zlacker

Not a gripe but an idea: rather than ban persons from HN for bad behavior, would it possibly be better to "emprison" them, that is, disallow them from posting for awhile and then, after a few days or weeks, permit them to resume posting?

Reason I ask this is that I recently encountered an HN situation where someone who appeared to be a productive member of the HN community was banned from posting because of (truly) poor etiquette, if not outright bad behavior. However, seeing that he had for over a year been a contributing member, I felt that a total ban was heavy-handed and that simply being punished temporarily for a transgression might have served better.

Is anyone familiar with an online forum that merely temporarily punishes transgressors w/o permanently banning them? Does anyone else think banning is sometimes a bit too much punishment?

>>giardi+(OP)
We effectively have that already, because if users continue to post good comments after being banned, other users will vouch for those and we review vouched comments. When someone who was banned reforms their ways and starts abiding by the site rules, we unban them.

Of course that can be a slow process, but anyone who doesn't want to be banned is invited to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that they'll abide by the rules in the future. And if you see a case of someone being banned that you think is incorrect, you should email us about that too, because we don't see everything.

>>dang+p7
You don't do that anymore. Your correspondence has increasingly turned into approbation and you show an unwillingness to explain why someone is even rate limited.

>>chris_+7X
I realize the rate limit is upsetting you, but we've given you a ton of explanation and detailed information about what you need to do in order to have it lifted. Instead you've been doing the opposite. I'm not sure why that is, but it would be good if you'd stop.

>>dang+gY
I can publish our correspondence if you'd like, perhaps others can say what you told me I need to do?