I'll go ahead and call Dan a friend, display my "not a shill for YC" bona fides, vouch for Dan as not a toxic person, and go on to criticize him for being so concerned about the appearance of toxicity that he's backing down on an issue he should stand his ground over. If he says HN moderation won't hellban someone for criticizing a YC company, take it to the bank.

I feel compelled to add: the accusation seems baseless. Over the several years I've been participating in these forums I cannot remember a single instance of anyone getting hellbanned or otherwise penalized just for criticizing a YC company.

You may be right. I'll look at the comment later and see if I should have written it differently. There's no time to reflect just now.

I try hard not to let personal irritation leak through in my HN comments, but I do fail at it. The most I can claim is a willingness to correct mistakes.

It's wildly inappropriate to lob a blanket accusation of fraud against every single person who has ever complained about your moderation.

People have wildly divergent views as to what's appropriate, what's a little rude, and what's over the line. This means that even if you really truly believe that there was NEVER a mistake made during moderation, that some people will truly believe what they said.

Good moderation requires a ton of empathy and kindness.

It's probably a lesson to me that the one time I didn't hedge by saying "almost" or something like that, someone objects to my "blanket accusation". Actually, I originally wrote "almost never" (or something similar). But then I realized I couldn't actually remember a case where someone provided a specific link to back up his or her grand claim of why they were banned. So in a fit of impetuousness I lopped off the "almost". I did leave in "nearly always", though.

> Good moderation requires a ton of empathy and kindness.

I try, but don't always succeed. Thanks for the reminder. I appreciate it.

Keep in mind that people might not want to link the example to associate their current account with a banned account to avoid getting banned again.

I appreciate your willingness to see both sides and think of a good-faith interpretation here. That's the Principle of Charity which HN can use a lot more of. However, the users in question are typically quite accomplished at making throwaway accounts for specific purposes. Several have done so in this very thread.

There's no way, barring some freak outlier, that we banned anyone for criticizing YC or a YC-funded startup. If someone really did feel that way, nothing would be easier to clear up. The real issue, in the overwhelming majority of cases, is repeatedly flouting the HN guidelines.

For what it's worth.. I don't even read that much, and I've not been here for that long, but I often was impressed by how much you actually do engage and do seem to care, a lot, to do right by everyone, in public. To say you lack empathy and kindness as a moderator in general would be just silly. I say this as someone who strongly dislikes hellbanning and even grey text (I still think slashdot nailed it with voluntary, customizable filtering), so you know I mean it :P

I disagree! (with your pre-edit, reading "It's not that you expressed yourself poorly").

That's exactly what happened here. (And maybe Daniel can edit his comment.)

Daniel does a really good job, and is extremely responsive by email and on here. It is obvious where he wrote "Ever notice how people who make claims about why they got banned never provide links to the posts in question?" is borne of deep frustration. He would like to follow those links and improve the site, but can't. It's obvious that his comment is written out of frustration.

Let's be very clear: hellbanning is the worst and rudest thing that exists on any respectable Internet forum. Hellbanning literally wastes hours of the time of people who contribute great insight for free. The comments on this site are good and provided for free by people. Hellbanning turns this goodwill on its face, like a goodwill jar you can put bills into but which go into a furnace.

Daniel (and PG) knows very well that hellbanning is a nuclear weapon and the rudest thing that any Internet forum can possibly do, that is actually being done.

You have stories of people only learning they were hellbanned after literally taking the time to email someone a link to something thoughtful they had written. A lot of hellbanning has been (historically) in error.

It is one of the main reasons that I would never consciously leave a comment up if it reaches -3, even if I stand by it 100%, it's important, and the community happens to be wrong in its groupthink and I clearly have explained why. I would delete it instead.

Note that I have learned this behavior, and so have other contributors on this site.

It's one of the things that makes this site great.

So even though it is a nuclear option and the worst, rudest thing that any respectable forum does, in the sense that time is money literally stealing from users, and stealing donations at that and throwing them away, at the same time it is one of the things that allows this site to function as one of the best sites on the planet.

So you can bet that Daniel is extremely serious about following hellbanning claims and improving this process. It is difficult and he walks a very fine line.

He's doing a fantastic job at present in a very difficult undertaking. Kudos, Daniel, and keep up the good work. I can read your comment for what it is :)

"It is one of the main reasons that I would never consciously leave a comment up if it reaches -3, even if I stand by it 100%, it's important, and the community happens to be wrong in its groupthink and I clearly have explained why. I would delete it instead."

I am confused. Your preferred path is to avoid conflict such that you would rather delete than be disagreed with? If your opinion differs from groupthink, you would make it go away? I guess that is similar to not posting in the first place (because of groupthink you disagree with) , just retroactive.

Probably better than my not posting in the first place :)

His point, one that I strongly agree with, is that the threat of being hellbanned for comments that get downvoted is enough to stifle discussion on HN. Honestly, how often do you see passionate debate in HN comments?

> Good moderation requires a ton of empathy and kindness.

Which is sadly lacking among many, if not most, moderators of online communities across the net. I'm not saying that's the case with dang; in fact, I wouldn't know. But it's a thankless job that is akin to working in a call center without pay. It takes a strong personality to keep one's head above the layer of filth floating atop the waters of discourse.

I do know, and Dan has an enormous amount of empathy and kindness. But it is a hard job, it takes a toll, and I think this thread demonstrates how much he's willing to re-visit what he's said. (Even though I'm quite sympathetic to what Thomas said upthread.)

I agree with this, but I think it's worth noting that the prompt here was someone making a specific claim. One doesn't need to believe they have made no mistakes to be certain they've never made a particular mistake, and there's significantly less room for differences in interpretation (though that's not to say there's none).

I was responding to this part of dang's post:

If users could look at the actual record, their perennial sob story of perfectly reasonable behavior struck down by bullying censors would evaporate. So they make new accounts and post statements designed to be unanswerable.

I interpreted that as dang attributing essentially every complaint to malice, and simultaneously dismissing all other explanations.

A misleading summary, since you're the one who introduced the idea of "malice" and "fraud". Dan's claim admits to HN users who believe they've been hellbanned for criticizing YC companies. Yours doesn't.

> I try hard not to let personal irritation leak through in my HN comments, but I do fail at it.

we are all, for good and for bad, unavoidably human.

I don't even think that answer was even that bad, especially when compared to the parent. Here was a wild and personal accusation with no support at all, not even anecdotal, and pretty toxic itself.

Replying courteously even to baseless and ranty accusations is probably a good idea, but I can't say I'd blame someone for not doing it.

I see the mod(s?) deal with this kind of conspiracy accusation almost on a daily basis, and I can definitely see how patience can wear thin when every nut does that. Dang implying that this accusation was baseless was probably rash, but that's the only thing I see even remotely out of line here.

Moderation is a pretty thankless job, and like sysadmins, people never appreciate you for getting things to work right when they work right. The definition of success is invisibility to users. But the second it goes even a bit wrong, it's a shitstorm. Here's yet another piece of empathy that one needs to consider.