This seems like a rather unjustified and wanton punishment to me. I can't see anything in his history that is worthy of such treatment. I scan around other areas of HN and see people who are blatant trolls appearing everywhere and they aren't hallbanned. Yet someone, like josephcooney, who appears to have a brain and attempts to be actively involved in moderate and reasonable discussion is axed?

Just goes to show that HN is becoming a ghetto, that's if it isn't already one.

Poor form if you ask me.

My first account was hellbanned after my first comment (I was stupid enough to make a joke). I had no idea for weeks, and hellbanning also makes the site incredibly slow.

I only realised after I logged out and the site was fast. It's absolutely absurd to hellban someone after 1 comment (and it wasn't racist, aggressive, etc). What's wrong with warnings, or at least telling me I was banned?

I can't see how it's justified, his comment history isn't so bad: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=josephcooney

A hellban should be a last resort - it's rather a cruel punishment.

What does that/do you mean?

The user josephcooney left a comment on this post but it's invisible to everyone. This is called 'hell banning'.

I've never seen an example of this where other users are made away of it though. Is it to serve as a warning?

It's generally so that the person in question knows they've been hellbanned, as it can be difficult to tell if you have been without someone mentioning it.

The purpose of hellbanning is precisely so the person in question doesn't know.

The purpose of hellbanning is to prevent people from ruining the site. How exactly josephcooney was ruining HN by posting "The question didn't seem rude to me at all, either. Why is plain communication so often taken as cynicism/sarcasm?" is a mystery to me.

I don't know why he was hellbanned; I was just explaining the purpose of hellbanning. FWIW after skimming through josephcooney's history, I am also mystified as to why it happened.

The first thing that came my mind is a mod or bot might have seen his handle and considered it a troll account b/c of it's similarity to Joseph Kony

emotional responses by weird aspies is not particularly surprising to me

How do you know?

Click on your name to go to prefs page, turn on show dead.