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1. I say so much exploratory shit on here, just to see where that line of thought goes. No effing way I'd want people to really know how stupid or childish I ca

• sillysaurusx 5y ago
  It's not anti-HN. But consider using a separate gmail address. I had one for awhile and lots of people reached out. Nowadays no one seems to reach out because I've become super boring. :) But it can be fun when it happens. EDIT: Oh. I didn't have my email in my profile. Welp, that'd do it too.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • crossroadsguy 5y ago
    No. That’s a horrible idea. Maybe dang should add an HN messaging feature that should be disabled by default. But, I think that’s another horrible idea.
• 0xbadcafebee 5y ago
  You can create a free email account that you use just for HN and forward it to your normal mail. If you get a mail from a HN user, just log into your HN email and reply (or don't)
  • jb1991 5y ago
    I did not realize this is how email worked, thank you!
• ok_coo 5y ago
  I'm of the same mind on this. It would be ridiculously easy to identify who I am with some tangential info on me. I'm here to talk about tech and related stuff. It's ok that people don't know who I am. I don't need random stuff coming at my employer.
• systemvoltage 5y ago
  I have two accounts. 1) Creative account - Allows me to express ideas that are wild, uncharaceristic of myself and learn from people's responses and many times downvotes. I try to be nice. Many times I am wrong. 2) Real name account where I share things that align with my career goals, public image and 'on the record' perception. I prefer using my creative account (this) more often than not. I hope this isn't against HN rules.
  • bredren 5y ago
    This may not work. As of a month ago, someone put out a product demonstrating that alters can be easily connected to accounts of the same author.
    • oldsecondhand 5y ago
      You only need plausible deniability.
    • tablespoon 5y ago
      > This may not work. As of a month ago, someone put out a product demonstrating that alters can be easily connected to accounts of the same author. Link? I suppose at some point someone will develop some kind of program to make vocabulary/phrasing suggestions to mute the effectiveness of such a thing.
      • MauranKilom 5y ago
        > Link? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27568709 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27568709
    • 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
      My impression was that it wasn’t very accurate.
    • weinzierl 5y ago
      Alters can be easily connected, but having separate accounts like parent described can be useful nonetheless. For example, one well-known Rust developer has a day Twitter and a night Twitter which is good, because many are probably interested in one, but not the other. Generally, cramming too different kind of content into one account can be equally detrimental for the writer and the readers.
• slg 5y ago
  I remember seeing some machine learning algorithm posted here a while back that did an amazing job fingerprinting writing samples. It could use that fingerprint to match up accounts from multiple different sites. Some people here had it correctly find their Reddit profile based off nothing but their public HN data. If you are writing extensively both anonymously and non-anonymously, you should probably assume that someone motivated enough could match the two together either presently or in the near future as such technology becomes more widespread.
  • akomtu 5y ago
    This evidence is inadmissible in general public. You can't go on Twitter, say that the writing style of that and this person is 98% similar per the state of the art SGERT model and convince the public with that. It's also trivial to for a doxing target to dismiss this evidence as another flaky piece of software that's confusing writing styles. This kind of software is useful, but for more specialized purposes: forensics, intelligence.
    • snerbles 5y ago
      I'd really hate to ruin your naïveté...but sufficiently riled-up mobs have gone after individuals for much, much flimsier evidence than "because this AI says so".
      • akomtu 5y ago
        In this case a made up evidence would suffice.
    • corndoge 5y ago
      You don't need any evidence at all to convince the online public of anything it wants to believe, especially if it gives it a target for vitriol. I have to agree with my sibling commenter that believing otherwise is naive given the wealth of evidence to the contrary.
    • exporectomy 5y ago
      After they're identified, keen humans will go looking for stronger clues. Maybe the different accounts told the same anecdotes or show they have the same set of opinions or knowledge or the posting times are similar but never coincident or whatever other human-readable evidence.
