
How I was unbanned from Hacker News - bdehaaff
http://blog.aha.io/index.php/how-i-was-unbanned-from-hacker-news/
======
was_hellbanned
Hell-banning for anything other than blatant spam or hate speech is
reprehensible.

Imagine participating in a community, enjoying your interactions with some
bright people, contributing knowledge when you can, when suddenly you find
that you've become invisible. After some period of time wondering, you
eventually find out that you _are_ invisible.

It's a horrible thing to do to someone. I like many of the HN commenters, and
I often learn something from reading what they've written, but I have nothing
but disdain for the site itself, its mods, and its creator. They all
contribute to doing this to people, though they'll brush it off as necessary
automation, necessary for quality control, or some other sociopathic nonsense.

~~~
smartwater
If it wasn't for the quality control, I wouldn't be here.

I wish HN would be more strict, it would drive the quality up even further. I
want users to think long and hard about what they are writing and submitting.

HN is a right, not a privilege.

The internet is littered with poorly maintained communities, but HN isn't one
of them, by design. If you don't get why these rules exist and you can't
understand their purpose, you shouldn't be here.

~~~
grey-area
_If it wasn 't for the quality control, I wouldn't be here...The internet is
littered with poorly maintained communities, but HN isn't one of them, by
design._

Quality control and ruthless modding are certainly required - Kuro5hin is a
great example of such a community which turned quickly into a hellhole when
spammers and insincere trolls took over.

However I've seen plenty of hellbanned people on HN who had a completely
innocuous comment history - no insults or bad behaviour - just one day their
comments started being hidden. Such an extreme punishment should be reserved
for spammers and people who use gross insults in arguments IMO, not imposed
automatically as it appears to be.

There are many other more effective ways to police a community, including just
commenting when you think something is out of line, which I think serve HN
better and are also part of its quality control.

[EDIT there are even some hellbanned people in this discussion]

~~~
dhughes
Do the reverse, switch HN to invite only.

~~~
ancarda
Given the number of HN users, that may work now but invite-only communities
really only reenforce a community. It's difficult for outsiders to get in.

One such example is [https://lobste.rs/](https://lobste.rs/) \-- An invite-
only version of HN. It currently suffers from not having enough discourse. One
reason may be the small community size.

~~~
tessierashpool
I think the lack of discourse is considered a feature by the lobste.rs
community, as the easiest way to keep its signal/noise ratio high.

------
ancarda
Always email if you feel you have been banned. A few months ago, I posted
something stupid and was down voted. Almost right afterwards, the site became
extremely slow but was fast when I was logged out. I thought I had been slow
banned. After emailing, I was reassured my account was fine and the slowness
was caused by garbage collection & caching issues.

~~~
lcampbell
On many sites, an unauthenticated user gets content faster since it's much
easier to very aggressively cache unauthenticated content -- since there is
usually no user-specific page customization (e.g., so the entire response can
be easily cached via varnish). Additionally, if the user cannot modify state,
the cache can be made more incoherent without loss (e.g., such that the cache
is only flushed every few minutes; unauthenticated users don't often notice
the stale data).

In some situations under high load, the same response from Varnish (which may
only available to unauthenticated users) may be an order of magnitude faster
than the application server, even if they're co-located on the same physical
machine.

~~~
bdehaaff
Thanks for the additional details on why the slowness might have been
experienced.

------
dxm
And you're continuing to post links to the same domain? Brave sir, very brave.

~~~
Fuzzwah
Since being unbanned this account has submitted items from businessweek,
quora, yahoo and mashable.

~~~
bdehaaff
Thanks for pointing that out. I am working for better balance now that I
understand the guideline.

------
squeakynick
For appropriate reasons, I know the 'ghost' ban thresholds are secret
(otherwise it would be incredibly easy for script kiddies to simply game).

However, the hacker in me is almost curious enough to see how far I could
"poke the lion with a stick". If I had more time, creating a few dozen
accounts ... etc

Then I think about how I would engineer such a system and try and keep it as
automated as possible. I'm sure its well written enough to threshold on some
dynamic curve based on incoming traffic.

And, whilst variety is the spice of life and all that, if you are a prolific
(and popular) poster, should people care if you self promote. If each of your
posts is a winner, generates great readership figures and 'likes' and spikes
conversation, why not allow this? So, I'd want to deviate down a score based
on popularity. Then there is frequency of posting, and comment karma ...

At the end of the day whenever there is a threshold, there will be edge cases
where people are the wrong side of judgment line. Banning is a digital thing,
and reputation is analog. I'm glad that hn seems to have a response appeal
system.

~~~
bdehaaff
Yes, very true. But sometimes banning is analog as well. I am just glad that
the problem was admitted/resolved and I am back posting stories and comments.

------
mikestew
I wonder if a more appropriate title wouldn't be "How I Got Banned in the
First Place". How the author got unbanned isn't really as helpful to know as
what he did to get banned to begin with.

~~~
kintamanimatt
It seems a lot of people don't know how to find out whether they're
shadowbanned, or how to get out of the HN purgatory if they are. I can see the
value of this post.

I've tweeted a few people before to let them know of their fate when their
comment history didn't seem worthy of a ban and I think in all cases I've had
to point out that an email needs to be sent to have the ban looked at.

~~~
bdehaaff
You are more kind than most. I think the cruel part is that everything appears
normal - but your are totally invisible. Google analytics was key to seeing an
issue immediately.

~~~
ancarda
ag80: That's one of the motivations behind lobsters. I think if HN were a
little more transparent, it would mitigate the cold feeling of being hell
banned. When I thought I had been shadow banned, it was like being banished
from the internet. It really felt horrible.

Knowing that I'd have gotten a warning/notification means if the site is slow,
I'd brush it off as high latency. Now every time the site is a little slow, I
panic and think I've been slow banned.

~~~
kintamanimatt
You can always just look at your comment history while you're logged out. If
things are missing, you've been shadowbanned.

~~~
ancarda
I just realized I meant to say "slow banned".

------
tomatojuice
Are threshold bans permanent? I had like 1k karma and got banned out of the
blue. Reasons were never given, so I am guessing it is automated.

~~~
bdehaaff
Did you try to email and ask? I bet you would get a response. The email
address is listed in the blog post.

------
exodust
Disappointed. I was expecting drama, controversy, action. Instead it's just a
routine thing and there's no intriguing story of banning. No redemption,
slander, betrayal or revenge. Or anything juicy at all.

------
croisillon
Those highly technical posts give me such a headache at the end of the day.

~~~
mikeg8
This post could help people that may write the highly technical posts and only
submit their own content. If they were to get banned, you'd miss their great
information.

------
ffrryuu
Censorship is all the rage in America.

~~~
bdehaaff
That might be true. But typically no one steps in to correct a wrong so
quickly.

