How are we better off with this list being secret and being kept away from us? Are you saying that we are better off not knowing what’s in this list? Why?
Because it would cause largely pointless discussions about the content of the list. Maybe you feel like "yourpointofview.com" has really compelling content that you would like to discuss. The HN moderation team thinks it does not and ultimately it's their call.
Do you think professional spammers don't know they are on the list? I don't buy this for a second. They will immediately see that their posts are not showing up.
I think professional spammers have no idea what news.ycombinator.com is, besides an entry in a huge list of domains in their database, and would not take the time to implement a custom tool to check whether their posts are successfully getting through here. It's just a numbers game for them.
You and I have no idea how HN spam detection works - that's literally what you appear to be frustrated about.
Maybe they detect that the person is visiting from the same set of IPs and show the post even while logged out. (I strongly suspect that similar measures are in place to prevent bigco employees from mass upvoting their latest press release.)
Maybe they use browser fingerprinting somehow.
Ultimately it doesn't matter - dang et al. are going to do what seems to work for them to reduce their own workload and keep this place working as they want it to. If you don't like it there are many unmoderated forums to participate in.
>If you don't like it there are many unmoderated forums to participate in.
Classic reddit deflection whenever moderation is questioned. I'd rather at least try to start a dialouge before moving camp yet again. That shouldn't be my first instinct whenever some ruling I disagree with arises.
OP’s comment is better suited to be taken in reference to the amount of domains banned rather than the “secrecy” of the list. I’m interested in how users are worse off with regards to anything by not knowing what sites are banned.
