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Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts

stylometry.net

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Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. The highest non-me account is under 0.4 on my page. I do not believe that I have such a unique writing style - especially since half my posting is on mobile and therefore possibly slightly different than my desktop posts.

My closest is 0.4879. I know I tend to be wordy but I thought I had a pretty generic style as well. This is definitely a fascinating demonstration.

Feeling better about my high of 0.49 now

Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts

#92
post #13

Oh wow, it's really sure that I'm stavrosk, which I am: https://stylometry.net/user?username=stavros The next person is 30% less certain, that's huge! This would basically identify any alt I might have with near certainty.

stavrosk doesn't have any posts/comments? What's it using to match?

It's my old username.

Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts

#93
post #68
post #57

ive had maybe a hundred throwaway accounts on HN over the past ten years. generally, i make an account, say something that is apparently wildly offensive to someone else, get flagged and down-voted and then muted or hell-banned. then i make another account because i never did anything wrong and start the process over again. ive emailed the admins, tried to reason with the admins, it never does any good. the power is…

You are definitely right. Part of the reason I chose the 10,000 character minimum was so that people using throwaways in the true sense would be entirely excluded. I don't plan on keeping this up forever and I too would not feel comfortable if this was deployed at scale.

Would you be open to open sourcing the code when you decide to shutdown the service?

Re: Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts

#98

Ha, gruseom shows up for pg, which is dang’s old account. A worthy successor. This is a fascinating way to find similar HN users who aren’t the same person. It’s a surprisingly great recommendation engine. “If you like pg, you might also like…” Sure, the privacy concerns are valid, but the cat’s out of the boot. Might as well enjoy the benefits. montrose is almost definitely pg. Someone who talks about ancient histor…

> motrose is almost definitely pg. Someone who talks about ancient history, Occam’s razor, VCs and startups, uses the phrase “YC cos” (relatively uncommon), etc. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17112567

I had this hunch too. It's either pg or someone trying really hard to be pg.

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