Ask HN: Do you think it's good practice to hell ban for not commenting?

[ch49]

My previous account got hell-banned because I rarely made a comment. That's the only reason I can think of. I rarely made any submission either, so spamming can't be the reason.

Is it a good practice to ban people because they won't comment? HN has high standards for comments, I rarely feel that I am knowledgeable enough to add something valuable to a discussion; it came to me as a surprise to see anything I submit is [dead] already.

[patmcc]

Are you sure there's nothing objectionable in your (rare) comments or submissions? It seems unlikely a moderator would bother to hellban you for not commenting often; why would they go to the trouble?

[erkose]

Can you define what you mean by "hell banned". My primary account, with close to 10k karma, has some kind of 3-5 second delay associated with it, so I switched to this one which has no delay.

[Alupis]

so called "hell banned" is when everything you do is dead on arrival. comments, submits, etc. If you don't have "show dead" turned on, it may take you a while to realize this.

if you think you got "hell banned" for a wrong reason, I'd recommend emailing the guys (email is on contact page). They'll either blow you off, or open a dialog.

[erkose]

OK, I wasn't hell banned.

[Alupis]

the delay ("slow banned") is usually due to some sort of bad behavior. It can be arbitrary, or system-administered, for a number of reasons. In my experience, enough "good behavior" will get it removed after some period of time.

Again, you can always open a dialog with the guys. Depending on the reason behind the moderation, they may or may not respond... it's up to them.

Also, I find it hard to believe the OP was "hell banned" for not posting/commenting. If he truly had no "bad behavior", then I'd think either his account is linked to a bunch of other accounts from the same actual user, or he was mistakenly linked... at least that is my thoughts.

[ch49]

I have only one active HN account. I wonder if only submitting my own blog posts might be considered wrong behaviour. I write on my blog once in 2-3 months, and submit it to HN. HN and reddit are my only source of good reads, so I rarely find something useful to submit; and I submit links when I find them.

Not commenting/submitting regularly is the only reason I can think of that can be considered bad on my part.

Here's my other account for which HN has gone read-only: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=channikhabra

[angersock]

Congratulations! You've been slowbanned.