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Ask HN: Will HN allow account and comment deletions?

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

#41

Post by matte_black »

rwhitman wrote: post #40
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…

Isn't the entire history of communication archeology-hostile?

Yes, but the internet is not purely communication, it's also a store of knowledge. You can find a lot of good information from threads and discussions people have had in the past.

Also, even records of mundane communication people had throughout thousands of years in the past is of great value to archaeologists in learning about how people lived their lives and how different events affected them.

Since we live in a time where we have the privilege of rediscovering the past in greater detail than ever, we should have the introspection to be mindful of what we are leaving for our future as well.

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

#42

Post by et-al »

drewmol wrote: post #32
jacquesm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>If you are trying to be anonymous you really should try harder, it took me less than a minute to get your home address. It may be insightful for others if you divulge your methods.

If a person has a personal domain registered, a whois search may offer up information (which may or may not be accurate).

Most registrars will now hide your info for an additional fee.

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

#43

Post by corin_ »

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…

Why not allow people to remove just the connection to their account but not the content itself?

We all make mistakes and say things we later regret, sure the content forms part of a bigger picture which should be preserved but shouldn’t we be allowed to tidy up our publicly available historic opinions if they don’t match who we are now?

I’m pretty careful in what I post on social media or on websites, but I’ve definitely said things in the past that I wish I hadn’t, both on and offline, and unless I were a person of significant public interest (such as a politician) I don’t think it’s important for those mistakes to be documented for eternity.

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

#44

Post by et-al »

pixl97 wrote: post #24
et-al wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Assuming the database really deletes those records and doesn't just flag them as "deleted".

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

#45

Post by jacquesm »

drewmol wrote: post #32
jacquesm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>If you are trying to be anonymous you really should try harder, it took me less than a minute to get your home address. It may be insightful for others if you divulge your methods.

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 sexual preferences, your last three known addresses, any children you have and where they go to school, your present location on a google maps page (it moves when you do, it's near real-time, maybe a minute or two delayed), your current employer and an estimate of your bank balance and some possible avenues for blackmail.

All this powered by the friendly AI of some HN start-ups that want to show off their technology, and blessed by the Holy Trinity of online surveillance: Peter Thiel, Eric Schmidt and Mark Zuckerberg. This is Hacker News after all.

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

#46

Post by the-dude »

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.

There is no reasonable reason for any member of this community to specifically dig up stuff and post it here. What was doxed was inferred from a comment I made, not from the info in my profile.

Still, the comment which provides no other valuable information is retained.

I try to handle my privacy pragmatic, it doesn't have to be as black and white as you suggest here.

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

#47

Post by matte_black »

corin_ wrote: post #43
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…

Why not allow people to remove just the connection to their account but not the content itself? We all make mistakes and say things we later regret, sure the content forms part of a bigger picture which should be preserved but shouldn’t we be allowed to tidy up our publicly available historic opinions if they don’t match who we are now? I’m pretty careful in what I post on social media or on websites, but I’ve defini…

No one is forced to create a connection between their real identity to their account. I don't know why people insist on doing it and then later wanting to undo it.

In fact, if you don't want your anonymous account tied to you anymore in any way, sell it off to someone else. I bought this account for $500.

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

#48

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#49

Post by switch007 »

matte_black wrote: post #41
rwhitman wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the entire history of communication archeology-hostile?

Yes, but the internet is not purely communication, it's also a store of knowledge. You can find a lot of good information from threads and discussions people have had in the past. Also, even records of mundane communication people had throughout thousands of years in the past is of great value to archaeologists in learning about how people lived their lives and how different events affected them. Since we live in a t…

> Yes, but the internet is not purely communication, it's also a store of knowledge.

Who owns the data?

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

#50

Post by the-dude »

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

Recent revelations shed a whole new light on this 'encouragement'.

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