Yes, that’s correct, if you have enough rep you’re able to “unghost the dead” and “see the dead” at any rep simply by creating an account, clicking “show dead” — though always assumed a user would notice or they’d just stop posting. Though there’s to my knowledge no easy way to only see the shadowban users aside from writing script that watches the new comments.

Pro tip, if normally people vote or comment on your comments, you’re not getting either, access HN via a private session without cookies and not signed in, then click to where your comment would be, if it not visible, you have been ghosted; to be extra sure, then create a throwaway account, click profile, turn on “show dead”, load the profile that might be shadowban, click comments, and if the comments say [DEAD] with no [FLAGGED] you have been shadowban; email mods if you have questions via the “contact” mailto link in the footer.

Now, looking at all the comments, some which intent appears to be helpful, makes me wonder if shadowlands for users are not as toxic as the behavior they seek to remove; that is they isolating a user, making they think no one cares to reply to them, etc.