Press F5 on HN for 3 seconds to get IP banned.

[xdrthgcv]

[czbond]

I'm betting this is a joke - as 'xdrthgcv' user account was created 8 minutes before this post.

Also, it makes no sense. The F5 key doesn't initiate remote functions - unless HN is coded to, which doesn't seem logical.

[guptaneil → czbond]

To be fair, the created 8 minute ago makes sense if his account was banned.

[xauronx → guptaneil]

It bans your IP, not your account.

[unimpressive → czbond]

F5 is refresh. If you make too many HTTP requests HN bans your IP for aggressive web crawling. (As I understand it.)

As for 3 seconds being enough, shrug. Not something I feel like testing.

[caw → unimpressive]

There's an un-ban page somewhere around here. PG posted it because he figured out that the problem exists.

[xSwag → caw]

Yup. http://news.ycombinator.com/unban?ip=ipaddress

[unimpressive → xSwag]

Keep in mind, this will only work once.

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4761102

[xauronx → unimpressive]

Ah, well, that explains why the unban isn't working. Didn't know it was one time only.

[czbond → unimpressive]

Fair - good catch. It was early and I missed the refresh.

[_p62c]

This is a slightly paradoxical problem, I have a static IP, the only way to validate this is for me to get this account banned too.