Hacker News has a user state in which the user can login and appear to post as normal except that nobody else sees their posts unless the other person has the switch "show dead" set to yes, which is not the default, so basically very few people can see their posts and they are all greyed out like super-downvoted posts.
AFAIK you can get hellbanned automatically (site flags you as a likely spammer) or by a moderator. In most cases the people getting hellbanned deserve it, but in a few the call is questionable (IMO; but this is YC's site and not a democracy).
math0ne is currently in this state. He has a response to this thread that is marked dead (I can see it, you won't see it unless you toggle showdead to yes on your account page).
The fact that he has been in this state for so long and still posts (though not very often) is somewhat mind-boggling.
> The fact that he has been in this state for so long and still posts (though not very often) is somewhat mind-boggling.
well, even if you are not hellbanned, there's very little to show whether your comments are being read or not. hn's commenting model is far more soapbox than discussion.
