

Ask HN: Suddenly I can't comment on threads - Nick_C

Sometime in the last couple of days, I lost the ability to comment.<p>My account is about 9 months old, avg karma about 1.5 which means that 2 out of 3 voters value my contributions enough to give an up-tick.<p>I'm not quick enough (timezone issues) to add new content successfully, so most of my contributions have been from comments.  I've tried, but invariably my posts disappear off the front page long before the USA wakes up.<p>I would hate for HN to become a read-only site for me as I feel I make a genuine contribution.<p>[Presumably I won't be able to comment in this post, hence all the info.]
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JoachimSchipper
This may be a bug, but:

\- no one can comment on any article or comment that's [dead]

\- the 'reply' button disappears for a while on deep, fast-moving threads (to
slow down flamewars; you can still reply if you click 'link' first)

\- you're not banned, or I wouldn't be talking to you.

Can you verify that neither the first nor the second applies to you? That is,
can you reply to this comment? (If not, feel free to e-mail me and I'll amend
this comment saying so.)

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JoachimSchipper
(Nick_C mailed me that he could not reply to this comment.)

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sorbus
On a similar note, I haven't been able to flag comments/articles for a while.
It seems that HN occasionally removes privileges when it thinks that they're
being abused, though I have no clue what condition caused it to stop you from
commenting while still allowing you to submit articles - nothing like the
typical hellban.

Also, an average karma of 1.5 means that you get an average of half an upvote
per comment, not that 2 out of 3 voters upmod it.

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JoachimSchipper
The karma needed to flag/downvote goes up as karma becomes easier to get (HN's
growing number of users means a growing number of upvotes). The minimum karma
most likely just passed your current karma - you'll get the ability to flag
back as soon as you get a few more upvotes.

(This doesn't necessarily make sense, but it probably _is_ what happened.)

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sorbus
Ah, of course - hadn't even thought of that. I'm still able to downvote
comments, though, so that suggests that the karma thresholds for downvoting
and flagging are different, with the karma required for flagging above 1700.

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tnorthcutt
_Unrelated sidebar question_

"avg karma about 1.5 which means that 2 out of 3 voters value my contributions
enough to give an up-tick."

Does this calculation not make sense to other people? I don't understand how
the OP arrived at this conclusion.

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ohashi
I questioned my math skills for a minute, but I cannot figure it out either.

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salman89
Can an editor or someone with more knowledge on how the site works comment
here? It seems unreasonable for users to end up without the ability to
post/comment (as long as they are not spammers or repeatedly posting extremely
low content). I myself am I very new user to the site, and something like this
would definitely turn me off. What is the criteria anyways?

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abbasmehdi
It's most likely a bug somewhere. People who run this forum wouldn't just shut
people out.

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Nick_C
I'm the OP. All fixed, I can reply now.

Re: the maths on avg karma, I was trying to remove the automatic +1 vote that
I get for making a comment from the avg, so somehow came up with 2 out of 3
instead of 1 out of 2. I must admit I didn't put too much thought into it.

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JoeCortopassi
Don't think HN does this, but I found this interesting considering your
circumstances: [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/06/suspension-ban-
or-h...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/06/suspension-ban-or-
hellban.html)

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sorbus
HN does hellban users; if you browse with showdead on, you'll see lots of dead
comments from users who are hellbanned.

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Serene
I can comment on your post with avg=1.29 Some threads could be killed by the
editors, disallowing any more comments to that threads

