I'm a guest, so I like listening in (and participating at times) to the community. As a guest, it's a privilege to be here.
But I have a very simple rule about websites: the site should do things that I naturally expect. If I provide a credit card, I don't expect that credit card to be used for other purchases. If I provide an email, I don't expect to be spammed. If I cancel a membership, I don't expect to be able to access the site.
And if I provide a comment that appears to be legit, I expect other people to be able to read it. When I vote something up, I expect that vote to make a difference. In short, if you provide what appears to be a way of communicating with others, it had damn well be a way of communicating.
When website owners violate that standard of fairness, sorry to say, I find it unethical. They are presenting me with a picture of the world that they know not to be true. Not as bad as using my credit card to make other purchases, but bad.
The "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" argument is fundamentally flawed. It's the obnoxious protester who turns out to be right every now and then. It's the guy pleading for an unpopular cause that manages to sway public opinion. In short, we desperately need diversity of opinion and manners.
What happens is, people change and sites no longer serve them. Whatever the intent of the "feature", the effect seems to be preventing folks from changing. To enforce group homogeneity.
Like I said, I'm happy to be here and follow whatever rules there are. But this hellbanning shit is way fucked up. I don't care how many millions of users you have, screwing over folks for the greater good -- and lying to their face about it -- isn't a good thing at all.
How many hours of people's lives do you get to rob them of, pretending to let them publicly comment, before it's a bad thing? 10? 100? 1000? If a thousand people were actively commenting and nobody could read them, where do they go to get that part of their life back? Who says it's okay to lie like that? Just because you are a guest in somebody's house, they should treat you this way? I don't think so.
We act as if people are simply cogs in some great machine, the machine of the site. Not precious humans.
My opinion, for what it's worth. A bit over the top and theatrical, sure, but I exaggerate to make a point. Hopefully folks are able to read and understand it. There's no bright line between "I hellbanned this guy for being that .01% of folks who are impossible to deal with" and "I didn't like Joe, so let's just let him think he's contributing" You start down this road, there is no turning off. It's either acceptable or not. To me it's not.
These are tough problems, yes. But simply because you have something that works doesn't mean that it is the right thing to do. EDIT: Note slowbanning is fine. Nobody says you have to have a responsive site, just an honest one.
Fair enough. This is the way everybody feels before they try to run a community site.
But the thing is, as soon as you have a big community that you're personally responsible for, you find that there are people who you just really wish would go away. They're making the place worse, possibly without even realizing it. You need to get rid of them, but if you kick them out explicitly they'll just make a new account and come back. The most important thing is to stop them making things worse right now. Anything else is secondary.
It's important to consider that online communities are in no way democratic and do not have the concept of "free speech". That's tough to swallow, having spent your whole life knowing how free speech is the most important thing ever.
"Free Speech" is you being able to write whatever you want on your blog without the government taking it down. It's very different from being able to write whatever you want on HackerNews without the spam filter taking it down.
If you need any explanation as to why, turn "showdead" on for a few days and try to pick out the content from in between the real-estate spam.
Unfortunately, banning abusive or spamming users is basically providing feedback that they have been caught. So allowing them to continue expending effort instead of just creating a new account that will also have to be caught and banned creates a more difficult terrain for the abuser.
"hellbanning" in my mind, though, ought typically be applied to automated spammers and other miscreants, not actual humans with opinions, etc.
Automated spammers wouldn't care if their input was ignored or not. Hellbanning would have a good chance of working only with real humans (miscreants included)
The point of hellbanning is keeping the spam coming from one username or IP, and then not displaying it. If you throw a "You have been banned" message back to a bot, then eventually a human is going to read it, make note of it, and recreate the account or connect from a different IP.
It's the obnoxious protester who turns out to be right every now and then. It's the guy pleading for an unpopular cause that manages to sway public opinion. In short, we desperately need diversity of opinion and manners.
It's the obnoxious users who destroy that diversity by driving out everyone else. Getting rid of them restores it.
How many hours of people's lives do you get to rob them of, pretending to let them publicly comment, before it's a bad thing?
How many hours of your and other people's live are you willing to let a disruptive, vitrolic user steal before it's worse than the alternative?
There's no bright line between "I hellbanned this guy for being that .01% of folks who are impossible to deal with" and "I didn't like Joe, so let's just let him think he's contributing" You start down this road, there is no turning off.
Slippery slope arguments are a pretty poor excuse for an ethical system in the face of moral grey areas and conflicting issues.
But I have a very simple rule about websites: the site should do things that I naturally expect. If I provide a credit card, I don't expect that credit card to be used for other purchases. If I provide an email, I don't expect to be spammed. If I cancel a membership, I don't expect to be able to access the site.
And if I provide a comment that appears to be legit, I expect other people to be able to read it. When I vote something up, I expect that vote to make a difference. In short, if you provide what appears to be a way of communicating with others, it had damn well be a way of communicating.
When website owners violate that standard of fairness, sorry to say, I find it unethical. They are presenting me with a picture of the world that they know not to be true. Not as bad as using my credit card to make other purchases, but bad.
The "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" argument is fundamentally flawed. It's the obnoxious protester who turns out to be right every now and then. It's the guy pleading for an unpopular cause that manages to sway public opinion. In short, we desperately need diversity of opinion and manners.
What happens is, people change and sites no longer serve them. Whatever the intent of the "feature", the effect seems to be preventing folks from changing. To enforce group homogeneity.
Like I said, I'm happy to be here and follow whatever rules there are. But this hellbanning shit is way fucked up. I don't care how many millions of users you have, screwing over folks for the greater good -- and lying to their face about it -- isn't a good thing at all.
How many hours of people's lives do you get to rob them of, pretending to let them publicly comment, before it's a bad thing? 10? 100? 1000? If a thousand people were actively commenting and nobody could read them, where do they go to get that part of their life back? Who says it's okay to lie like that? Just because you are a guest in somebody's house, they should treat you this way? I don't think so.
We act as if people are simply cogs in some great machine, the machine of the site. Not precious humans.
My opinion, for what it's worth. A bit over the top and theatrical, sure, but I exaggerate to make a point. Hopefully folks are able to read and understand it. There's no bright line between "I hellbanned this guy for being that .01% of folks who are impossible to deal with" and "I didn't like Joe, so let's just let him think he's contributing" You start down this road, there is no turning off. It's either acceptable or not. To me it's not.
These are tough problems, yes. But simply because you have something that works doesn't mean that it is the right thing to do. EDIT: Note slowbanning is fine. Nobody says you have to have a responsive site, just an honest one.