Ask HN: Hacker News Shadow Ban

4 points·hunkins··8 comments

I appear to be shadow banned on this site. My newest comments, even on my own posts, are hidden to everyone but me. Has anyone dealt with this before? If yes, how can this be fixed?

I am genuinely trying to share stories along the journey of building my own venture.

View on HN

Screenshot of comment: https://ibb.co/fX9J746

Post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37990039

The comment is not visible unless I am logged in. Other accounts or anonymous viewership show the post at 0 comments.

The comment is marked as [dead]. This is how HN moderates comments, members can see the "deleted" comments but they are locked and greyed out.

I am no mod, but I'd guess it was banned for self promotion rules or as part of spam detection.

Interesting. This was my first post in a while, so spam doesn't make sense to me. I'll re-read the rules on promotion, this was a feature I built from the ground up, so I would imagine sharing it in a community of builders and creators would be fine.

Appreciate the insight!

Would "Show HN" have been the right way to do it then?

I tried this initially, but had the exact same experience. So I deleted that "Show HN" post and reposted under the general. Comments blocked both times.

Interesting (and annoying).

You might just have been unlucky and had a barrage of grumpy "get off my lawn" flaggers/downvoters. (I try not to be one of those, but sometimes fail.)

I saw your post go past in 'new': https://news.ycombinator.com/newest

Ah, thanks! Ok good to know. I think the post was visible, but I am concerned that the comment (which explains everything) was not visible.

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