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Comment by mcguire | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure why alexi23's comment is dead, but it's very poetic.

"The Shipping Forecast turns our landscape into a slightly ethereal world, inhabited by communities we are connected to but know nothing about “I feel chastened on nights like this when I see storm force 11, and think there are people out there contending with that weather, putting their lives at risk in pursuit of their livelihood – be it in the navy, on fishing boats or just lone travellers.”"

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It might be because it's a verbatim quote from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/radio/what-to-listen-to/why-every...

I banned the account last night because it's probably a spammer trying to build up account karma by pasting quotes from other articles. Here's another one you can Google: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16013540.

Spammers adopted this technique in the last couple years. A favorite method is to find a Reddit thread on the same topic and paste comments from there into HN.

A side benefit of this method is that when we ban accounts that do it, it looks like we're suppressing perfectly innocent commenters. Can you believe the abusive mods! HN is rife with censorship!

Maybe HN needs something like the old slashdot comment adjectives (e.g. -1, Redundant).

Ethereal yes. But let's be honest! The late night shipping forecast makes being in bed more cosy. Because they are out there, battling the gale, and we are not.

It's not only what is said, but the timbre of the voice, repetitions and odd names, all these are hallmarks (some types) of the ASMR phenomenon Youtube.

Because many new accounts are dead. Some are so dead, you can't even vouch for them.

You can vouch for alexi23's comment (just click on the timestamp beside the comment to find the vouch link).

Did not know that. Thanks!

There's no such thing as an account whose comments can't be vouched for. Nor is it true that there are many dead new accounts, if by 'dead' you mean 'banned'. But it is true that software filters sometimes kill comments by new accounts. That's not software that we want to have to run, or write, but it's necessary because of past abuses by trolls.

What I meant is vouching not reviving it, even when (apparently) multiple people vouch. I didn't mean to attack the HN mods, you guys do a good job here!

My initial response probably sounded like I took it that way—sorry! I often only notice that later.

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