Not a shadowban, and not a mistake. It is the inevitable outcome when an account breaks the site guidelines repeatedly and egregiously.
This is one of those cases where I bent over backwards to try to persuade before banning, including countless warnings on HN itself and dozens of emails back and forth, literally over many years. I don't think you'll find many websites where the moderators try that hard not to ban someone. But that can't go on forever and eventually the slack ran out.
This is one of those cases where I bent over backwards to try to persuade before banning, including countless warnings on HN itself and dozens of emails back and forth, literally over many years. I don't think you'll find many websites where the moderators try that hard not to ban someone. But that can't go on forever and eventually the slack ran out.