> There are lots of other moderation features -- e.g. shadow bans and automatic vote penalties -- that are completely opaque but turn HN into a strong echo chamber.
Every time I click "vouch" I wonder if a counter is being incremented on my account, or if a record of things I've vouched is being kept for moderator perusal. A chilling effect which certainly exists outside of HN, of course.
>Every time I click "vouch" I wonder if a counter is being incremented on my account, or if a record of things I've vouched is being kept for moderator perusal.
There is. I've lost vouching privileges after the mods disagreed with my decisions. They don't tell you, either, you'll just notice one day that it no longer seems to work.
Every time I click "vouch" I wonder if a counter is being incremented on my account, or if a record of things I've vouched is being kept for moderator perusal. A chilling effect which certainly exists outside of HN, of course.