>Almost everyone banned on HN is banned publicly, with a public message explaining why.
I would love for this to be the case, however I quite extensively investigate this phenomenon and this does not match what I've seen. I'd like for us to be better than shadowbans. In some cases, I don't even get to vouch, it's just a comment that is banned-banned. It feels the worst when they're saying something substantive to the conversation and we have no means to surface the comment.
Some type of annual amnesty consideration or something of that nature is in order, or soon we'll recreate other echo chambers that are slowly fading out.
Every time I've looked into it, when you see suddenly and without reason ban-banned after a string of real comments, the backstory has been that it's someone with a track record under other usernames.
At some point, no matter what HN does, being comfortable with its moderation requires you to take Dan's word for things. I take his word for it on shadowbans.
Ironically, I'm irritated with moderation in the other direction: ten years of "if you keep breaking the guidelines under alternate accounts, we'll ban your real account" sort of makes my blood boil (people having long-running alts does that too), but I roll with it, because I couldn't do the job better than Dan and Tom do.
>the backstory has been that it's someone with a track record under other usernames.
This has gaps, as you know, and doesn't wash. Let someone turn a new leaf. Amnesty puts a stop to this.
I don't think it does, no. I've seen people raise innuendo about this kind of thing for over 10 years and have never seen someone vindicated. Maybe you have an example you can share.