[amyhoy]

Hi there.

Why not tell me why I was hellbanned then?

Here's my comment history. Such bullying, so horrible, wow: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ahoyhere

The only conclusion is that HN hellbans dissent. I'm about as far from a troll as you can get.

It's your platform; do what you want. But don't lie about it.

[lotharbot]

It appears the last activity you posted was in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6472749

You called Alex (whose friend had died and he didn't find out for two years) a "shitty friend" and said he didn't "think of, or care for, others".

I don't know if that's worthy of a hellban. But I do know I wouldn't consider the offending comments mere "dissent".

[amyhoy]

Neither of your things in "quotes" are things that I said. The "shitty friend" was alexcap's own words. The phrase "think of, or care for, others" didn't show up in my comment at all.

I didn't call him a shitty friend. He wrote, "Now you’re probably thinking I’m a real shitty friend" after his explanation of the events — which I quoted, in quotes, very clearly a direct quote from his own words — and I wrote "Yes" to answer the question. 95% of my comment was advice for people on what to do in the situation that the friend is reaching out to them as that friend did, who got ignored and later died and that person didn't know for years.

If you write an essay about something you did that you think was bad, and post it to Medium, and post it to HN, and then say "You probably think I did something bad," is it reaaaally so controversial to comment with "Yes, I agree, I think you did something bad"?

Also, if you thought that was my last comment, maybe you don't see my actual last exchange? It was about my bootstrapping conference and upcoming web site. Perhaps it's truly hell banned as in not visible? It was this:

http://skitch-replacement.s3.amazonaws.com/ahoyhere_s_commen...

[lotharbot]

> "The phrase "think of, or care for, others" didn't show up in my comment"

It's a direct quote of a dead comment you wrote in a reply. Turn on "showdead" to see it [0].

The dead "think of" comment in the "shitty friend" thread appeared 405 days ago. Your comment about the bootstrapping conference was 406 days ago. (There's also a dead reply in the bootstrapping thread dated 405 days ago, which fits the timing of being hellbanned for the "think of" post.)

[0 - edited my comment to add this footnote] in response to sage_joch's response to you in that thread. Link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6473532

[amyhoy]

You call it the "shitty friend" thread is pretty inflammatory considering, again, that was the OP's own words (not mine). I turned on showdead and my dead comment that you're referring to sure looks reasoned and measured to me:

I never said anyone specific is self-centered. I said:

>How self-centered do you have to be to not even wish a friend with obvious health problems "good luck" or "feel better"?

That's a rhetorical question.

Then, in the dead comment, I wrote:

> Being a bad friend in this way doesn't make you a bad person…

> But it does make it seem kinda iffy to write a blog post about it, even include screenshots of the conversation, and not (apparently?) be socially aware enough to realize that the deceased man was nearly begging his friend to express some interest and concern. And so many of the commenters, from my perspective, were not picking up on anything the OP did not explicitly lay out in the essay itself, which is to say: his friend was telegraphing his problems in every possible way, and the OP ignored it. People seem to be reading it and thinking, "Oh, just one of those things." But it's only one of those things if you don't think of, or care for, others.

Again, I didn't personally attack alexcap. You are quoting it out of context.

Real inflammatory stuff. If this is what I got hellbanned for, it really makes me wonder about the actual, deliberate, specific, personal cruelty that goes by on a regular basis without banning.

Meanwhile the other dead comment… the one that's actually newest, not the one you claimed above was the newest… is about my bootstrapping conference and upcoming site:

> Oh, good question. I can see why you'd think that. > Nope, BB will be more like HN, but specifically for bootstrappers and related topics only. IOW: public-facing, free to use. (Although I think we're going to do a MeFi-style $5 or $10 join fee, to encourage good citizenship.) > It's not going to be a product. I'm not going to run it unilaterally, either. It's for the community.

That is the last thing I posted before being hellbanned.

[lotharbot]

I'm using "shitty friend" as a disambiguator -- whether they're your words or his, they act as a unique identifier. And I think your comments in that thread are the likely culprit. You seem to think what you wrote was reasoned and measured, but I can see why a moderator might read them and think "whoa, this is way too personal" and ban you. EDIT: remember, you know what you were thinking when you wrote it, but others might read the same words and take a different meaning. The words you used could have been interpreted as pretty inflammatory. (Again, I'm not defending the hellban as the right decision, just explaining that I see an obvious reason it may have happened. And yeah, I've seen people say worse who didn't happen to get hellbanned for it.)

Your other dead comment was probably posted after you were hellbanned (the point of a hellban is that you wouldn't have known it happened right away). That's why both comments are dead. If you'd been hellbanned for the last comment, only it would be dead.

[jacquesm]

Wow, I didn't even realize ahoyhere was hellbanned, I thought you just drifted away from the site.

[throwit99]

You'd be surprised just how often this happens.

[amyhoy]

Oooh, is being saucy or mildly disagreeable not allowed either? I get the hint.

[tptacek]

No, being saucy is fine, and people much more disagreeable than you (cough) seem to thrive here. I can't see why you were banned, but I asked, because that's weird.

[morganvachon]

I think it's pretty complicated, actually. I've lurked here for years but only made an account within the last year. In that short time, I've said arguably worse things than you have (though not with ill intent; I can just be abrasive and opinionated) and as far as I can tell I've not been hellbanned yet.

It probably helps that I'm a "nobody"; I'm not a member of the startup culture, just an outside observer and occasional commentator. If it's true that politics are a factor in bans and heavy-handed moderation, then I can understand (though not agree with) you being hellbanned for what are fairly mild comments as judged by an outsider like me, as you are a member of the startup club.

And I hate to say it, but misogyny might even have played a role in it. I have zero evidence of that and it's not meant as an accusation, just that it's a remote possibility. It's a real problem in just about any internet based community, and I really doubt this one is immune to it.