really need is feedback about what they're doing that's inappropriate for HN, and if we'd only give it to them then they would respond by adjusting their behavior, then I have to agree with you: we should find a way to give that feedback. It would be a clear path to improving the site and correcting some of its dysfunction. I'm not sure that it is true, but I hope it is and am willing to test the idea. But we'd need a way to do it that would scale.
  - 13y ago

DanBC 13y ago

Accidental bans are easy to overturn with a short email. Politeness can't hurt. Politeness is not "grovelling"; politeness is the lubrication that makes dealing with day to day life easier.

hueving 13y ago
>Politeness is not "grovelling" I don't think he's referring to the tone of the email. The process of even having to ask for your account back is "grovelling".