I was not banned, my old account was simply shadow-banned. I had high karma fwiw , but I criticized PG. I think that was too much.
We don't ban people for criticizing PG, as anyone can easily see for themselves by using HN Search or looking at any recent thread from paulgraham.com.
If you're going to make a claim about why you think you were banned, you should provide a link so readers can make up their own minds. When it comes to "I was banned" stories, people say all kinds of things, most of which don't hold up against the actual record.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26656133
You banned me 2 days after the comment for saying that YC can be as or more exploitative than China's deals with African countries and I said that the parent defending YC but condemning China was acting on a base of racism and ethnocentrism. You can see how he brought a bunch of low-quality links I refuted them and you came 2 days later(I just realized that now) and banned me.
Oh well, I suppose you will be ban me again. BB cannot be criticized.
Moreover, we'd warned you and asked you may times to follow the site guidelines before that:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26127670
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25637111
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25400449
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24909805
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24513786
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23087338
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18102477
If you break the rules that often and ignore that many warnings, it's not surprising that you'd end up getting banned. This was not a shadowban and not because you criticized some particular person.
All this is a pity because you posted many interesting comments in the past and we would much rather have you as a contributing user. The sad truth, though, is that the harm you cause by breaking the site guidelines exceeds the good you contribute with the interesting comments—so I don't think we made the wrong call.
I dont doubt you can present a similar set of "warnings" for any undesirable who refuse to toe the corporate line you are ordered and paid to maintain. All those rules are ambiguous, opaque, arbitrary and subjectively interpreted and enforced, but you know that.
The most ironic thing is that the measure you take with people who refuse to follow you faux-polite tone is censorship and virtual obliteration, something 1000 times worse. Most of the people I got personal (in argument) here were being racist/clasist/homophobic/ethnocentric but since they can shield themselves behind rhetorical what ifs and sing paeans to the geniuses of YC they have carte-blanche.
Give me a million times better the dysfunctional governments we all have before techno-fascists like you and your bosses, censoring anyone who does not suck up to them.
It isn't about politeness, btw (let alone "faux" politeness) – you won't find that word, or that concept, in the site guidelines. It's about treating other people respectfully, and abstaining from garden-variety internet dreck. Let's not noble up the latter with self-flattering rhetoric.
Not sure it is applicable since the linked comment’s author does not appear to be banned.