[pierrec]

OK, I sent the email myself. You don't have to do it. Just once, not 5 times per day. Agree about community awareness, but I think emailing the mods is more effective than responding to one of the 1000 comments this account is making.

[dang]

Thanks for doing that because I had no idea this was happening. I've banned the account now and flagkilled the 30+ comments they posted today.

[em-bee]

you missed one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46998241 ;-P

two actually: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46988519

[dang]

Those were killed. What made you think they weren't?

[em-bee]

i most certainly saw them as neither dead or flagged.

now i see three other comments as alive:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46997839 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46996890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46992786

i know they were flagged and dead before.

i can make a screenshot.

could those comments be reactivated because people vouch for them? or is there some kind of bug?

[dang]

That's right—some users vouched for those 3 after we'd killed them.

That makes sense, because if you look at individual posts in isolation you might think they were unfairly killed. One needs to look at the posting history of the account as a whole to understand what the issue was.

(Btw, thanks for explaining the context in those other threads.)

[dredmorbius]

I've had repeated comment and email exchanges with you over the years over whether or not an explicit "killed" or "dead" indicator on accounts and their posts/comments should exist. I understand the reasons against this, and arguably they'd be more relevant in the case of detected bot accounts (the indicator would be yet more training data, assuming feedback training).

I've also been experimenting with my own indicators for specific accounts based on my own criteria and interactions which I've found useful (applied through my own HN tweaks). E.g., if I see an explicit mod note that an account has been banned, I can mark it as such myself, sparing confusion.

How HN can implement a Voight-Kampff test becomes an increasingly relevant question.... One of several HN needs to consider with increasing urgency.

(Three 'graph pattern ... is again noted...)