• noduerme 5y ago
  Same here - also an old usenet / bbs hand, and HN is the only "social network" I'm on (although it really isn't one by most definitions). As you pointed out, the moderation here is stellar and the mod's personal touch makes all the difference. I too say dumb things, drunkpost sometimes, miscommunicate, etc. I think the thing here is it's not a steaming septic tank like twitter or reddit. People go to those places, look around, rightly conclude it's a dump and start acting badly in response. Here, you know not to sully the place. Also, here, it's a bit elite. That word is often used as a slur, but this isn't an economic elite necessarily, it's a self-selecting elite whose status is mainly predicated on their accomplishments and their ability to communicate. The world needs more spaces like that; and the impulse, therefore, is to behave yourself and not ruin it for everyone. I grew up around Las Vegas, and I have a theory about why it's become so trashy. Vegas always attracted lower and middle class people, lots of whom were probably prone to bad behavior outside the hotel/casino. But you used to have to dress well to be allowed in. And dressing in your Sunday clothes, and being around everyone else dressed well, has the effect of putting people on their best behavior. It's the definition of civilizing. Now, people are allowed to wear shorts and tank tops, and they act like schmucks. These things are far more related than most people credit. They're not any more uncouth than their parents, they just feel like they own the place. Which is a mistake to let them feel, if you're trying to run a decent joint.
  • graderjs 5y ago
    Perhaps people in civilized clothes make more rational choices about money. Not great for the casinos... So come one come all, wear your flip flops wear your tank tops, as long as you spend those bucks on the tables we cool.
    • noduerme 5y ago
      My mom's side of the family were all casino employees from the 60s through the 90s, and this was their take on the subject. And they were all blue collar people, not snobs. Vegas used to be a place where a guy who worked in an auto shop in Tulsa could take his wife and feel like a king and queen for the weekend, and those were generally the bread and butter of the casinos. The lowering of the dress code and the advent of kid-friendly amusements went hand in hand, but those were the two key factors in the decline in civility. My partner and I were invited by a magician I knew one night to see him perform at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles, about five years ago. They have a very strict dress code, and apart from weddings or funerals I think it was the first time I had worn black tie in a long time. Certainly in a social situation where everyone else was. And it stands out as a really magical night, in part because I realized when I was there, this is how the world used to be. It's a mark of respect to present yourself well. You feel great about yourself, and you feel great about the people you talk to. You're on your best behavior. You might all be any kind of schmuck any other day of the week, but right now, you're performing civilized behavior with each other. And that's what people used to do in Vegas. And that's a really important thing we don't perform anymore, especially on social media; in my lifetime, our society went from suits and politesse, to shorts and badmouthing, to laying in a basement, naked and shitposting. It used to be nonconformist to show up underdressed, and nonconformity had social consequences and required a certain ability to reason and explain it, which if you're the Dude you can get away with. Now I'm the last white man* who wears black tie when I go out in downtown Vegas, and I just do it because it feels good. * The only people who still dress well and hold themselves well in Vegas are Black people. This is actually true in a lot of other situations, such as, when I used to be a taxi driver, they tipped much better than any other group. And I think it's because they still have a culture that values self-respect and evaluates others by their personal standards, in a way white America has become lazy and forgotten. I say this, considering that my racist uncles used to speak openly about trying to make sure certain casinos and bars didn't attract too many Black people, because it would drive away white business - up to the point of playing country music to drive them away. But stroll up Fremont and check out the white people with their beer bellies hanging out of t-shirts and absolutely no class, then take a look at what the snappily-dressed Black people are up to... All of this is a very tortured metaphor for why a bit of preparation and self-respect translate into more respect for others, a more civil society as a whole, and here I am, drunkposting what I'm sure is going to irritate people. And yet. At least here I can try to make a case to people I respect, and use more than 140 characters to wind my way there. It's like the airlines. It used to cost a fortune for normal people to fly, so it was a treat, and they treated it as such. Now they knock out the flight attendant's teeth. A person flying Ryan Air might conclude we as a species don't deserve to be treated any better than animals. But charge those people a little more, make them wear a good suit, and tell them they'll have their privileges taken away if they misbehave, and suddenly you have a civilization.
• air7 5y ago
  > I say so much exploratory shit on here, just to see where that line of thought goes While understandable, this is in essence trolling. I.e making people reply to you as though you mean what you say, when actually you don't. I've seen other comments here saying the same thing and it makes me wonder how prevalent this is here.
  • fauigerzigerk 5y ago
    Sounds more like bouncing ideas off others before having fully thought them through. That’s not trolling in my opinion.
