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Does Hacker News really delete your comment if you delete it?

by andy_ppp 9y ago

cblock811 9y ago
I trust that they do, which is more than can be said for Facebook at this point.
- jstanley 9y ago
  I highly doubt that they do.
  - loceng 9y ago
    It's moot if there's anyone or service doing backups of HN, whether for archiving purposes or other. I know Reddit has a few services doing that for threads -- which recently lead to evidence on /r/legaladvice that can be used against an employer as both the employer and employee posted separately, the manager essentially stating that they wanted to fire the employee in retaliation and for not participating (regardless of their cultural/religious practices, and having been told so prior to continued violations). Unfortunately we don't have government organizations that help with moderating discussion (like a therapist would), such as a parent would help children learn how to communicate with others in difficult situations, to deal with emotions, etc; and if bad behaviour, giving someone time-out until they can "play nice" again. We have to of course make an environment good enough, rewarding enough to be part of, that it's an incentive for everyone to want to play nice. Perhaps we need to come up with a new system (separate from legal system, or part of justice-education system) for dealing with situations that teach compassion when compassion/understanding is missing, e.g. should bullying a crime, or who should we leave that up to - is it even required to bring all participants related to bullying together, parents of the perpetrator and the victim, and create a healing circle to uncover the deeper underlying issues? The whole point would be to rally support, so we can build stronger, deep community - and society could, like with criminal law, have fines or other limitations created if people decide to opt-out of this system. We really need to become more comfortable with accountability, that our actions have consequences - though we also must support a practice of learning, mistakes happen during learning, etc; there's pretending to have learned, and genuine change/evolution in a person's thinking and behaviour, difficult to perhaps tell in some cases online.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- chc 9y ago
  I'd be surprised if they did. It is extremely normal for forum software to only soft-delete posts — for one reason among many, it means somebody can't harass you while they know you're here but delete it before the mods can have a look.
matuszeg 9y ago
I would love to know the answer to this question.
- davesque 9y ago
  Yeah so would I. Actually, I've often thought there should not be a restriction on the window during which you're allowed to delete a post on this site. I understand that there are reasons they might not want that such as to encourage civil interactions and so forth. But I still think there should be no restriction on it. There are things I've said in discussions I've had here that were not always well informed or motivated by my better self (yeah, you're free to peruse my comment history and see). Or I may have just grown up a bit since I said them. Either way, I've always felt it a bit unfair that they could be dug up years later.
  - egeozcan 9y ago
    Maybe you should be able to delete a post with replies only if all the authors of the replies agree?
  - fencepost 9y ago
    On the other hand, it can be incredibly frustrating to be looking for a piece of information and find a nice thread about Just That Thing on reddit - only to find that all of the posts that actually contained useful information are [deleted] and there's nothing left except "I have this problem too!" and "Thanks" "Thanks" "That fixed it!" posts.
  - matuszeg 9y ago
    I usually make throwaways for the same reason. I think there is some merit to the idea of Right to be Forgotten[1] but at the same time, I feel like that would just help evil people hide their true nature. The other half of me wants to just have the NSA dump everything one day and let everyone know what everyone else has really been saying for the last 15 years. The first couple days would be tough for everyone to acclimate knowing who everyone really is. But in theory that is a net good. Deception is rarely for good. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten
Y_Y 9y ago
I thought this was a good question and went to try and find out. I grabbed the old source from https://ycombinator.com/arc/arc3.tar https://ycombinator.com/arc/arc3.tar and started grepping around, but couldn't find any function to delete comments (only links, which do delete, but don't get purged from the cache it seems). I didn't set up Arc to try and run the thing though. If anyone has more knowledge, or understands the source better, or has newer code, I'd be interested to know.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  The old source is very different from what is running today.
  - auvi 9y ago
    where do i find the current or updated source?
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      Maybe ask Dan G. Politely?
      - augbog 9y ago
        Wow that must be cool to have your last name be "Politely"
matte_black 9y ago
What’s more troubling is that they could keep copies of things you were about to post but then decided not to. Not a good idea if halfway through writing an entire manifesto or some neo nazi rant you decide to not post it. I call these “shadow posts”.
- lucb1e 9y ago
  You can see if they send anything via ajax... this would be easy to detect.
  - mcast 9y ago
    It would be trivial to store data in the browser's local storage and hijack a "real" HTTP POST with this data. The front-end logic would need to be obfuscated far enough to deter anyone from trying to step through the Javascript to find it. But no, HN doesn't do this, only companies like Facebook or Twitter would stand to gain from that information (e.g. a shooter almost tweets his plan to attack but doesn't post it).
    - matte_black 9y ago
      > It would be trivial to store data in the browser's local storage and hijack a "real" HTTP POST with this data. The front-end logic would need to be obfuscated far enough to deter anyone from trying to step through the Javascript to find it. Hmm, I think I’ll write a library to do something like this, I just need a cool clever name for it.
      - mcast 9y ago
        I'd suggest "ImPOSTer".
- eat_veggies 9y ago
  hn doesn't seem to send any network requests while typing out a comment, so I doubt that they do, unless they are doing something exceedingly sneaky.
andy_ppp 9y ago
Thinking about it, downvotes on deleted comments still exist which sort of implies the original comment also exists and that it’s just hidden.

