In other words, allowing banned accounts to post (but making their posts default-invisible) is the way to minimize their effect on a large open forum like HN, where there's no barrier to creating accounts. Attempting to restrict them further would just end up exposing more people to the abusive posts.
But maybe there should be some friction to creating accounts, like requiring a few worthwhile submissions before granting commenting privileges (which is already how it works with downvoting and flagging), or revealing the email addresses of persistently abusive accounts. Just wiping he accounts and forcing them to create new ones increases the friction, which lowers the incentive to keep doing it.
HN would have ceased to exist long ago if we were "doing nothing about overtly abusive behavior", so I'm a little taken aback at your assumption that we were doing nothing about these.
But you're not, really. Shadowbanning abuse accounts with a keyword filter is the weakest possible response, and that's why there's an endless influx of them. Since you can't really impose consequences (because usage is anonymous, any email address will do and VPNs make it impossible to track abusers), there should be some more friction to make casual abuse a less attractive pastime.
But maybe there should be some friction to creating accounts, like requiring a few worthwhile submissions before granting commenting privileges (which is already how it works with downvoting and flagging), or revealing the email addresses of persistently abusive accounts. Just wiping he accounts and forcing them to create new ones increases the friction, which lowers the incentive to keep doing it.
HN would have ceased to exist long ago if we were "doing nothing about overtly abusive behavior", so I'm a little taken aback at your assumption that we were doing nothing about these.
But you're not, really. Shadowbanning abuse accounts with a keyword filter is the weakest possible response, and that's why there's an endless influx of them. Since you can't really impose consequences (because usage is anonymous, any email address will do and VPNs make it impossible to track abusers), there should be some more friction to make casual abuse a less attractive pastime.