The effect is extremely similar though, don't you think? If not worse, for e.g. shadow banning.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Once an account has a history on HN, we tell people that we're banning them and why.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
Might allay some of the accusations we're seeing here of accused abuses.
If that's right, then it's worse than that, because then metaness would consume a lot more resources than it already does, starving the rest of the site of other things we need to work on. That would be a vicious feedback loop; I'd rather look for virtuous ones.
I perceive no corresponding change in the amount of meta threads about mis-moderation; noodling debates based on random accusations are still evergreen here.
If I were involved in moderating HN (thank Christ I'm not), I'd conclude that substantive process-level changes aimed at quelling these kinds of debates probably aren't a productive goal.
Well, I never!
It's apparently a synonym for something I only think of as hell banned. My quirky brain thinks of HN banning as shadow banning because the comments are visible if you have "show dead" on and can often be brought back to life if couched for. (So, you live in the shadows.)
Thus being banned on HN doesn't necessarily mean you have no voice at all. It can mean fewer people will see your comments and only good comments will be brought to life.
This leaves the door open for expressing yourself and even for potentially finding your way back to being a member in good standing, though that may only happen if something substantially changes an your life.
But people do, at times, have substantial positive changes. Homeless people do sometimes get back into housing. Very sick people do sometimes get better. Drug addicts do sometimes get clean.
And then their behavior may improve without them "trying to behave better" because their life sucks less.
In my experience, on the one hand, most adults have some sort of personal problem that complicates their life, and on the other hand, people who dont' seem to be very troubled by what goes on in their personal life are perfectly capable of being disruptive assholes. So there is really no reason to single out specific classes of personal problems as causing disruptive behaviour.
I'm also confused by the way you use the term "sick". Do you mean it as in mental illness, or general sickness, like having the flu, or a chronic disease?
In any case, I think you're looking for a deeper explanation of why people behave like assholes online. I don't think there is one. People sometimes behave like assholes online, even when they're perfectly fine people otherwise. You just have to find a way to make them see their contributions as others see them, then they will stop being assholes because nobody likes to come accorss as an asshole. Online or off.