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Jumping into the lions' den here, but I thought I'd drop in and offer a bit of clarification:
That post is mostly to help make sure we have something to point users at as an explanation when they post in /r/help or message in. Users blocking cookies or running script blockers are excluded from the test as a matter of rule. I didn't mean the edit to seem unhanded, it's just a matter of convenience to keep the A/B test log together.
The recent_srs cookie has been around for a really long time. When people buy self-serve headlines (those sponsored headline things at the top of your frontpage), they have to choose one or more subreddits to target. We use the recent subreddit cookie to give ads to logged-out users who end up browsing deep into the site (since they don't actually have subscriptions, like logged-in users)
I don't think cookies like that are exactly nefarious — they essentially say "in this session, the user saw these pages". That being said, if you want to prevent this behavior, you should block the recent_srs cookie.
I'd love to hear a bit of feedback on the testing process. Would it be best to have a "current A/B tests" page? Individual posts for each? A global opt-out option? If you have any ideas on the most ethical and privacy-conscious ways to go about A/B testing, I'd love to hear them.
Also, apparently there's already a drunken_economist on voat. I guess that's what I get for not reserving my username
Are you saying that HackerNews deletes links related to Voat? I am genuinely not sure what you mean by this.
Assuming that gets deleted, basically it says "we just keep editing that post as we add more A/B tests so we can point people at that post if they have questions".
This post on HN is really just trying to fan the flames I think, there's nothing nefarious going on here -- they've been tracking how you move across the site for years, and if you don't like that, it's super simple to avoid.
You can block the cookie or just incognito mode.