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Are you being a weasel about the word "ban"? Do you place users in a special status where their comments are hidden by default and they are subject to strict rate limits based on things they say? Yes, of course. And I can't link people to examples, because HN hides the comments in question from everyone but me. You know that.

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We generally tell people we're banning them and why, but there are two major exceptions: spammers and serial trolls. By serial troll I mean someone who we banned at least once already and who shows up again and again with new accounts to break the site guidelines, knowing perfectly well what they're doing. When people do that, it no longer makes sense to post a "we're banning you" comment every time—they've already made quite clear that they don't want to use HN as intended. Your account, if I'm not mistaken, is very much in the latter category. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, you've done it dozens of times by now. That's why we shadowban the new ones.

None of this is new (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), and you guys aren't likely to get very far with the community about this.

> Your account, if I'm not mistaken, is very much in the latter category.

You should be glad that someone cares enough to keep trying to administer medicine. The people who just went away when you made it clear that you were going to persistently treat them unfairly, they just consider you and other users unredeemable, lost, that trying to help you wasn't worth their time. It wouldn't be a good thing for you to actually win against the "serial trolls". Unenviable position, yours.

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