HN Explorer

Poll: Do You Use the HN Showdead Feature

16 points by JacobAldridge ↗ HN
I find HN's showdead feature provides a broader overview of our site. It let's you see links (mostly spam, sometimes hot topic dupes like 37 Signals' $100B valuation) as well as input from users who have been hellbanned.

As an opt-in feature I'm curious how many of us have opted-in, aren't aware of it, or went back to the base model of having that part of the system look after itself.

13 comments

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randallsquared
I started using it just to see what was being banned, but keep using because it's not uncommon for an insightful comment or two to show up dead.
steveklabnik
I use it because every once in a while, I see a dead comment that's totally reasonable, and then I go back in that user's history to try and see what it was that got them banned.

I've seen accounts that have been dead for hundreds of days, with pages of comments, all just whispers into the wind...

edw519
Yes.

My default for anything: show me everything and give me the opportunity to filter it myself. I do the same thing for my customers in everything I build for them. This does several things:

a. It adds dimension. Whether 5% or 95% of the content is already dead, it's better to see it yourself than have someone give you that percentage.

b. It adds perspective. Actually seeing what content has become dead helps better understand the entire landscape.

c. It adds power. It's always more powerful to know what you're filtering.

d. It adds appreciation. Each tree means more after you've already seen the whole forest.

vukk
That's great, if you have the time to filter it all. I use HN because it takes way less time than checking all those RSS feeds. I might miss interesting things, but those are beyond the point of diminishing returns. If it saves my time, I'm happy.

Filtering in HN has it's problems, but I don't turn off the spam filter for few false positives in email either.

ivanstojic
I started using it about a few months back. Then I realized that a couple of what seem to be sane/useful comments are banned, I started thinking twice every time my mouse pointer hovers over the "add comment" button.

The really disturbing thing is that some people don't seem to realize that they have been hellbanned for whatever reason.

JacobAldridge
I suppose a key element of hellbanning (which I interpret as banning without making it obvious, so for example they can still post comments which look live to them, but dead to the rest of us) is not publicising that hellbanning happens.

From a spam perspective, it's great and I wouldn't change the current process (real people can request reinstatement, and I believe it's a fairly straightforward and fair process). But some people have been deaded, changed their ways and could add value, and as you say don't seem to have realised. I know that if I get a run of comments with no vote behaviour (up or down), I'll log off and see if I can see them, to ensure I'm still alive and haven't jumped a shark somewhere.

kilian
6 months or so ago I started a thread whose contents aren't relevant now, but that gained steam very rapidly and then suddenly disappeared. Then other threads got started about the "disappeared" thread (which subsequently disappeared too). That's when I learned about showdead and since then I've had it on.
deweller
Ok. I'll be the one to ask.

What is this feature? I still can't find it after looking.

mistermann
I'm a bit confused as well. Hopefully I haven't been hellbanned myself!
Mz
I can read you and reply to you, so you aren't hellbanned.

Go into your profile. There is a selection that says "showdead". The options are "yes" and "no". (I have no idea if there is a karma threshold.)

I usually have it on "no" but not always. I find the site kind of depressing when it shows dead. Personal issue. Most of the time, I see no reason to Work On my Personal Issue so I do what makes me more psychologically comfortable. I also feel it improves the signal to noise ratio.

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cd34
All this time I thought I was just posting things that weren't interesting, or, my comments just weren't worthy of upvotes. It was odd when I posted a link and noticed that when I clicked on discuss, it didn't show a comment box. Logging out and viewing /newest didn't even show the link.

Oh well. Good luck in your ventures.