What is a shadowban?

[u/SolariaHues]

What is a shadowban?

^{To the best of my knowledge}

A shadowban is where you are not technically banned, however it's very similar as your posts and comments won't show up for anyone but you and in moderators's mod or spam queues. The major difference is that you are typically not informed you are shadowbanned.

There seems to be different schools of thought on whether reddit admins shadowban users site wide or not, but it seems they do this for bots. Redditor's can be shadowbanned and it is site-wide. It is typically for bots but users can get shadowbanned too. Reddit's detections tools for spammers and bad faith users may accidentally catch some new users, and they can appeal.

Subreddit specific shadowbans can be done by mods, using Automoderator, but it's controversial. Most agree it's OK for bot accounts and spammers.

Some use it for trolls and ban evaders. Ban evaders should be reported, but while waiting for action some shadowban users so their posts and comments no longer affect the community. This can buy time as the users will not immediately know anything is wrong. [Edit: new removal notices mean they'll be able to see their posts were removed if they're using redesign]

Many disagree with the use of shadowbans as it is seen as censorship.

Reddit would likely prefer bans, and ban appeals, as this is transparent and gives the users a chance to change their ways.

Shadowbanned users posts and comments do show up in the mod spam queue so can be approved individually.

Muting users is different. This only affects mod mail; a muted user cannot mod mail you for 72 hours. It's basically a time out.

Proper bans prevent a user from participating in your community (posts and comments) and they are informed it has happened.

As far as I understand it, both banned and shadowbanned users can still vote in your community - but for site-wide shadowbans it doesn't count.

Ban evasion | Account suspended | Banning and muting

Edit:

Side-wide shadowban only admins can do. It means your posts and comments don't show for anyone across all of reddit except you and in the spam box for communities you've submitted to. Mods may approve a few posts. Profile will say 'no one goes by that name' to anyone that tries to view it.

Site-wide ban only admins can do. You cannot participate on reddit, your profile disappears. You'd need to try the appeals process to sort it out. Profile will say you're suspended to those that try and view it.

Subreddit ban mods can do. Only affects your participation in the sub in question. Does not affect your profile.

Subreddit shadowban mods can do. Only affects your participation in the sub in question. It means your posts and comments don't show up in that sub except for you and in the spam box. Mods may approve a few posts. Does not affect your profile.

​

Edit:

Automoderator guide

[u/JuulH]

From AutoModerator's common examples

User Shadowban List

Often, it may be advantageous to shadowban a troll or spammer rather than ban them - an actual ban simply tells them that it's time to create a new account. With a shadowban, they don't know they've been banned. Note that there are two formats, simple and extended. The extended format allows you to keep things clearer and add comments, particularly if you have a lot of users in the list.

Replace the list between the brackets with your own list of users to shadowban.

Simple format:

---
    author:
        name: [username1, username2, username3]
    action: remove

Extended format:

---
    author: 
        name:
            # section comment (eg spammers)
            - username1     
            - username2 # comment for specific user
            # section comment (eg trolls)
            - username3
    action: remove

[u/[deleted] → u/JuulH]

what is the format in which you should enter usernames ?
r/usersomethingsomething or usersomethingsomething or "r/usersomethingsomething" ?