Almost all HN accounts with plain first name (peter,john etc) are Fake ?

#1

Post by throwAway_29 » Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 5:48 PM UTC

Just check out any id of the form: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=james

For all common names like : bob,james,john,mary,thames,peter and many more, I could see that they had no submissions, 1 karma, and created 1250+ days ago. Anyone else noticed this? Wonder why.

Re: Almost all HN accounts with plain first name (peter,john etc) are Fake ?

#2

Post by donohoe » Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 5:59 PM UTC

Maybe some people registered to hold the username and then neglected it?

Re: Almost all HN accounts with plain first name (peter,john etc) are Fake ?

#3

Post by pg » Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 6:06 PM UTC

james looks like a legit account. It has a real email address.

Accounts aren't only created to post; they're also created to apply to YC.

Re: Almost all HN accounts with plain first name (peter,john etc) are Fake ?

#4

Post by throwAway_29 » Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 7:48 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #3

james looks like a legit account. It has a real email address. Accounts aren't only created to post; they're also created to apply to YC.

Was wondering how I missed seeing an address on that profile.. then I saw who wrote the comment :-) Thanks for the clarification, Pg! Just couldn't help wondering about it- seemed weird to notice that many first-names account not posting/commenting, but just existing.