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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?

#91

Post by ufmace »

matte_black wrote: post #47
corin_ wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Trouble is how many connections you might have created accidentally. If you combine all of someone's posts together, many people have revealed enough information in total to figure out their true identity. Especially if they have a unique, google-able username that they have used on several different sites on different subjects, and you combine everything they've said on every site.

Of course, there are ways to throw some dirt into those gears, like posting fake details or trading/selling accounts every now and then...

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

#92

Post by x0x0 »

mattmanser wrote: post #71
x0x0 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the deletion requirement for a user could probably be satisfied by removing the username from the posts. And not just for display, but in the db. If the data can't be recalled for a user, then (by my reading) that clears the GDPR requirement.

Comments have personally identifiable information in too, it really doesn't sound like it's enough.

how many comments list their own name? Very very few.

Other comments may refer to you but you have no gdpr privacy rights over that.

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

#93

Post by DoreenMichele »

severine wrote: post #87
DoreenMichele wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Redacted so I can pointlessly make it a blog post without Google penalizing my blog like I am plagiarizing or something.

Please make this a blog post, you raise very interesting points.

http://gistofthegemini.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-gdpr-potenti...

There's your requested blog post. It's been slightly edited from the original (plus a few paragraphs tacked on to the end of it), so you can enjoy reading it a second time to look for the small differences between the blog post and what you remember of the comment.

(I have fixed multiple typos in the past few minutes. If you refresh, it might stop being gibberish.)

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

#94

Post by throwaway4719 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #93
severine wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please make this a blog post, you raise very interesting points.

http://gistofthegemini.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-gdpr-potenti... There's your requested blog post. It's been slightly edited from the original (plus a few paragraphs tacked on to the end of it), so you can enjoy reading it a second time to look for the small differences between the blog post and what you remember of the comment. (I have fixed multiple typos in the past few minutes. If you refresh, it might stop being…

> Long rant on why the GDPR is bad

> I am not a lawyer. I have not read the GDPR.

You sound like you would enjoy hanging out with Adam Curry & John C. Dvorak. :)

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

#95

Post by lhuser123 »

matte_black wrote: post #47
corin_ wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ok, I don’t understand. Why would you buy that account?

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

#96

Post by jakeogh »

matte_black wrote: post #76
throwaway4719 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

GDPR is one of the reasons I’m hoping for the collapse of the EU. If a US company has no physical presence in Europe I see no reason why they should comply with their bullshit. And under a Trump administration... good luck.

I bet Poland and Hungry are next to leave. It's a sad, predictable situation, take away the people's ability to check their own government, it's almost a law of physics that next to go is free speech (now), and then... history repeats. The BREXIT vote shows they know, but it's to be seen if the British can turn this one around.

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

#97

Post by DoreenMichele »

throwaway4719 wrote: post #94
DoreenMichele wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://gistofthegemini.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-gdpr-potenti... There's your requested blog post. It's been slightly edited from the original (plus a few paragraphs tacked on to the end of it), so you can enjoy reading it a second time to look for the small differences between the blog post and what you remember of the comment. (I have fixed multiple typos in the past few minutes. If you refresh, it might stop being…

> Long rant on why the GDPR is bad > I am not a lawyer. I have not read the GDPR. You sound like you would enjoy hanging out with Adam Curry & John C. Dvorak. :)

Hello HN poster with multiple handles and negative karma who keeps complaining about HNs unwillingness to comply with the GDPR, creating new accounts and cross referencing them yourself by self identifying that you are also these multiple other accounts.

FYI, the piece is not a rant.

Also FYI, I am talking about people like you. Your problem cannot be solved by the mods deleting your multiple cross referenced accounts that you complain you want deleted while continuing to make new handles and then voluntarily outing yourself each and every time. It just would create headaches for the mods while feeding your delusion that your behavior is not the issue and does not need to change.

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

#98

Post by matte_black »

softawre wrote: post #77
matte_black wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why did you buy that account for 500$? And are you saying that the previous owner of the account is the one who didn't want it tied to him anymore, so he sold it to you (and you are therefore providing an anonymizing service to him?).

Knew the owner in real life. I liked the name and didn’t want to start off with an empty account with no karma. It’s mutual anonymization.

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

#99

Post by dang »

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.

Your account was rate limited before you posted that, and the submission dropped in rank because it set off the flamewar detector. Moderators didn't touch it.

You have a long history of—among other things—breaking the HN guidelines, ignoring our requests and warnings to stop, getting banned, creating new accounts, and posting false statements about HN moderation. I mention that because readers have a right to hear true statements about this and not just the false ones. I don't mind being criticized for mistakes we actually make—it's good to be, so we can correct them—but spreading outright lies destroys this community by undermining its confidence in the site. That's not ok.

Since you obviously don't want to use HN as intended, I've banned several of your accounts.

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

#100

Post by krapp »

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…

>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.

Meanwhile, works by Archimedes, Homer and Shakespeare, as well as innumerable other cultural artifacts, have been lost to time. As well as the original tapes of the moon landings. The ancient Sumerians writing their tax records in cuneiform never intended to leave a record for the ages. We still probably wouldn't know how Egyptian hieroglyphics worked if not for one artifact that happened to have it printed alongside known languages - and we still have no clue about Linear A, and many other languages.

What gets left behind as an artifact of the ages tends to be determined by random chance, and beyond that, the cultivating desires of the wealthy. In other words, it almost certainly won't be you or I who decide the value or longevity of our work.

>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.

The web wasn't meant to provide a lasting store of knowledge. It is ephemeral and stateless by design. If you want people to think long term about the collective data archive of humanity, asking everyone to just never delete anything is not going to cut it.

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