[smt88]

Shadowbanning has two obvious benefits for the site:

1) Increases the time it takes trolls to realize they need to create a new account.

2) Pacifies angry, malicious users who might escalate their bad behavior when instantly banned.

I haven't seen HN use shadowbanning to censor anyone. The people who are shadowbanned all seem to post unhinged, profane, off-topic, content-free rants.

Personally, I think it makes the community better. If you find it slimy and cowardly, perhaps you should vote with your feet and visit other communities instead. There are millions of other message boards.

[dennis_jeeves1]

>I haven't seen HN use shadowbanning to censor anyone.

I have been. ( I would be surprised if you did see this message). Profile of the banned account is https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dennis_jeeves

[Fatnino]

This one showed up

[dennis_jeeves1]

Thanks Fatnino for confirming it showed up.

While I appreciate the complexity, effort and pains of what Dang and PG are doing there is some evidence that they are sensitive souls, and cannot stand even polite personal criticism. I cannot be sure of this however.

[smt88]

I've personally criticized dang and he has responded without banning me. PG is an arrogant clown, and I've criticized him many times without incident. He seems to have nothing to do with this site anymore.

I looked at your comment history, and my guess is that you were banned for certain rants and health conspiracies, like this one:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28100359

[dennis_jeeves1]

If you are indeed correct, surely they think that the average HN user is an idiot that needs to shielded from my 'stupid' post. Either that or I'm adding too much noise to the discussion in which case I suspect that technically it may be challenge to add a feature where an individual reader can have the ability to "mute" comments from people that he/she does not wish to see, but others may continue seeing it.

[smt88]

I don't think you got banned for writing stupid posts. It's that they hinted at easily-disproven conspiracy theories, which (as you mentioned) is noisy. But on top of that, your tone was often curt, condescending, and not particularly curious, which I'm sure made other users hostile to you and inclined to flag your posts.

[mah4k4l]

> I haven't seen HN use shadowbanning to censor anyone.

Maybe it was the ones you didn't see? Bacause they were shadowbanned?

My post was about ethics, trying to be formal and simple about the question what is it to do the right thing. Basically it was about this: sometimes good is right, sometimes evil is right, so good can be wrong and evil can be right, and we have four things of which the main question is the question of right and wrong.

I wouldn't consider myself to be a "toxic personality" but being ghostbanned did piss me off a little. More than pacify me. I am pointing out a real ethical issue, not "escalating my bad behavior" by posting this comment is how I see it.

[Edit:]I love HN, it's one of the best sites I know. I'm just pointing out an aspect of it that I don't like. I might use different language now that I'm not as pissed anymore, but I would post it.

[true_religion]

Shadow banned people on HN just have their comments automatically killed. If you have showdead on, you still see their comments.

[mah4k4l]

Thanks for the advice; just put mine on. The world of the dead fascinates me.

[tmaly]

I like dead posts. Always interesting to see what offends people.

[tunap]

I did not know this option exists. Thanks. Maybe.

[smt88]

> I wouldn't consider myself to be a "toxic personality" but being ghostbanned did piss me off a little.

Being pissed off is a very reasonable emotion to being shadowbanned.

I'm sure you don't consider yourself toxic, but it's possible you were posting things that trolls or shills often post, and that resulted in you getting banned.

For example, there may be people astroturfing anti-vaccine misinformation on this site. Given public opinion polls and the revelations about all the money that goes into that movement, it's likely most anti-vaccine activism on the internet is made up of bots and paid astroturfers.

But if you're someone who genuinely believes the conspiracy theories, a site may end up banning you because you're indistinguishable from people are not sincere and not acting in good faith.

Any filter is going to have false positives, but that doesn't mean we should throw out the filter.

[Mandatum]

I have been.

[smt88]

Can you link to examples of your comments that got your shadowbanned for censorship?