I actually post in fear of the hellban. I have lost two 100+ karma accounts already and even had my IP blacklisted for a while for saying "Is this really an HN worthy post?" to some general world news on an emotive topic.
Well that's explicitly against the site guidelines, and I think the mods take it very seriously because we're already a highly critical demographic, without some checks and balances it would be very easy to devolve into a droning whingefest. If you feel the need to proclaim something un-HN-worthy you can choose to either flag it or ignore it (or rip it shreds on objective grounds).