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

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

#21

Post by throwaway4719 » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 5:43 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #7

agotterer wrote: post #5

Previous HN thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16661323

I read the whole thing and all I came away with is that basically no one has a fucking clue if it applies, if it does apply technically does it even matter, and if it does matter how it’s supposed to work without fucking up the site. Yay GDPR!

I assume you were being sarcastic, but in this aspect, I actually think the GDPR is great. At least for Europeans.

(The fact that people will find a way of disagreeing about pretty much anything online is a whole other matter.)

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

#22

Post by throwaway4719 » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 5:46 PM UTC

agotterer wrote: post #5

Previous HN thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16661323

I posted that (I'm vgf). My account was rate-limited and the post was very clearly artificially pushed to the second page, then the third. Just minutes before that it had started to climb up the front page relatively quickly.

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

#23

Post by throwaway413 » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 5:49 PM UTC

throwaway4719 wrote: post #22

agotterer wrote: post #5

Previous HN thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16661323

I posted that (I'm vgf). My account was rate-limited and the post was very clearly artificially pushed to the second page, then the third. Just minutes before that it had started to climb up the front page relatively quickly.

What’s the point of your throwaway now?

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

#24

Post by pixl97 » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC

et-al wrote: post #20

legohead wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair, and I understand that pain. It's a couple things. I may actually be wrong, and don't want to leave my stupidity open on the internet for all to see. And secondly, for those who figure out my alias in real life and snoop me up on the internet and find things out about me that I'd prefer to keep private (things I am interested in, activities I partake in, etc).

Why not just create a new account every few weeks? It's trivially simple on reddit and HN, and they offer you some degree of anonymity unlike Facebook. Like Sharparam, reddit search results can be fruitless because of all the deleted answers. Imagine if StackOverflow was like that.

Because in the event of a database leak all those fragments can be assembled into a whole account.

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

#25

Post by zombieprocesses » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 5:54 PM UTC

Also, will the deletions be logical or physical. Will they be shallow or deep? Keep in mind that there are many types of "deletion".

Logical deletions would be just marking the user/comment as deleted ( updating a column in a table ) while keeping the data internally. Physical deletions would mean they remove the data on their servers.

Then the next question is whether the deletions are shallow ( superficial ) or deep ( complete ). For example, they can just do a shallow delete of the account/user on their front-end servers. But that leaves back-end servers, disaster recovery servers, staging servers, storage tape long term backups and also log backups.

Even if data is deleted on all live servers, database and log backups stored on tape and sent off to storage facilities still have your data.

Deleting your account/comment isn't as simple as people generally think.

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

#26

Post by et-al » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

This makes me a bit nostalgic for the older days when you just assumed you were chatting with a bunch of other weirdos online, so everyone went by aliases. And if you ever tired of your old identity, you'd shed that old screenname, sign up with a different one, and maybe never mention the past.

Facebook changed everything by encouraging people to match their online accounts to real names, supply photos of themselves, and their family tree. Usernames became actual people. And all of a sudden, anonymity was lost.

And now people want to be forgotten again. I shake my head at the heavy-handed way of mass deleting comments. It’s understandable for Facebook where the person and account are closely tied, but for sites like HN, I hope we keep the shared knowledge, but just scrub out the name.

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

#27

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

legohead wrote: post #10

FrankBooth wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a nice summary of how to do this available? Or, if not, would you mind posting a few pointers?

It's nothing fancy. I'm simply deleting all my comments/posts on reddit and other forums I've participated in, manually. Of course, you can reach out to the admins and ask them to delete your data, but they may not be responsive... One thing I haven't got to yet, and am not sure how to even approach, is removing my old Usenet posts, which you can find on Google Groups (from 1995!). I still comment on reddit and such,…

removing my old Usenet posts

I think that ship sailed a long time ago!

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

#28

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 5:58 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #19

the-dude wrote: post #12

I have been partially doxed here and HN refuses to remove the comment.

If you are trying to be anonymous you really should try harder, it took me less than a minute to get your home address. For starters you should probably remove any identifying information from your profile.

[deleted]

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

#29

Post by dvfjsdhgfv » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:00 PM UTC

et-al wrote: post #26

This makes me a bit nostalgic for the older days when you just assumed you were chatting with a bunch of other weirdos online, so everyone went by aliases. And if you ever tired of your old identity, you'd shed that old screenname, sign up with a different one, and maybe never mention the past. Facebook changed everything by encouraging people to match their online accounts to real names, supply photos of themselves,…

> Facebook changed everything by encouraging people to match their online accounts to real names

s/encouraging/requiring/

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

#30

Post by stagbeetle » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:02 PM UTC

et-al wrote: post #20

legohead wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair, and I understand that pain. It's a couple things. I may actually be wrong, and don't want to leave my stupidity open on the internet for all to see. And secondly, for those who figure out my alias in real life and snoop me up on the internet and find things out about me that I'd prefer to keep private (things I am interested in, activities I partake in, etc).

Why not just create a new account every few weeks? It's trivially simple on reddit and HN, and they offer you some degree of anonymity unlike Facebook. Like Sharparam, reddit search results can be fruitless because of all the deleted answers. Imagine if StackOverflow was like that.

I tried doing this, but many subreddits have a restriction against account ages. I frequently find myself being unable to post (or I am, but my posts are in the "shadows" with no notice), without getting an AutoMod telling me:

1). Your karma is too low

2). Your account is too young

3). You haven't been subscribed long enough

It's always a turn off when you've written a long and properly sourced info dump, but then the automod deletes it and you have to go fish it out of ceddit et al. And then asking admins to make an exception is always as fun as getting your license renewed. So I do what the OG does: Keep a couple of accounts dedicated to each subject-matter, and delete my posts routinely.

If what I post is important enough, it'll propagate. If it doesn't, it dies. That's not the reason I do it, however. It's a boycott against Reddit as the world's discussion platform. Good luck figuring out the answers to those really important questions or why all the commentators are applauding [deleted] ;)