Edit, to add: I also say ridiculous things when sober, on occasion. I didn’t mean to imply that the only time my mighty brain falters is when I’m inebriated.
My honest opinion: I have geopolitical views that tend to upset ideological people which includes...coughpowerfulcough folks and got stuck with reputation accordingly (whatever, no complaints). I normally avoid politics because in the US at least, I am too contrarian and "centrist", but on HN people do engage and correct me or educate me when I am incorrect. At least it used to be so, times are achanging. But tech people keep being political so it's hard to avoid. One particular thread about signal or something, I made a point about Silicon Valley tech types presuming things and interfering with politics in other countries (something about signal or other apps enabling one side of politics to win over the other I think), I think that comment was the last straw before the restrictions (can't be sure though, just guessing), this must have been in 2022. But as the saying goes "if a cop tails a car for 500 miles, that car is getting a ticket!", I am sure I have done plenty more that violate the rules, my only complaint is on how my "punishment" was in secret with no opportunity to self-correct. Maybe like reddit, HN is best lurked?
I hope to see better times on HN and make dang's job easier on my part at least. happy 2024!
There is definitely messed-up biased moderating on HN. That you don’t personally suffer it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
just because you link to a single comment doesn't mean it was the sole cause of your throttling.
>Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
>Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
I commented in response because a comment downstream from what you linked felt much more caustic and may have been a bigger suspect than the first one. But by the nature of threaded comments, you will see less participation in a deeper comment. And I'm sure HN accounts for that. (-10 on a top level comment that was the first comment on the page may not be as bad as -1 on a deep comment).
If the repo is correct, these features are made to throttle comments that can cause flame wars. So, food for thought. A lot of times it's less about what you say and how you say it.
> > don't cross-examine
Something about a mirror. Or: do you think you deserve aggressive throttling now?
Honestly, some of my comments might jive less with HN’s echo chamber, but that doesn’t mean they’re not based in fact, and it doesn’t make them inciting.
Edit: I’m trying to practice taking complaints as actionable feedback, so
> So, food for thought. A lot of times it's less about what you say and how you say it.
Thanks for this. I’ll keep it it in mind!
One more guideline to keep in mind:
>Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
going around calling the community you comment in an echo chamber in order to justify your views never changed anyone's minds. And insulting others as a group nor individual doesn't make your factual statements stronger to begin with. It's the same useless fluff you complain about. If your audience truly doesn't appreciate your views, you should seek one that does.
But yes, we're doing the very thing the rules were meant to prevent, my apologies.
Edit: it looks like that rate limit was put on your account several years ago. I didn't look up what was going on at the time, but I've taken it off now.
(In the future, I think we'll probably make penalties like this expire after a while - the problem is it's not so easy to tell which accounts are still breaking the site guidelines vs. which ones are fine, short of manual review, and we don't have much capacity for more manual review. In the meantime, anyone is welcome to ask what's going on with their account and we'll always take a look and answer; and when it seems safe to remove a penalty like this, we always do.)
People can still see with Show Dead turned on, over the many years have never seen anything there that wasn't either inflammatory, spammy or otherwise very low quality.
HN is the only site where I even comment publicly. No warning restrictions where you don't even know if you are restricted == shadow moderarion. Probably best I simply take a hint though, i should spend my time on more productive things anyways. Although, I really do enjoy healthy discourse with people who know the subjects in question far more than I do.
HN should either have different rules for non-technical threads or avoid political/sensitive topics altogether imho.
Moderation isn't easy, and I'm only being so critical because I am personally affected. Chances are this comment I spent time composing won't go through and I would have to abandon it because of the restrictions. An unfortunate side effect of it all is others like you can't see I am restricted. Or you would reply to me and I can't reply back because of those same restrictions.
I hope we all can take a step back (especially myself) and and forge a new path where we trest others as we would like to be treated (can't ask for more).