But those comments from dead useres can be "vouched" for if they appear to be in good faith, and one or more of those seems to take people out of dead status, I think. I'm not sure what points threshold grants that ability, or how long it has existed, but I do it every few month or so when I see a comment that seems to be perfectly fine but the comment is dead.

I think that might be a pretty good mechanism, all said and done. Someone acts in a way the community doesn't accept enough times they go dead, and then if they act acceptably they start getting people responding and participating to them as they come out of dead status. They only get attention, and positive attention, from acting responsibly.

HN would be a useless trove of violence and hate if all [dead] comments were automatically unhid. Folks who are into 8chan might be into a community like that, but I personally much prefer the moderated approach taken today.

> HN would be a useless trove of violence and hate if all [dead] comments were automatically unhid.

I read with showdead=yes and it is nowhere near that description. In fact dead posts are not even that common on most articles. And most of the dead posts, while on average low quality, are very rarely hateful or anything like that.

The question is are they few and not quite as bad because the shadowbanning, or in spite of it. Those comments can't be responded to without vouching for them, and I doubt most people are going to vouch for them just to respond, unless the comment has some merit. How many people just stop commenting because they are getting no interaction? how many additional posts are prevented because people can't respond to those comments?

Like many policies that might actually have an effect, I'm hesitant to say exactly how much it achieves without data comparing what it's like without it.

I read with showdead=yes as well and can vouch for your experience. You are not contradicting the parent post, IIUC, however: I take it seattle_spring was talking about how HN would be if it lacked the system or something like it at all.

There used to be one dead user that would post... wild racist stuff due to mental illness. But lately yes, I agree with this characterization.

Vouch takes the comment out of dead status. I then see other dead comments by the same user so I don't think it takes the user out of dead status.

I think it depends. I've vouched for a comment and then seen subsequent comments not be dead. I suspect there's a bit more to the machanisn, but I think it can lead to being bit dead anymore, even if it just triggers a mod rereview of user comments to decide if they get a second chance.

I'm not even remotely surprised, and that doesn't really change my point.