Weird, this seems like a valuable comment. I wonder what's going on. I hope you keep commenting.

It was intentional. I would love to write more comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7602457, but as of now there's no incentive. Exponentially less people see comments at the bottom, because everyone uses the [-] collapse button now to navigate between topics. Why would I spend 30 minutes (or sometimes an hour, it's a fun hobby) to write a good comment when it's simply pinned where <5% of people will see it after an hour or so?

My penalty stemmed from writing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15884820. Some sort of penalty may have been warranted. HN probably isn't the proper place for that kind of discussion.

But they reacted – I think – by visiting https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15884400 and adjusting my "gravity" until that comment was near the bottom, or halfway down. And since that comment had ~20 upvotes, that means anything I write with less than 20 upvotes has absolutely no hope of getting anywhere near the top. Meaning it won't even gather any steam anymore.

Not only that, but I was originally slowbanned as well. There's a certain penalty that the mods use to discourage certain types of authors, where you can't post more than 5 comments every 3 hours. This is totally undocumented and took much experimentation to even figure out that's what the specific limit is. Imagine going to a bar and being able to only say 5 things every 3 hours.

Meanwhile I counted ~23 tptacek comments within a span of <2 hours. ~13 jacqusm comments within 3 hours. Etc. So I suddenly felt like I couldn't even respond to people anymore.

I sent a bunch of emails (often angry ones) to hn@ycombinator.com, and I don't blame them for basically writing me off and ignoring them. What incentive do they have to bother with one specific person? So I see their side of it too.

But I'm worried this is a trend. I used to periodically see hellbanned commenters complain about HN censorship and that they were excluded specifically for their politics. And I thought that was fine, and they should be. Their hellbanned comments certainly made it seem like HN would be better off without them. Good mods!

But I see now why people write like that after being penalized. You just sort of... Give up. What's the point in writing quality when no one will see it? There's no competition anymore, no fun. And it sucks that someone in the world with power decided that you, specifically, suck, and suck enough to merit exclusion.

I miss yummyfajitas. The mods made him feel unwelcome at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14116601 and talked down at him https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14124379. And I don't really blame him for leaving. When it feels like the whole community wants something other than what you want, you migrate communities. I wonder where he's at now... Wherever it is, it's probably interesting.

FWIW I've been careful to frame all of this as fairly as possible. And in the spirit of fairness, here are the responses I received:

I took the rate limit back off. I put it on a few days ago because the subthread starting at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15884820 was problematic. You're not solely responsible for that but commenters who create the initial conditions for these things carry more responsibility than the others, since the seeds of the problem are nearly always present in the initial conditions.

It's not a great idea to barrage us with emails because there's a lot Scott and I need to take care of and often we're just under load. As a good programmer you know what sending many messages into a system under load does. In addition to that, it makes us less rather than more interested in replying to you, because it feels like it would be unfair to the other emails who respect normal channels. I'm not saying this because it's in any way personal, just reporting how the dynamics work, since you said you find more information helpful.

Daniel

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When I asked why this is fair or whether they simply don't like me,

You’re close. A lingering issue with your comments is that they can be more personal than the medium affords. When you’re writing to a large group of people on the internet, they’re not going to hear you in the way that people need to be heard. That needs to come from somewhere else. They’ll only be able to approach what you say from the group’s shared reality, and gaps get filled in with whatever’s going on in the reader. This is what dissolves discourse, and what we need to prevent on Hacker News. It’s why we say ‘substantive’.

Warmly,

Scott

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Now, I'm pretty sure I'm just an idiot, but I have no idea what this means. All of this could have been avoided by simply saying "Hey, your comments on this topic are kind of annoying and not really a good fit for HN. Could you knock it off?"

I'd be like oh yeah, you're right, that makes sense. Sorry.

But no, apparently people are "not hearing me in the way people need to be heard."

So... shrug. Whatever. There are better things to worry about anyway. And really, I don't matter much, and neither did yummyfajitas. HN will go along fine without us. But it sucks to be sidelined.

The thing is, it was fun to write for HN, and to compete here. It was fun to have my ideas challenged and to find out I was mistaken. That's the whole point! There's no better place to figure out the truth.

But apparently mistakes are not allowed, and the response to making a mistake is to be gaslighted by putting your comments at the bottom without telling you and slowbanning you without warning until you just give up and stop coming back. I sent two more emails and got no reply.

I can only imagine how hard their job is. HN has exploded in popularity, and Dan and Scott are probably the only two people who are allowed to have access to hn@ycombinator.com. The emails sent to that address can be extremely sensitive at times. But that means it's a big scaling problem: judgements have to be swift, correct, fair, and balanced. And even at five minutes per email, they are probably spammed with a hundred emails every week. That adds up.

So yeah, I get why this happened. Really. I'm not really trying to make a fuss or complain much. This is just pent-up energy from missing HN. I've been on this site since I was 18, and it felt like a second home. Being "marked" as inferior by someone you respect is disheartening.