The reason I dislike this, is that besides obviously racist or otherwise inappropriate comments, there are regularly normal seeming comments that are dead. Now, there may be reasons for this I am just not privy to, but I feel it hinders discussion when some opinions that don't seem problematic are just silenced like this.
[Edit]: And rereading my own comment, I think I want to clarify that I am not talking about free speech issues or political discussions here, but I regularly encounter factual seeming or explanatory comments in technical discussions that are dead and it just baffles me.
Hacker News is a lot less hospitable in reality than it seems to an outsider. If you just register a lurker account and enable showdead and look around it's a veritable zombietown in here.
That's not true.
New accounts are subject to extra software restrictions because of past abuses by trolls and spammers, though. I don't see any way around this.
I'll guess again! My VPN just happened to be IP banned which I had no way of knowing before registering.
I'm sure new people appreciate being labeled as abusive trolls and spammers just for registering and I’m sure new people don't stay either.