Shadowbans Are Shameful Cowardice
There is no reason to use shadow banning as a first resort on HN. If my opinions offend the sensibilities of your fragile echo chamber, you could have just asked me to leave. Enjoy your groupthink.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it is a "shameful cowardice", but I do think shadowbanning is a very disrespectful thing to do.
It seems like shadowbanning is a form of gaslighting, and just to see what others might think, I did a Google search. Indeed, the first two results for the search string 'gaslighting shadowbanning' are from Hacker News.
Not everyone will respond to or respect feedback with a ban, but some will, and I think that makes all the difference.
(OP: just because you've been disrespected by being shadowbanned, doesn't mean you should be disrespectful back about "cowardice" and "fragile echo chambers". I believe that is the kind of thing which might keep you shadowbanned.)
(Moderators: I hope you can transform Hacker News into a place that doesn't use shaddowbans. I mod a 50k+ user subreddit, and I do remove comments and occasionally ban people, but I almost always say why. I believe even people with poor attitudes or intentions appreciate and respect being treated fairly, and it helps make the world a slightly better place and might one day have a cumulative effect on that person and cause them to slowly change their attitude. You, I, and I think everybody wants to be respected as a person, and people generally respond well to being treated well.)
Or is it recent behavior, contrasted against past participation, that encourages using shadowbans as a passive timeout rather than an outright confrontation/rejection?