[dang]

We nearly always inform people when we ban their accounts: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=....

Lots of software affects both story and comment rankings. "Poison" is a rather tendentious way to describe that. HN's goal is high quality in all things, to the extent it's possible. That doesn't just happen by default; systems are necessary, and it gets harder as numbers grow.

[001sky]

"Poison" is a rather tendentious way to describe that

NB...The words in my signature didn't come from a random sampling of the dictionary...they were from a screen grab of HN moderation tools...

On the topic of changing subjects, no not really.

Those words are outrageously inflamatory.

[dang]

Nobody found them inflammatory when they sat in the public HN source code for years, but once they appeared in an accidental screenshot, they became outrageous!

We're happy to answer good-faith questions about HN moderation, but this seems like trying to stir up drama.

[001sky]

The verbiage of 'poisoning the well' is a well understood figure of speech.