
Some people are abusing "show dead" on HN - SeanDav
As we know HN uses hell banning to deal with trolls.<p>As we also know, people are not perfect, both moderators and the general public, so for that reason sometimes people get hell banned that probably don't deserve it. Sometimes for a single bad post, sometimes for a post that isn't that bad but for some reason rubs a moderator the wrong way. Mostly however people that are hell banned, deserve it.<p>For various reasons (mostly related to the above) I like to have my "show dead" setting on so I can see dead posts. Now some people know they are hell banned but keep on posting as normal, probably because they know that quite a few people, like myself, will see their posts, but also because they are trying to prove a point. No problem here so far.<p>There are a very few idiots however who know that they are hell banned but post just to annoy people that have "show dead" on. They post huge walls of completely OT, and sometimes utter nonsense, text that take up a whole page and they do it often. I won't name names and give them any recognition but perhaps the time has come to implement total bans so that these trolls cannot post at all or limit post lengths for people with only 1 karma or negative karma.<p>I never cease to be amazed out how some people will go out of their way to be annoying and disruptive, fortunately they are a very small minority.
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ekpyrotic
I think we need to err on the side of caution here.

In particular, we need to carefully distinguish between (1) those users who
post maliciously/troll, and (2) those users who suffer from mental illnesses.

I don't know which user(s) you have in mind, but there's a well-known, regular
HN poster who posts on a 'dead' account---or accounts---and suffers from
severe schizophrenia.

When I see his posts, I---as a member of the community---feel quite guilty. He
has been ostrasized through no obvious fault of his own. In fact, I use 'show
dead' in order to assuage that guilt. Although his posts don't add to the
discussion, they are, at the very most, an inconvenience.

I worry about the psychological toll that permanent bans could have on such
people. With the recent suicides of both Jacintha Saldanha and Aaron Swartz, I
think caution is advisable.

We often underestimate the effects of our actions.

~~~
kunai
Losethos, I believe. His accomplishments are greatly regarded in the
community.

His comments, not so much. It makes me sad when people with such talent are
hindered through an illness they didn't deserve to get. He has an extremely
bad reputation in the community from people too immature to understand
schizophrenia or mental illness.

That said, the "show-dead" option is there for a reason. Posts that do not add
to the discussion will get downvoted whether the commenter is schizophrenic or
not.

I do think that sometimes HN goes a bit over the top in some aspects of
authoritarianism, but for the most part, HN is pretty fair and square.

~~~
pygy_
Now SparrowOS.

Some of his comments are actually pertinent. Notably regarding OS design.

~~~
kunai
Certainly. Just by looking at his website you wouldn't even tell that he had a
mental illness.

------
freework
Rename "hellban" to "probation". When on probation, your posts get hidden. If
three of your posts get upvoted while on probation, you are restored to normal
status. If three of your posts get downvoted while on probation, you get
banned permanently. Those who have "show dead" are like the Hacker News PO
squad.

~~~
bencoder
I agree. I see thoughtful posts from hellbanned users and wish there was a way
to help them restore full posting status.

When looking through their post history, it looks like one post that the
community didn't like was enough to get them hellbanned and there's no
recourse once it happens.

~~~
DanBC
Hellbanned users can create a new account.

Sometimes hellbanned users can write a _short_ email to PG, with a link to the
post the triggered the hell ban, and ask for an unban. (If it appears to be a
mistaken ban.)

~~~
Tyr42
But only if they are aware of it. That's kinda the point here. It's not a
regular ban, so you don't know.

~~~
DanBC
That's why it's important to have contact details in your profile.

People who see someone who has been unfairly hellbanned send email to let them
know.

------
mikeash
Let me get this straight. HN has a mechanism to deal with abusive users. You
deliberately disabled that mechanism so that you see posts from abusive users.
And now you're complaining that you see posts from abusive users?

~~~
SeanDav
I was wondering if/when someone was going to make a post like yours....I
believe you missed the point entirely - HN does not always get it right and on
many occasions hell banned people still make posts worth reading.

