Fun fact: My dad worked on the TransAmerica Pyramid as an electrician. He once took me to work. I was always asking him about the very top.

That day, he took me to the top. He opened a steel door, and set up a 6' wooden ladder. He climbed up the ladder, and there was a 1' x 1' square that you could fit your head through. He stuck his head through, and said it wasn't that great. I knew he was playing it down, for my sake.

I asked him one more time if I could climb up and look.

He climbed down, picked me up, and he climbed the ladder, and put my head through the hole. The hole was unfinished, and it was dirty inside the space. I remember seeing a gum wrapper, and that fine construction dirt up there. Looking back it was probably Sheetrock dust.

I vaguely remember I could see the city, but the glass, or plexiglass, was dirty. It was neat though. The kids at school didn't believe me. He didn't want me to climb in, but I asked.

The best part of that day was being with my dad. We ate lunch, and my dad said, 'Well at least your mom took the wrapper off the cheese today.' (This was the late 60's, or 70's, and my mom hated being a homemaker.)

icantdrive55, you've been shadowbanned for a long time, and I see no obvious reason for it in your comment history. I'd suggest getting in touch with the site admins to inquire.

Indeed. I have them tagged as 'shitposter' (with the HN Enhancement Suite Chrome extension), but I just had a look and I'm not even sure why I felt that tag was justified.

At worst there's a lot of 'low-quality' rambling, but usually I then tag the user as 'shitty poster' (my approach to categorization can be a bit odd) and I'll downvote the worst of the comments when I see them.

Could it be that after a certain number of heavily downvoted comments it causes an automatic shadowban? Or maybe some deleted or edited comments that were reason to do so?

I suspect it's because he posts reddit-style free writing stories. Maybe a year or two that was unacceptable on HN, but given that at this point, HN and reddit are indistinguishable from each other, I agree that there's no point in keeping him shadowbanned.

Stories were always welcome. Complaints comparing HN and Reddit are an annoying occurence since time immemorial, too.

Calling them "indistinguishable" is the kind of "welp!" hyperbole that excuses — no, encourages — the slide you bemoan.

If that's what HN is, congratulations: You just helped make it that way a little bit more.

I'm not sure where your hostile tone is coming from -- I prefer reddit to HN, and don't have any issues with them being (more) similar. I only used that as a descriptor for his stories because I've heard that used as an explicit reason for people having downvoted/flagged similar types of posts in the past.

Thank you for that neat little story!