Michael Arrington at Techcrunch is reporting that tabloid blog Valleywag, which is sort like TMZ for geeks, has been banned from low-fi news aggregator Hacker News after a 60-40 vote to get rid of them.

Valleywag, which is a Gawker Media enterprise run by everybody’s favorite blog entrepreneur Nick Denton, treats the tech community much like TMZ treats Hollywood. The sex lives of and personal blunders of high profile tech celebrities are brought to the fore in a barrage of often mean-spirited gossip.

Hacker News is hosted by Y-Combinator, whose founder is Paul Graham, and Graham asked this question on Hacker News yesterday: “Several users have suggested we ban Valleywag, not for anything in particular that they write about, but because their articles are always such deliberate linkbait. I personally agree. In 99% of Valleywag articles, the most interesting thing is the title. But I don’t want to be accused of censorship, so I thought I’d ask for opinions first.”

He then posted a poll, and the anti-Valleywag crew holds a significant but not completely dominant lead. Is a 60-40 vote enough to ban an entire website, or is it, as many have suggested, the “tyranny of the majority?”

What is becoming increasingly clear is that if one wants to make a name for themselves in the tech community, it’s best to be prepared to get skewered on a regular basis. With so much access and knowledge about producing and disseminating social media, and the uber-networked nature of the tech community, it’s inevitable that one’s mistakes and missteps will be available for public consumption quickly and visibly. It’s also far easier to lob bombs from a keyboard than in person.

With other stories about a Florida girl getting beat up for posting on MySpace, a high profile private school harassing teachers on Facebook, and suicides resulting from online fraud and bombthrowing, it’s a new wild west online and people had better develop some pretty thick skin if they’re going to venture out into it.

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