Ask HN: Will HN allow account and comment deletions? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Will HN allow account and comment deletions?

#101

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 1:45 AM UTC

drewmol wrote: post #89

jacquesm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you have more than 50K HN Karma an extra toolbox opens up next to the usernames, one of those is 'autodoxx' (clearly a weak pun on autodocs). You click the link and it will automatically query google, various Whois tools and other lookup services to get a fix on the user, the end result is a nice little one-page mash-up listing all the domains you own, a bunch of recent photographs, your political leanings, your…

AI, got it. If I get that many, I'll send you a sexy postcard from your previous address.

That would make my day. Please do :)

Re: Ask HN: Will HN allow account and comment deletions?

#102

Post by et-al » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 5:59 AM UTC

grzm wrote: post #90

the-dude wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is strange, there was another, very very similar comment here from another user, which disappeared after about 10-15 minutes. Then 15 minutes later, this comment appears, with only a slight variation in wording. I am starting to doubt myself. Eerie.

I removed it for a couple of reasons: I try to keep my posts substantive (though I have been known to slip) because I strongly value that aspect of HN. And in particular I don't like to feed conspiracy theories, even when it's clear they're in jest. 'jacquesm's post upthread overwhelmed my usual caution, which led to a moment of weakness that I tried to correct. Apologies if it may have (hopefully only temporarily) c…

> I try to keep my posts substantive because I strongly value that aspect of HN

Thanks for trying. I've been noticing more reddit-like comments lately and it's tiring since it worsens the signal:noise ratio here.

Re: Ask HN: Will HN allow account and comment deletions?

#103

Post by drewmol » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

et-al wrote: post #102

grzm wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I removed it for a couple of reasons: I try to keep my posts substantive (though I have been known to slip) because I strongly value that aspect of HN. And in particular I don't like to feed conspiracy theories, even when it's clear they're in jest. 'jacquesm's post upthread overwhelmed my usual caution, which led to a moment of weakness that I tried to correct. Apologies if it may have (hopefully only temporarily) c…

> I try to keep my posts substantive because I strongly value that aspect of HN Thanks for trying. I've been noticing more reddit-like comments lately and it's tiring since it worsens the signal:noise ratio here.

Same. For the record, I did not intend to trigger a sarcastawar. Was hoping for: I went profile --> domain --> whois, validated against redfin/zillow / county court records... --> traded to equifax for salary history or similar

Re: Ask HN: Will HN allow account and comment deletions?

#104

Post by shostack » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 11:37 PM UTC

matte_black wrote: post #34

Honestly, this should never be allowed. It’s archaeology-hostile. It pisses me off to no end when I am searching for information on reddit and come across people replying to deleted posts by some paranoid user who wishes comments were more ephemeral like Snapchat. This is what the next dark age of mankind will be like, people from the future looking for historical information and finding nothing but deleted or decaye…

>"Here’s a tip: if you don’t want something to be up for all time, don’t even bother posting it. Keep it to your self. There are a lot of damning things and incidents that could end people’s careers and reputations that I’ve never posted about because I do not want the permanent liability."

Do you feel it is reasonable to ask this of adolescents who might disregard or circumvent measures their parents put in place (if they even have them)? They are not yet aware of what consequences this can have or the magnitude and seriousness of them. They are not mature enough to do so in many cases.

Re: Ask HN: Will HN allow account and comment deletions?

#105

Post by dang » Sun, Apr 01, 2018, 2:33 PM UTC

the-dude wrote: post #52

DoreenMichele wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever heard of the Streisand Effect? If you are genuinely concerned about your privacy, publicly complaining that you have been doxxed is one of the worst things you can do. It encourages other people to go looking for that info, check how easy it is to find, etc. This inclines me to think your reason for complaining is probably something else. And that makes me wonder if the mods declined to do as you asked because t…

> Ever heard of the Streisand Effect Of course. I am not religious about it, just pointing out even when someone partially doxes you, HN won't remove the comment.

The comment was already removed in the sense of being flagkilled. We don't delete comments outright except when the author requests it. We do sometimes redact comments (and mark them redacted) when they contain personally identifying information. We didn't do that this time because the info (a company name) wasn't obviously personal, and I was worried that censoring it might provoke someone into posting more.

It's a tricky line to walk. If we censor a comment to please one user, other users can easily take offense and turn a little fuss into a big fuss. My sense was that leaving the comment flagkilled was the least risky thing to do: it was removed from the public internet, inaccessible to search engines, and so on. I explained all this to you and asked you to tell us if you still had concerns.

Now that a few months have gone by it's hopefully not so big a risk, and since you obviously do still have concerns, I'll redact the company name from that comment.