    • robbedpeter 5y ago
      The choice of being publicly known carries consequences. Simple automated scraping opens you up to spam, adds another data point to your marketing profile, and so on. If you convey a strong opinion, you run the risk of attracting an outrage mob, or a swatting, or harassment by bored trolls. As virtuous as being unmasked might seem, the risk/reward is skewed exponentially toward the negative. I think the stigma of anonymity is a fallacious aspersion, and that much of the communication we engage in suffers from prejudices rooted in reputation and pigeonholed identity. Let ideas stand alone, free of the baggage of misplaced suspicion and uncharitable bias. Until or unless the asymmetric consequences are brought to parity, we're human... let that be enough.
      • fauigerzigerk 5y ago
        I agree completely, and I'm not using my real name on here or in any public forum. But I suspect you may have responded to the wrong comment.
        • robbedpeter 5y ago
          The app I use is quirky - you're right, I intended to reply to the same content you did. 100% agree with you!
      • deleted 5y ago
• harlanji 5y ago
  My Twitter is epic. Always real name, always in some kind of trouble when people drag online to offline as though it’s a dark secret and indicates deep rage. Account is marked X rated, indicates comedy/parody, and can be linked to my old life as a pretty good software engineer in open source and SV. The hidden F response needs more real name love from the rich, because bad prescidents are being set legally with me and I can afford to do nothing, not even show up to the hearings. Freeze, Flight, Fight, F——. OpenTable vs. Iverson, Santa Clara, CA, USA 2019-20. One can find my personal contact details from this account but I will not answer unknowns. God allows me to have my reasons for this, which can be an attack from lawyers in itself. Homelessness + Pandemic + Slander + Motivated criminals + Unforgiving commercial dependencies = hard mode, and yet I Tweet insane on real name. I can come back as pandemic eases, and the legal syatem needs love so others less fortunate than me can dig their way out in general. And me, 3 year saga sofar. Draft of the open source book PDF: https://harlanji.com/urban-camping-pro/Urban%20Camping%20Pro.pdf https://harlanji.com/urban-camping-pro/Urban%20Camping%20Pro... Twitter is “Potty @____” same handle in blank. We potty out bad food, and bad thoughts alike. I just show my toilet and others sunscribe. I want it all out, children acquire automatic behaviours before Age 7. To retrain requires space for potty without consequence. If things go right I will break the system and not go to jail and be able to choose my vocation freely. “Jesus never sinned and kicked over at least one table:” How much is this exaggerated? Okay, we can logically argue if Jesus is real, I am not bent on that but as a Christ (not a Messiah, as we see on Twitter; partially a security move, no ambiguity). Christ consciousness can be entered via choices and habits, so to those who have experienced it the truth of the situation and contrast may still be seen as holy, yet holiness is contextual and critics often differ greatly. I got banned from Bay Area Clojure after years of 100% Pro behavior when a new attendant found my non-secret account and complained, rather than socializing at the event it would seem. I claim this is holy while the call comes. My name was tarnished before all this, and I disagree that it should be a death sentence. To others: I never feel fear beyond realizing I am afraid and choosing loving action. I do use the triggers as Tweets, because fellow humans often share triggers—short form POV homelessness with consent. If you’ve read this far, dug up garbage: I hope we can cross paths when the time is right. God protects. Day 1,200ish with no fear despite much movement. Peace and be well. I see another comment mentions finger printing: yes. I assumed so in the past past when I used Pen names still, but I realized that it was put with awareness of Machine Learning. Nothing will haunt me, and this should be normal. They try, but do they do not because each attack is an opportunity for growth. Use of Public space is required to travel between or to a firsr Private space.
• hidden-spyder 5y ago
  I don't see a direct reply to you by dang.
  • ColinWright 5y ago
    DanG will occasionally, when deemed appropriate, contact people directly by email. Not seeing a reply here is no indication.
    • peterburkimsher 5y ago
      It's not even only removal-moderation: dang even emailed me directly to encourage me to repost an interesting link because he thought it didn't get enough attention first time around. He's seriously one of the best moderators I've ever seen.
      • fwsgonzo 5y ago
        Second that. HN is a great site that is one of the very few I check every day!