Hellbanning (as opposed to the many, many other options available to a moderator) is one of the most disrespectful and passive-aggressive types of moderation.<p>To clarify, a hell-ban is the type of ban where a user&#x27;s posts are hidden from everybody except themselves (and on HN, those with &quot;showdead&quot; enabled in their profile settings).<p>It ranks right between simply redirecting a login to a browser-bomb page (which is slightly more evil, except for the part where it doesn&#x27;t potentially waste months of a person&#x27;s time) and slow-bombing&#x2F;random timeouts&#x2F;delays (which is ever so slightly less of a dick move to do to someone&#x27;s account, yet almost always works better than a hell-ban).<p>Except in the most extreme cases (anything short of a mentally disturbed, obsessive, or dangerous person that otherwise just won&#x27;t go away), reaching for a hellban is always the wrong choice, because there&#x27;s always another moderation option that deals with the situation both more effectively, as well with more respect and dignity to one&#x27;s entire userbase.