Does Hacker News really delete your comment if you delete it?

cblock811 9y ago

I trust that they do, which is more than can be said for Facebook at this point.

jstanley 9y ago
I highly doubt that they do.
- loceng 9y ago
  It's moot if there's anyone or service doing backups of HN, whether for archiving purposes or other. I know Reddit has a few services doing that for threads -- which recently lead to evidence on /r/legaladvice that can be used against an employer as both the employer and employee posted separately, the manager essentially stating that they wanted to fire the employee in retaliation and for not participating (regardless of their cultural/religious practices, and having been told so prior to continued violations). Unfortunately we don't have government organizations that help with moderating discussion (like a therapist would), such as a parent would help children learn how to communicate with others in difficult situations, to deal with emotions, etc; and if bad behaviour, giving someone time-out until they can "play nice" again. We have to of course make an environment good enough, rewarding enough to be part of, that it's an incentive for everyone to want to play nice. Perhaps we need to come up with a new system (separate from legal system, or part of justice-education system) for dealing with situations that teach compassion when compassion/understanding is missing, e.g. should bullying a crime, or who should we leave that up to - is it even required to bring all participants related to bullying together, parents of the perpetrator and the victim, and create a healing circle to uncover the deeper underlying issues? The whole point would be to rally support, so we can build stronger, deep community - and society could, like with criminal law, have fines or other limitations created if people decide to opt-out of this system. We really need to become more comfortable with accountability, that our actions have consequences - though we also must support a practice of learning, mistakes happen during learning, etc; there's pretending to have learned, and genuine change/evolution in a person's thinking and behaviour, difficult to perhaps tell in some cases online.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
chc 9y ago
I'd be surprised if they did. It is extremely normal for forum software to only soft-delete posts — for one reason among many, it means somebody can't harass you while they know you're here but delete it before the mods can have a look.

matuszeg 9y ago

I would love to know the answer to this question.

davesque 9y ago
Yeah so would I. Actually, I've often thought there should not be a restriction on the window during which you're allowed to delete a post on this site. I understand that there are reasons they might not want that such as to encourage civil interactions and so forth. But I still think there should be no restriction on it. There are things I've said in discussions I've had here that were not always well informed or motivated by my better self (yeah, you're free to peruse my comment history and see). Or I may have just grown up a bit since I said them. Either way, I've always felt it a bit unfair that they could be dug up years later.
- egeozcan 9y ago
  Maybe you should be able to delete a post with replies only if all the authors of the replies agree?
- fencepost 9y ago
  On the other hand, it can be incredibly frustrating to be looking for a piece of information and find a nice thread about Just That Thing on reddit - only to find that all of the posts that actually contained useful information are [deleted] and there's nothing left except "I have this problem too!" and "Thanks" "Thanks" "That fixed it!" posts.
- matuszeg 9y ago
  I usually make throwaways for the same reason. I think there is some merit to the idea of Right to be Forgotten[1] but at the same time, I feel like that would just help evil people hide their true nature. The other half of me wants to just have the NSA dump everything one day and let everyone know what everyone else has really been saying for the last 15 years. The first couple days would be tough for everyone to acclimate knowing who everyone really is. But in theory that is a net good. Deception is rarely for good. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten

Y_Y 9y ago

I thought this was a good question and went to try and find out. I grabbed the old source from https://ycombinator.com/arc/arc3.tar https://ycombinator.com/arc/arc3.tar and started grepping around, but couldn't find any function to delete comments (only links, which do delete, but don't get purged from the cache it seems). I didn't set up Arc to try and run the thing though. If anyone has more knowledge, or understands the source better, or has newer code, I'd be interested to know.

jacquesm 9y ago
The old source is very different from what is running today.
- auvi 9y ago
  where do i find the current or updated source?
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Maybe ask Dan G. Politely?
    - augbog 9y ago
      Wow that must be cool to have your last name be "Politely"

matte_black 9y ago

What’s more troubling is that they could keep copies of things you were about to post but then decided not to. Not a good idea if halfway through writing an entire manifesto or some neo nazi rant you decide to not post it. I call these “shadow posts”.

lucb1e 9y ago
You can see if they send anything via ajax... this would be easy to detect.
- mcast 9y ago
  It would be trivial to store data in the browser's local storage and hijack a "real" HTTP POST with this data. The front-end logic would need to be obfuscated far enough to deter anyone from trying to step through the Javascript to find it. But no, HN doesn't do this, only companies like Facebook or Twitter would stand to gain from that information (e.g. a shooter almost tweets his plan to attack but doesn't post it).
  - matte_black 9y ago
    > It would be trivial to store data in the browser's local storage and hijack a "real" HTTP POST with this data. The front-end logic would need to be obfuscated far enough to deter anyone from trying to step through the Javascript to find it. Hmm, I think I’ll write a library to do something like this, I just need a cool clever name for it.
    - mcast 9y ago
      I'd suggest "ImPOSTer".
eat_veggies 9y ago
hn doesn't seem to send any network requests while typing out a comment, so I doubt that they do, unless they are doing something exceedingly sneaky.

andy_ppp 9y ago

Thinking about it, downvotes on deleted comments still exist which sort of implies the original comment also exists and that it’s just hidden.