slowbans

We had this dispute about hellbans, shadowbans, and slowbans, that was much easier to prove.

The brain trust behind HN moderation, having moved on from their asinine slowbans and hellbans, have gone to something that they think is trickier.

Again, I don't know what HN uses slowbans for, but my guess would be it's for technical reasons rather than content.

While the assignment of hellbans and slowbans may be completely just and deserved, it might also have a profoundly corrupting influence, steering conversation exactly where it serves certain purposes best.

I have no idea if HN uses slowbans or not.

I have had this happen numerous times, and the rapidity of the downvotes really makes me think it's an automated system -- that now that slowbans and hellbans are pretty widely known and rightly reviled, the mods just flag you and periodically you get a rapid downvote barrage.

HN often slowbans folks who don't toe the line (michaelochurch, larrys, rayiner (rayiner was rankbanned precisely because of disagreeing with pg on the immigration issue), etc., as well as manipulates ranking of comments to put YC-funded startups in a positive light.

I don't think it's a "conspiracy," but HN has many means of opaque moderation (shadowbans, slowbans, arbitrary score penalties to control the front page), and they continue to be applied with no accountability.

I really don't like the diverse fuckery the HN board software uses as "anti-spam" measures, like account creation IP bans ("Account creation temporarily disabled"), slowbans, hellbans and defacto bans that discard the content of your post and pretend to be temporary ("Too fast").