[hank777]

Indeed. I commented on something and only discovered accidentally that my comment could only be seen be me, which is a horrible way for things to work. Your comment is hidden and you have no idea. I emailed the contact email (cant remember the address) and never got an answer. It really made me never want to comment again and seemed totally capricious.

[rbanffy]

I think the "personal hell" is a feature rather than a bug. Very, very nasty to be inside it, but very effective as punishment.

[hga]

You're correct ... but only if it's absolutely fair ... to the point that if I were PG, I'd require a human being's double check before dropping the hammer (ADDED: at least, if the account has been open for very long).

To echo hank777, the very fact that HN has this well known silent technique of "hellbanning" (new term to me) is going to drastically change my posture towards contributing.

(Just how, I can't say yet (too early in the morning), but it will be significant. I know from my behavior in other forums after I learned that they do this (e.g. GrokLaw) that I won't be making many more contributions, for this drastically changes the risk/reward ratio.)