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Comment by graeme | Hacker News Reader

I see it, and I don't have showdead on or any special features.

Ok, thanks for confirming. So the ban really is limited to posting articles. Interesting. That's a first probably, to be able to comment but not to be able to post.

There are frequently enough people complaining about their submissions being auto killed, you aren't the only one under a submission ban.

The circumstances of this one are, well, interesting. And worrying. I offer these links:

Two links[0][1], very heavily upvoted, not enough comments to trigger the flame-war detector:

Both reached #1 on the front page, then vanished very quickly:

http://hnrankings.info/6456034,6455391/

Possibly dropping faster than normal flagging from ordinary users

The question was asked[2] - why did they vanish so quickly?

Since then jacquesm has been banned from making submissions. Turn on "Show Dead" and see here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=jacquesm

Number 3 on the leader board[3] and yet banned from posting.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6455391

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6456034

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6458470

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders

Number 3 on the leader board[3] and yet banned from posting

I'd say that this is actually a good thing. It proves that the moderators don't favor oldtimers and/or high-karma users: If you break the rules you get banned. No matter who you are.

Agreed.

The rule is, if you have a question about moderation, then email info@ycombinator.com. Don't make an HN post about it. Therefore, it's not really surprising that someone was banned for disobeying the rules. There doesn't seem to be anything especially worrisome here.

Jacques, you could try sending an apology to info@ycombinator.com and ask if it'd be possible to restore your account.

EDIT: It's beside the point whether he originally emailed them. Also, it's important to email info@ycombinator.com, not pg; you'll get a response that way, among other reasons.

I don't feel like I have anything to apologize for.

That said, I miss the ability to bookmark using HN but there are lots of other ways to fix that.

No groveling from me, and apparently no more links, too bad.

Wait, wait. You're an awesome person. Why are you doing this? Is it just excessive pride, or what? There's nothing wrong with accidentally breaking rules. And there's nothing wrong with thinking the rules are stupid. But why not spend the 3 minutes to make it right? I'm just trying to understand your reasoning.

I'll miss your submissions.

You should consider getting a Pinboard account for bookmarking. It's really a great, top-notch and no-nonsense service. Been using it for like two years now.

You're assuming I broke the rules by accident. I broke that rule on purpose and I'm more than happy to accept my 'punishment'. That said I think the arbitrary moderation borders on the ridiculous and reduces the participants of this board to the level of toddlers that are only allowed to discuss that which is permitted by the elders that know best.

I've had similar feelings before. But what if they've implemented the only moderation policy that anyone in the history of the internet has discovered to actually work well for fostering discussion among capable people about interesting topics, consistently? The ruleset has evolved slowly over time; they weren't imposed arbitrarily. Each rule was to counteract a specific class of problems plaguing the site. For example, remember the painful discussion about the Airbnb fiasco a few years ago? It stayed on the site for like two days because an angry mob upvoted it so much. (I was a part of it, before later realizing that the story was designed specifically to incite an angry mob.) Etc. There are reasons to penalize certain kinds of content, and sorting it out is a very difficult process. But at least they're trying.

I'm sillysaurus2 because I broke a rule on purpose on my old sillysaurus account. I asked if they'd unban my sillysaurus account, and they were nice enough to unban it. I stuck with sillysaurus2 rather than switching back -- no real reason, just felt like it -- but the point is that they're lenient and they understand that mistakes happen, on both sides of the fence. Contrast that with the policy of, say, /r/AskHistorians: I'm permabanned there for a stupid mistake, and their policy is to give no second chances under any circumstances. So at least these guys are reasonable, yeah?

Yes, it's worrisome that they hold the power of deciding which discussions are penalized. But wouldn't you rather they hold the power rather than some other group? They genuinely believe in merit and good intentions, rather than just using those things as a smoke screen for greed, as some other groups do.

It's not an ideal situation, but it's like democracy: it's the best anyone's thought of so far. But these are just my thoughts, and I'm really interested in hearing yours.

Actually, because of network effects HN could quite well have better discussions than other sites despite having a moderation policy that's worse than them, so the quality of discussion here isn't evidence they're doing it right. Since most of the users who foster good discussions are on HN, the discussions here will inevitably be better than competing sites, meaning new users will join this site and not other sites. There's a kind of self-reinforcing cycle where everyone often ends up on sites that are, frankly, awful in one or more ways.

(For example, remember Groklaw? That was one of them - the site owner shadowbanned anyone who made good arguments and presented strong new evidence, both when they contradicted her and when they agreed with her, in order to make herself stand out more when she did the same. She also shadowbanned anyone who remarked on these disappearances, so most regulars had no way of realising this was happening. As far as ordinary end users could tell she was just so much better than anyone else that she was indispensable to the fight against SCO. Since all detailed discussion of the SCO lawsuit was on her site, nearly everyone who wanted to discuss the details did so there too and there was no way anyone could establish an alternative.)

And you know he didn't because ... ?

Having watched jacquesm over the years, I would expect he would have email PG before posting the "Ask HN". I have no proof of this, and it's possibly he didn't, but personally, I would've emailed, and if I got no reply, then I would've posted here as a backup in case PG was away.

We can't know, and I'm not in a position of privilege, but it's consistent.

> I would expect he would have email PG before posting the "Ask HN".

Spot on.

Yeah, I have showdead on. My point is more that "That's a first probably" is at least not true anymore (perhaps jacquesm really was the first user to be banned from submitting, but I sort of doubt it).

Interesting -- I had a submission autodeaded a few days ago too, but I assumed it was the site (infoworld.com) rather than my account which had been banned.

hey Colin,

To check submit something else and if that does not go auto-dead your account is fine.

HN would be a very different site with Colin & Jacques banned!

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