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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?

#61

Post by nvarsj »

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…

I think you’re being unsympathetic and overly dramatic. We’re all human and mistakes are inevitable. Some mistakes could cost a person’s livelihood or safety.

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

#62

Post by the-dude »

jacquesm wrote: post #45
drewmol wrote: post #32

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. 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…

Thank god. I initially thought anybody could do it.

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

#63

Post by matte_black »

novia wrote: post #56
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…

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 decayed data No. It absolutely should be allow…

> No. It absolutely should be allowed. Sites like the internet archive exist to preserve internet data.

For now. But one day they'll come for those archives too.

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

#64

Post by the-dude »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #57
the-dude wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

An acquaintance of mine with some personal issues derped and posted a link to info about themselves when they are normally pretty careful about such things. They requested that the mods delete it and it was deleted. I have talked to the mods at times about privacy concerns for myself. I'm a woman and I get weirdly personal interest and invasive questions at times. They have been consistently responsive and supportive…

I just posted some anecdata. I wonder why you get so worked up about it.

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

#65

Post by spondyl »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #54
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…

Honestly, this should never be allowed. I wouldn't go that far, though I am generally sympathetic to your overarching argument. I wouldn't go that far in part because I'm a woman and women seem to attract stalkers a lot more than men. I was a homemaker for a long time and had a very private life. Trying to figure out how to interact effectively in the public sphere has been a struggle for me. Part of that is me. Part…

Oh, hey! I was gonna say, your writing style seems familiar for some reason but I knew you by your previous handle. Nice to see you're still around

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

#66

Post by DoreenMichele »

the-dude wrote: post #64
DoreenMichele wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An acquaintance of mine with some personal issues derped and posted a link to info about themselves when they are normally pretty careful about such things. They requested that the mods delete it and it was deleted. I have talked to the mods at times about privacy concerns for myself. I'm a woman and I get weirdly personal interest and invasive questions at times. They have been consistently responsive and supportive…

I just posted some anecdata. I wonder why you get so worked up about it.

I'm not worked up.

You posted anecdata and then followed it with a sweeping conclusion rather than stating "in this specific case, they would not delete it."

I rebutted that with my own anecdata and assertions that your sweeping statements are not accurate.

Like so many people here, I'm pretty pedantic. This is a problem space that interests me.

Also, I frown on character assassination justified by "It's just anecdata, man! Don't get so worked up."

I'm weird like that.

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

#67

Post by Tomminn »

jacquesm wrote: post #45
drewmol wrote: post #32

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. 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…

I love how much I can't tell if you're serious.

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

#68

Post by the-dude »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #66
the-dude wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just posted some anecdata. I wonder why you get so worked up about it.

I'm not worked up. You posted anecdata and then followed it with a sweeping conclusion rather than stating "in this specific case, they would not delete it." I rebutted that with my own anecdata and assertions that your sweeping statements are not accurate. Like so many people here, I'm pretty pedantic. This is a problem space that interests me. Also, I frown on character assassination justified by "It's just anecdat…

My original comment: "I have been partially doxed here and HN refuses to remove the comment."

Then you start questioning my motives, throwing your anecdata and accusing me of character assassination.

My original comment just stated a fact. I was polite to the moderators. I did not 'beg' for the dox, the other commenter was a raving lunatic.

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

#69

Post by throwaway4719 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #54
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…

Honestly, this should never be allowed. I wouldn't go that far, though I am generally sympathetic to your overarching argument. I wouldn't go that far in part because I'm a woman and women seem to attract stalkers a lot more than men. I was a homemaker for a long time and had a very private life. Trying to figure out how to interact effectively in the public sphere has been a struggle for me. Part of that is me. Part…

> I think gutting the value of a forum so that people can remove all their content at will on a whim can readily go bad places.

Thankfully, there's a really easy solution that HN today will not consider/is not taking seriously enough: Just change the goddamn displayed username for each comment to "" or whatever.

1) this kind of (seemingly; it's all a black box in reality though) naval-gazing-based decision making is exactly why the GDPR makes sense. We can't run our lives on the whims of a few random people.

2) Does YCombinator tell us all of this stuff when we sign up to HN? No. We have to find it out by ourselves. When we e-mail them to ask them to delete our contributions, since there's no delete button, they just say "sorry, we can't do that".

This kind of stuff is what the GDPR is good for.

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

#70

Post by jacquesm »

Tomminn wrote: post #67
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…

I love how much I can't tell if you're serious.

49822 to go.
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