I'd say in general that there is no need to list your employer in your comments or to have it in you profile, but if a comment branch specifically is about that employer then there should be a disclosure in your highest comment on that branch.
> yes, I am a Googler, I am most definitely not trying to hide it, it's in my HN profile, I just got tired of constantly typing it
While I don't personally care too much, I suppose it could be problematic if you remove this information from your profile at a later date, and from that point on people reading your comments wouldn't (easily) be able to know that you work at Google.
Google is a big company, and most of us working for them are mainly in it for the paycheck.
Knowing that I work for Google doesn't, by itself, tell you very much about my opinions. It indicates I'm not strongly anti-Google, I guess.
> It indicates I'm not strongly anti-Google, I guess.
Or maybe you’re so strongly anti-Google that you realize the only way to take them down is from the inside.
And now you know too much.
More then that, the entire argument relies on a technicality: Links as UI buttons. Pagination uses links for UI interaction, but after Web 2.0 arrived, it doesn't have to. Infinite scrollers, pure JS pagination + XHR that doesn't generate links could be used.
(yes, I am a Googler, I am most definitely not trying to hide it, it's in my HN profile, I just got tired of constantly typing it, but if you search back far enough before 2010 when I joined, you'll find my opinion on these matters has not changed. I'm a copyright minimalist, I favor decentralized, mostly unregulated web, where everyone can scrape everything, remix, reuse, and repurpose data for permissionless innovation, and I do not favor the government getting involved so it can artificially create categories like 'vertical search' or decide what search algorithms should do)