There are reasons why HN allows the "show dead" ability and probably none of
those reasons have to do with people trying to punish themselves by seeing
"abusive users'" posts.

~~~
steve8918
I agree with mikeash here. If a hellbanned person still wants to remain part
of the HN community, it's really not that hard to create a new account. Sure,
sometimes they get it wrong, but the vast majority of the case, they get it
right.

That means, that by you turning on dead posts, you are subjecting yourself to
the 80% case where they get it right. If one of them is spamming with huge
blocks of text, etc... well, you signed up for it in the low-probability case
that one of the dead posts actually contained valuable information.

Keep it simple. Don't start adding multiple layers of hellbanning protection
just to fix a low-probability edge case.

------
CJefferson
Perhaps a simple solution would be to allow down-voting on dead posts (I only
seem to be able to upvote?) This would allow such users to continue losing
Karma, and give a way of distinguishing users who gain karma and should lose
their hellban, and those who need permanent banning?

~~~
noarchy
Do upvotes have an effect on dead posts?

------
JasonFruit
Total banning is unnecessary; there's already a mechanism to avoid seeing
hellbanned users' posts. If people like me and you choose not to use it, that
doesn't worsen the experience for anyone else; besides, I _like_ to see the
Amazon-length screeds now and then. It reminds me to take my meds and go to
bed on time.

~~~
jtheory
Agreed, and also: total banning is on balance _less_ effective than
hellbanning, because it's obvious to a troll when they've been banned... and
they immediately get a new username to start afresh (via a new IP if needed --
you don't have to be highly technical to know restarting your DSL router will
often let you back into sites that banned your IP...).

The whole point of hellbanning is that it's not immediately obvious to trolls
that they have been banned at all; so they keep on trolling (in the hellbanned
account) without troubling other readers.

Obviously some trolls are clever enough to grok hellbanning, but it still
weeds out quite a few. Total banning is simply whack-a-mole.

------
binarymax
Ironically, SparrowOS makes a good point about Don Quixote here...although in
his usual cryptic religious incantations.

~~~
mambodog
I see losethos has made a new account...

~~~
pygy_
He renamed his OS, and his account, accordingly.

    
    
        ---- For those without showdead: ----	

_SparrowOS 2 hours ago | link
[dead]<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5086744>

Irony.

God says... C:\Text\QUIX.TXT

ced into execution.

Andres went off rather down in the mouth, swearing he would go to look for the
valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha and tell him exactly what had happened, and
that all would have to be repaid him sevenfold; but for all that, he went off
weeping, while his master stood laughing.

Thus did the valiant Don Quixote right that wrong, and, thoroughly satisfied
with what had taken place, as he considered he had made a very happy and noble
beginning with his knighthood, he took the road_

------
Kiro
If you're referring to SparrowOS/losethos I hope you know who it is and why he
posts like that. He should definitely not be banned.

~~~
jtheory
I think hellbanning is a useful solution for his posts; for now he is not
posting content that adds to the discussions, but he is compelled to post what
he does, so it's fine with me for him to post as hellbanned -- enough people
keep showdead on that it will be noticed if one day he manages to surface
enough that his posts would be positive additions to the conversation again...
and his account can be restored to normal status.

Agreed there's no good reason to try to block him from the site.

------
jrkelly
I can show what it takes to be "hellbanned" so you can decide if you might
miss out on good posts by turning off show dead.

I created an account for work to post open jobs on monthly "Who's Hiring"
post. I literally made 2 comments that weren't job posts (I'm assuming job
posts don't get you banned) - so those must be the ones that got me banned?

you can see them here, halfway down:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ginkgoo>

I'm pretty sure there were 3 or 4 months of job postings that were hell banned
before I figured it out. Moderating sites is hard (I've been there), but this
is a bit extreme IMO.

~~~
allenbrunson
I'd say it is a lot more likely that your account got "banned" because you
posted the exact same thing several times. HN has a dupe checker. If you post
the exact same message twice, it assumes you screwed up, and kills the second
one.

This is something that really bugs me about these meta threads. People
attribute really heinous motives to the maintainers around here without
knowing all the facts.

------
antithesis
Another idea: people who are _really_ annoying get double-hellbanned, and
there's a checkbox that says "show very dead"!

------
taproot
Sounds like a UI issue more than anything else. Auto hide most of the text in
long wall of text posts with a "view more..." link which expands the post to
view all of the text.

This could be implemented with very little javascript or using a separate page
load for large comment threads (similar to how reddit does it)

------
joering2
Its ironic that HN is a discussion forum, but plenty of websites are banned by
default:

From: Audrey To: Joe Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2012 5:56 PM Subject: Re:
dead account

Hi Joe,

That post was killed because it came from prisonplanet.com, which has been the
source of too many inappropriate or off-topic stories in the past.

Cheers,

Audrey

2012/12/27 Joe

my article was killed. why? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4974986>

