That's against the rules, so please don't: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Plenty of explanations about why: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

I'm afraid I do not see this part of the rule explained enough. Why is the identity important there? Wouldn't the content of the messages suffice? Often I do not even look at the name of the poster.

They're saying identity is important because only relating to an identity creates a community. But that's wrong of course, as many anonymous communities prove. I don't recognize 99% of the posters here either; it is indeed the content that makes the community.

I believe the real explanation of why identity is important to them is a bit of social psychology. The theory is that identifying with people makes them less mean to each other. So they probably want consistent identities so people will be more civil, which is one of their stated goals.

In the search link I posted above, there are lots of explanations of this, for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17996295. The point is that HN is a community and a community consists of people relating to one another. The fact that you can pick whatever name you want and it needn't be your real one doesn't change that.

It's also the way HN has always worked. A collection of nameless posts would be a very different kind of forum. Anyone is welcome to start one, but not to turn this one into that one.

So people can judge you by your previous posts.

the alternative to an automated one click action is a lengthy approval process...no one is going to follow this. it is trivial to create a new account. considering the userbase of this site it is even weirder to have shadowbans considering it is trivial to check and then change usernames/IPs.

also the semi-noob phrase is showing the age of that document

Isn't that against the rules, if not then I should do it, I just realised I was shadow banned 4 days ago and posted like an idiot

You can also email us to get unbanned if you want to use the site as intended. We're happy to unban people who give us reason to believe that they'll follow the rules in the future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

How is one to email to get unbanned if one is not aware of the ban? That’s the whole POINT of the shadow ban that HN implemented. One little mistake (or two word post in OP’s case), and you’re shouting at the wall.

So with due respect, Kafkaesque suggestions to contact the mods don’t help. What would help is getting rid of juvenile practices that are arguably ineffective, i. e., shadow bans.

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...