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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

HN doesn't "hellban" (or ban at all) people over opinions. Moreover, the two positions Dan singles out as uniformly against the prevailing sentiment on HN (anti-Snowden, pro-CFAA) happen to be positions I'm not too far from holding, and while I get downvotes for earnest comments about those topics, things generally level out pretty quickly.

If you have a belief that can't survive HN downvotes, to the point where you'll hide it simply to avoid those votes, you should consider how sincerely you hold those beliefs.

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> If you have a belief that can't survive HN downvotes, to the point where you'll hide it simply to avoid those votes,

People with less karma need to avoid downvotes and flags because it affects how they can use the site - it affects the rate limiting they get.

(And because they don't know that they can email dang if they think they've been unfairly flagged.)

> If you have a belief that can't survive HN downvotes, to the point where you'll hide it simply to avoid those votes, you should consider how sincerely you hold those beliefs.

I'm pretty sure that's not it at all[1]. I can see (and personally do these days) avoid[2] certain types of conversations because of all the down votes. It has nothing to do with not sincerely holding the belief, and it has everything to do with not wanting to expend the energy on comments that aren't actually going to be seen[3]. As you know, as a comment is down voted it turn grayer and grayer. Plus, if you're not as articulate as you wish you were, you are just going to feel frustrated that you couldn't get your point across.

This board, for most, takes up free time, and people tend to want to enjoy their free time.

1) in fact, that statement does rankle the feathers a bit - I've heard a variation that was meant to silence people

2) not very successfully at times

I thought you'd end up "dead" (hellbanned) if you get consistently voted down to negative scores. I don't know a lot about actual mechanisms of how karma and voting work on this site, though, so if I'm wrong about that I apologize and retract the "hellbanned" part of my earlier comment.

No, that's not at all how it works.

"Hellbanning" is a form of banning where the site takes steps to avoid tipping you off that you've been banned. It's ostensibly a defense against spammers and trolls, who will create new accounts after being banned.

For the past couple years, bans on HN are announced publicly. They're not automatic; the moderators do it directly. It's not based on your karma.

> bans on HN are announced publicly

For the most part. We don't do so for spammers or (sometimes) serial trolls.

Hellbanning exists in a subtler form, though. For instance, my account.

Top-level comments that are literally seconds old are typically posted about 2/3 down the page. None of my votes appear to actually count. It's been this way for several months.

I'm used to it, but it's still very annoying and I wish HN would actually acknowledge they do this.

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