~~~
duskwuff
Given what I know of the site, it's absolutely appropriate for it to be
autokilled. (It's a pretty well-known right-wing conspiracy-theory site.) If
the subject of the article is significant, there will be better articles about
it on other sites which you can submit instead.

~~~
jrogers65
This is essentially an argumentum ad hominem. It is an irrational position to
take. Arguments should be judged on their merits, not who's mouth they came
from. I'm quite disappointed to learn that HN is censored in this way. I had
no idea.

Does anyone know of less draconian social news sites which still try to
maintain a high quality discussion?

~~~
noarchy
I don't have an answer to your question. A subreddit with quality moderation
could be an answer, but the readership is probably going to be much lower, to
the point that it isn't useful.

I am probably more turned off by anything coming from Techcrunch, for intance,
than anything related to Alex Jones (for whom I have my own reservations, to
say the least). But I tolerate it. Anything that I find to be truly
inappropriate, I flag.

------
powertower
> sometimes people get hell banned that probably don't deserve it.

Speaking about that...

There are also accounts that have their comments show up just fine, but all
their submits get "hell banned"... That is, you think your submit is shown on
the new page, but it's really "[dead]" and you can't see that unless you have
"show dead" turned on.

If you have "show dead" on in your account, see my submits history for an
example of this - <http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=powertower>

Right after I submitted an article that criticized Apple stock, all new ones
became dead.

Would love to know why 1) my account is like that and 2) what happens when I
upvote someone elses submit (if my upvote hurts them, or even counts).

~~~
tokenadult
_There are also accounts that have their comments show up just fine, but all
their submits get "hell banned"... That is, you think your submit is shown on
the new page, but it's really "[dead]" and you can't see that unless you have
"show dead" turned on._

Are you sure that that kind of autokilling is by user, rather than by site
submitted? There are quite a few story source sites that are autokilled on
submission because experience has shown that those sites consistently produce
blogspam, political rants, or other kinds of stories that violate the Hacker
News guidelines. It may be that some users have preferences in what they
submit that happen to coincide with sites that are on the Hacker News
autokill-on-submission list. Or it may be, as you surmise, that some users
have a partial hellban that allows them to comment but not to submit new
stories. You asked us to look at your own submissions list

<http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=powertower>

for an example, and it may be that your submission history was evaluated
(algorithmically?) as a submission history that makes it more likely than not
that any of your newer submissions would be off-topic or otherwise contrary to
the HN guidelines. Over the years, I've observed some users become very astute
at submitting that which is well liked here, and they don't have any problems
making new submissions.

I'm glad I saw your comment, as this is an interesting meta-question. AFTER
EDIT: It occurs to me, while we are in a thread engaged in meta-discussion of
HN moderation, that I would like to know why one of the recent submissions I
made

<http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=tokenadult>

is dead. If I remember correctly, the link was live as I submitted it (in
other words, it wasn't autokilled), and yet a while later I looked for it, and
saw that it was dead (as I too have showdead turned on in my user settings).
I'm not sure why that happened. The last time I had a submission, from a
source that I was sure was an acceptable source for HN, autokilled, I asked pg
about it by email, and his response was that a text string in the URL tripped
a spam detection algorithm. That submission was restored to life, but by then
the submission had sunk out of view on the new page, so there was never any
discussion of that submission here.

~~~
brudgers
Your dead submission certainly isn't very good on its face. I might flag it if
I saw it. And I have no difficulty believing that some people would always
flag it.

However, the answers are certainly worthy of consideration.

<http://edge.org/responses/q2013>

------
drivebyacct2
Can you be less vague? If you're talking about SparrowOS/losethos, then you
ought to try to learn about who that person is. Otherwise, I have showdead and
I've seen ONE or maybe two troll posts every few weeks from people who are
hellbanned and most of the time it's what I would lovingly call a reddit-
style-comment rather than an outright troll.

