Out of nowhere, anywhere from 6 to 14 seconds to load the front page (or any other HN page) when logged into that account.
I'm not sure what the offense is for which people get slowbanned on HN, but I also don't understand how that counts as a randomized algorithm.
As an aside, it amazes me that people who notice being hellbanned (which is really the ultimate way of HN telling you not to post here anymore) make 2nd or 3rd accounts and just continue. I'd want to find out why I was being banned and then, if I didn't agree with the reason, I'd just leave.
To be honest the only thing I'm sure of is that I was slowbanned. I timed page loads 10 times with the slowbanned account and they averaged about 11 seconds. Then page loads with not being logged in averaged about 1 second. Then page loads with a new account averaged about 1 second as well.
The junky thing is that the account was almost 7 months old and had 3,324 positive karma but I guess I said something that ticked someone off:
After re-reading the terms of use of the site, I emailed pg on 11/22 stating that I believed I was slowbanned and that I didn't believe I had violated any terms of use. I hadn't spammed ever (I have nothing to sell), I don't participate in flame wars. I didn't get a response so I emailed him again on 11/27 just saying it's clear I was slowbanned and that it would be nice to know why but that I guess that's not going to happen. I figure there are a few possibilities:
1. I said one thing one time that rubbed someone the wrong way
2. An admin thought it would be funny to give someone who uses the username 300bps a slowban thereby effectively causing their web experience to be equivalent to a 300 bps modem
Who knows? Seems random to me to be honest.
And I found this, somewhat self-absorbed, blog entry by Michael O. Church about pretty much the same thing you're describing:
http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/heres-why-pau...
I think it's weird that people think HN admins, or specifically pg, owe them an apology - but it does show how serious people are taking their accounts. On the flip side it's not at all clear how seriously HN takes its more seasoned users. All things being equal, I trust the admins to statistically do the right thing because there are probably a lot of hidden variables we're not aware of.
However, there seem to be a lot of young and/or low-karma accounts who do just fine while being hostile, personal, and all-around detrimental. Maybe there is an algorithmic problem that causes more seasoned accounts to accrue "flag debt" or whatever without a sufficient method of decaying those flags.
The thing that I remind myself of though is that if HN didn't have counterintuitive rules that it would likely be more like reddit which I think would be a bad thing.
The HN community appreciates diversity and unbiased, well-reasoned debate.
Maybe you were too strong of an advocate of a certain technology stack / platform to the detriment of all others?
What is your old account?
Edit: typos.
Is your conclusion that I was slowbanned because 0% of my submissions were about Microsoft and 7.5% of my comments mentioned Microsoft?
If someone who doesn't work at Microsoft and has no affiliation with them whatsoever other than to use their products is banned for mentioning Microsoft so infrequently, then this place is a ridiculous echo chamber.
EDIT: My last comment mentioning Microsoft was over 3 weeks ago and honestly it's more about stock performance of multiple companies than it is about anything to do with Microsoft.