[michaelochurch]

This post will be downvoted to hell, but I have been wanting to say this for a while and can't find a way to contact you.

Actually, it's at +9 [ETA: changed during writing of reply] right now. [+12 as of 11.56 PST]

The reason my posts tend to end up at the bottom is not (in general) downvoting or low karma scores. Of course, I've had some posts get downvoted, and a smaller number that deserved it. (Who hasn't?)

The ranking system was revamped around summer 2013 to include personal penalties that seem to have hit a large number of the top-100 posters (including respected ones, and less controversial ones than me). It's called "rankban". I also experience "slowban", which is 20x worse latency when logged in than in incognito mode.

Rankban is supposed to make us go away, I presume, but it actually had the opposite effect on me. I post more on HN post-rankban. It suggests that my anti-VCistan writing is in danger (as perceived by PG) of actually being effective. I'd probably be restricting myself to technical articles only (I don't care that much about VCs) were it not for rankban.

[imgabe]

Is this really supposed to be a punishment or just to mitigate that "famous" posters may more often get voted up on name alone, where an equivalent comment from a less well known person wouldn't receive as much attention?

[scarmig]

I wonder if upvoting rankbanned people itself incurs a penalty...

[elwell]

The Arc macros have taken a life of their own. PG's not directly to blame.

[mrjatx]

This is all getting a bit 1984

[elwell]

You can email pg or someone else with authority and get it removed.