Ask HN: Should HN be more transparent about shadow bans? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Should HN be more transparent about shadow bans?

5 pointstonymet25 comments

Disclaimer: I’ve been shadow banned before (I believe twice) and the mods were very responsive and courteous in clarifying why and the terms to remove the ban.

I’m a big fan of this community, and its mods, as it’s one of the last places where I find stimulating and mostly on-topic dialogue.

My proposal is that Hackernews should improve transparency & control over shadow bans. Presently, shadow bans are only implicitly revealed to the user, e.g. by hitting a comment throttle.

In case you aren’t aware of shadow bans, they are applied by the mods to reduce your reach and throttle comments when you have violated HN TOS aka guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I’ve run integrity services for social media and understand that transparency for ban violations does allow for gaming of the system. So I understand why a community would not inform the violator of their ban status.

That said, I believe there is a happy medium that could be reached for good intentioned participants (like me) who may stumble with spicy / controversial comments from time to time.

It’s also timely, since AI content has been polluting HN, and we need to support real people (like me), especially controversial ones who care about the community (also me).

I’m a big fan of this community, and the mods, and hope that opening up conversation around shadow bans policy will help develop a good solution.

What do you think? Should T&C be improved with Shadow Bans?

Also a big fan, it is my favorite and only third space. I believe they are fine as is, as someone who has had comment throttling applied, and is not given vouch. Their sandbox, their rules. You can always email to appeal and plead your case. Otherwise, you're giving away trust and safety signal to potential threat actors and people acting in bad faith.

You will either change your behavior improving collective discourse and have privileges restored, not, or learn to operate within the constraints applied without changing (throttled comment posting, etc).

in your case was the throttle cleared without intervention?

I'm not questioning the guidelines, fwiw. It's more about the transparency and making sure people remain engaged.

I emailed and improved my behavior, and the throttle was cleared. Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets.

Same . and I think that part of the policy is healthy. My post is about adding transparency so that users will know when they are banned, without guessing.

If you’re functional enough, you’ll figure it out imho. Think of it as a test or filter of sorts. Can you climb the tree to the treehouse?

i agree that is one benefit. but I also don't like spamming the mods with trivial "am I banned" requests.

I may be banned right now. I don't have comment throttle, but I have other indicators.

but I'm not going to bother them with it. It would be nice to manage it on my own.

I am a noob. I remember, it was not too long ago, when I first read the guidelines, took a deep breath, and submitted my very first comment.

I was immediately downvoted.

Zero karma. Into the Darkness. It was 200 days before I tried again (I'm sensitive).

As helpful as the guidelines[0] are, they are just the beginning of a learning experience. I've decided that participating in the HN community is like playing Zork[1]. You have to step to the edges to discover the boundaries. You have to feel your way through; you need to absorb the feedback you receive and find your way, without falling into the pit.

Often moderation comes from the veterans here. Some of the moderation process does seem mysterious to me; I am still exploring; it takes time to understand and map out all these connected rooms.

There is sometimes an 'unfairness' but life is equally unfair to everybody.

I hope I am never shadowbanned.

Now, let me get back to my game.

  > Throw the sack at the troll

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zork

thank you for sharing. I believe the shadowban issue contributes to this reluctance. There are a few pillars, some policy, some cultural, that discourage more engaging dialog.

The rules are sound, and I'm not pushing back on those. But I think with better tools, more community members will be encouraged to participate and be authentic.

Of course, shadowbans are not the biggest issue ( groupthink and AI spam are bigger, among others). but it's an issue I know firsthand.

If you're authentic here, you *will* be flagged and downvoted.

Think of it as a martial arts dojo .. comment harshly and inadvertantly snark others and you might get sweep off your feet and take damage.

With time and atention you can be yor authentic self, ( sans swearing, personal attacks, implications that parallel commenters are deranged, etc ) and maintain your balance.

I've been throttled at least three times and have come back unscathed.

The trick is to hold your ground without "being a dick about it" (Australian idiom), don't get baited, and keep a broad high view of the general domain of discussion .. the ground is littered with minefields.

> With time and atention you can be yor authentic self,

I disagree with this part , because the comment ranking rewards groupthink . I would like to see a "sort by controversial" . I usually scroll to the very bottom of posts to see the interesting comments.

Not everybody pays attention to comment ranking and while an algorithm might cause some to slavishly follow karma it doesn't prevent others less easily led from being their true selves.

> I would like to see a "sort by controversial"

Ahhh. Okay, maybe try reddit or one of those karma farming sites then - they have this "feature".

Generally readers read from the top down. So whether they intend to or not, the groupthink comments bubble to the top

You're assuming good faith and while I am not questioning yours, the added friction for spammers who aren't engaging in good faith to have to email with a personal message serves as enough additional friction to disuade casual spammers. At a guess, anyway. I don't work here and aren't privy to any internal information. So, sorry to say, but no, I personally wouldn't support that.

I agree, though there could be a ban status that distinguishes scammers from healthy community members.

> for good intentioned participants (like me) who may stumble with spicy / controversial comments from time to time.

Have you been shadowbanned for comments merely controversial?

On comments promoting OF, I said "go back to your porn, dude"

Thanks. That's clear.

I can see from your comments why you are taking this position.

Good to know.

here's the context, btw. And just to be clear, I'm not trying to litigate my bans or anything. They were just (within the mods frame)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41535790

my OP is about informing users when they are banned without having to consult the mods.

Thanks. So seemingly no.

Can you try to make a point

Yes, if any further point needed making.

It won't make any difference. I call HN a politer version of Reddit for a reason. Endemic hypocrisy.

People keep praising some dang character, but he is one of the worst hypocrites, and has in the past openly admitted to censoring my comments while allowing worse ones to fly.

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