HN User Bans

Discussions center on Hacker News moderation practices, including account bans, hellbanning, reasons for suspensions like spam or trolling, transparency in banning, and unbanning policies.

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20
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5
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#1078
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Keywords

polygon.com www.npr HN AskReddit ChapoTrapHouse CTA P.S algolia.com banned ban accounts account trolls offense site guidelines user comments reason like

Sample Comments

whamlastxmas Jun 17, 2019 View on HN

I suspect this is in part retaliation of someone or people getting banned for stupid reasons

AnimalMuppet Sep 27, 2025 View on HN

Not me. I'm not a moderator. But yes, accounts do get banned for such things.

merinowool May 1, 2018 View on HN

What if a user you want to ban is not fraudulent, but a nuisance?

dang Dec 11, 2018 View on HN

We usually tell people that we've banned them. There are exceptions, mostly for spammers and serial trolls.https://hn.algolia.com/?query=we%27ve%20banned&sort=byDate&d...

iamacyborg May 23, 2023 View on HN

Maybe being banned is a good signal that you should stop being an arsehole?

Navarr Nov 28, 2013 View on HN

I feel like it's a bit harsh to blacklist you without a takedown warning.

davidcbc Nov 28, 2024 View on HN

Then the user should be able to post exactly what they posted to get banned without fear

dang Nov 15, 2019 View on HN

Your account isn't penalized in any way. It was banned at one point, but we unbanned it when it was mostly posting good comments. We try to do that as much as we can.

Anonbrit Jan 12, 2026 View on HN

"If you've enough users that banning you would affect our bottom like negatively..."

kentrado Jun 28, 2022 View on HN

Doesn't mean people don't get banned for it.