Ask HN: How do you get banned from HN?

5 pointsposted 7 hours ago
by LAC-Tech

Item id: 49379500

23 Comments

mtmail

7 hours ago

I emailed the moderators now. They probably didn't see your "I no longer want to be on orange reddit. Permaban me." post yesterday. Usually they're responsive, might take a couple of days.

bitpush

7 hours ago

I saw someone getting banned the other day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49303888

jLaForest

5 hours ago

So over sensitive mod takes personal offense at slightly coarse language?

Sabinus

3 hours ago

This is supposed to be a site where we can discuss interesting topics without devolving into the emotional outbursts and personal attacks that characterise so much online interaction. If the capitalists really are ruining everything you can wake everyone here up in a neutral tone.

toomuchtodo

5 hours ago

It’s difficult to get banned because they are attempting to give participants the opportunity to do better, optimizing for discussion potential. It’s not impossible, but it can happen if you run out of chances. How much you value this opportunity is a function of how much you value contributing, as you can always browse read only without an account and the ability to contribute.

rvz

7 hours ago

Bans are possible, [0] but rarely issued.

One thing that is clear which is a bannable offence is self-promotion and posting links back to your own website in the comments. That isn't allowed here, especially on a repeated basis.

Don't do it.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49366336

porkpieshoe

6 hours ago

[flagged]

Sabinus

5 hours ago

Did your main get banned? I imagine that would be quite upsetting.

porkpieshoe

5 hours ago

What's a main?

I am a little upset that my over the top demonstration failed.

Sabinus

5 hours ago

Your main account.

porkpieshoe

5 hours ago

It's been a long, long time since there was value in having identity here.

In 2010, sure, it was possible to make an actual, valuable professional connection on this site... but today? Nah.

This is just a time-waste/wank site, and has been for a solid decade.

Sabinus

12 minutes ago

Look I'm sure you consider yourself a straight talking truth bomb dropping kinda guy but to the rest of us it's coming off as extremely bitter and snarky. If this website is truly so lost and useless, then just leave and never return. You'll be doing yourself a favour.

gnabgib

5 hours ago

So you knew what main meant

porkpieshoe

4 hours ago

Yes.

I was surprised when you didn't understand my post and answered literally.

I am less surprised that you're being kind of an asshole in exactly the HN way. You've nailed the shitty, condescending attitude.

You've got a future in wasting your life wanking off here.

gnabgib

4 hours ago

I'm not the user who asked you. Best of luck though.

porkpieshoe

4 hours ago

Even weirder that you decided to snipe then.

krapp

5 hours ago

If you're serious - the mods won't notice anything you do until you get flagged, which sends them an alert, and even then whether or not they ban you will depend on what they consider the quality of your account, which takes into account your account's age and posting history. That's why most of HN's trolls and assholes tend to hide their most toxic comments behind green accounts. I don't know why you want to be banned, though, it won't result in your account or any of your content being deleted if that's what you're looking for. The only thing you can really do is just walk away.

gnabgib

4 hours ago

This isn't accurate, what are you basing it on? The mods see lots. Maybe too much. Will react to enough flags, or some messages from users who seem trusted. You can get banned in 2 posts. Mods have much more info (like whether you've tried a new green account today) and there's some automation/rules to auto-ban.

krapp

4 hours ago

It's based on personal experience and what little I know about how moderation works here. Of course as the mods have told me many, many times, I could just be wrong about everything.

But I've seen plenty of things go by unnoticed and plenty of times the mods will bring up the quality of someone's comments or the age of their account when trying to talk someone down, meanwhile other accounts don't get as much slack. And they'll mention that they "can't see everything," but of course that could be inaccurate.

porkpieshoe

4 hours ago

How many times have you been banned, that this was repeatedly explained to you?

krapp

4 hours ago

None, it's weird. I'm probably one of the few people dang has actually sworn at in his comments, and I piss people off and get flagged all the time, so I know plenty of people including the staff don't like me, but they've never banned me. They filtered my account for years so I could only post three comments an hour, though. But most of what I'm talking about comes from watching the mods interacting with other people. I spend far too much time here.

porkpieshoe

4 hours ago

Why would I care about any of that?

I was just trying to provide a helpful demo for the OP.