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Do we already have shadowbans?

I noticed that the comment counts don't seem to line up with the total comments on this post, and a couple others. Do we already have shadow bans in place here, or is this just some delay issue?

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In my opinion, shadowbans are an appropriate measure in only two circumstances:

  1. the target is a bot, not a real human

  2. the target is an alt who is attempting to evade regular public bans

Precisely because these are cases where a real ban is ineffective because the target will just try again with new accounts repeatedly, and the shadowness helps prevent them from knowing it's necessary. Shadowbanning a real human for regular rule breaking is sinister and evil, the only purpose it serves is to reduce transparency for mod decisions.

I'm willing to use it during periods of high new-troll activity; if there's a bunch of people making new accounts just to post bad stuff then I'll simply remove it. In a day or two we can turn the standard activity filters on, though, and that'll help things enormously.

actually maybe I should just turn those on now.