On a related note, you will be hellbanned if you create an HN account over Tor (even if you "don't do anything wrong").
Considering the recent NSA revelations, I think that's pretty unfair but, hey, what can ya do...
What if AppleInsider is the source of an important story? Why should we only be able to post via a third party news site?
This kind of blanket censorship is completely at odds with a community who generally seem to value free speech and free flow of data.
I'm starting to think it's well deserved.
By the way, for that Rails development question, you can set up a Linux VM with file sharing and SSH access from the host Windows machine. Then you can develop with Linux but as if you were in Windows, opening and editing files in Windows and using a Windows SSH client. Instead of using localhost to view your site in the browser, just use the local IP address of your VM. See this post: http://www.chetane.com/2012/09/11/hybrid-windows-linux-vm-ra...
And once you know what you are doing, you can even set up a lightweight headless Linux VM that will take hardly any power or CPU, just unobtrusively running in the background.
That's not true. This account was created using a Tor browser bundle less than three weeks ago, and it is definitely not hellbanned.
Whatever gave you that idea? This is a forum owned by a private individual. The individual's interests in computer science, painting, startups and leadership probably influenced how the forum started. Sure, there are some people with libertarian tendencies here. It doesn't necessarily mean that everyone top down automatically thinks Tor is a holy cow. In fact, there were some reasoned arguments from forum administrators (at another forum but posted here), the other day, about why they were banning posting from Tor. (Spammers abusing Tor).
HM seems to be a place sympathetic to the types of people who need TOR, and as far as I know, its US, LotF, based. So, yes, to me, it seems a contradiction. Not sure how it could one could argue different.
If there is reason for the contradiction, then fine. Im not completely contradiction as such. Doesn't make it wrong to point it out though.
1. There are people who support TOR as a technology here in HN. There might even be people who "need" TOR and gain sympathy here. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that people who manage this forum necessarily support that viewpoint. Again, just because members of a community want something doesn't necessarily meant that private community supports that.
2. Re. LotF. I have lived in many countries. Of all the places that I have lived in, this would be the only country that would make a comfortable, free place for people like me. If ever I decided to call a place home, America would be it. However, I am practical enough to understand that LotF is an ideal. In practice, there are lots of things that happen and have happened that make that statement relatively meaningless. So yes, America is more free than a lot of the world; more accepting than a lot of the world; yet it is not free by the abstract ideals set out in it's founding.
hey man. Long time no talk. SuperLag here. Still have those 25xx Cisco's I sold way back in the dark ages?
Those 2500s are long gone although I've damn near a full rack of gear now. The electric company loves me.
A few days later, I created a new account and simply lurked -- never posting. It was also hellbanned.
I gave up after that.
Posted from Tor, as was this comment.
edit: top of my head reply/speculation so I don't claim any factual accuracy.
Real spammers have tens of thousands of unique addresses to use; why would they use the 300 or so exit nodes that Tor has available?
For spam, http://www.stopforumspam.com is pretty awesome. But most likely because the few people who have written scripts for vBulletin or phpBB attempt to hit all of the vBulletin and phpBB sites... so it works pretty well for that group. May have zero effect on something like HN where an entirely different approach may be used (cheap labour?).
He could just give users a kindly-worded error message instead of flipping the switch on them, but DO NOT QUESTION THE FLOW CHART.
So here's a simple captcha idea: judge a first-time user on the pertinence of their first comment to a thread. Just like show-dead, only users who browse with show-newbies enabled would see those comments (in green). No downvotes? Welcome to the community