That's a pretty blank check to write. All kind of awful, distasteful things are satisfying to some people's curiosity. Not all curiosities should be satisfied. IMO the comment I was responding to was going beyond measured, actionable feedback. It was TMI, public dirty laundry based on speculations, from an insider who goes on a limb stating guesses as truths, claiming knowledge of proprietary information.

Is HN an appropriate way to tell the DO board that XYZ people should be fired? In the end I just don't get it. This sort of comment isn't doing the commenter any good.

Most curiosities should be gratified, and this isn't an unreasonable one.

They're an employee concerned about their company (and arguably more important, their job security). A public forum like HN is absolutely a way to highlight workplace discrimination, which this person did in a way that doesn't publicly accuse anyone yet allows someone with power ('raiyu in this case) to know who is doing it.

Also, they points out that 'raiyu is lying, or at minimum being misleading, to everyone on HN in his comments. That's valuable to the community.

There's no such thing as proprietary information, and I think most people on HN will agree with that statement. There are secrets, but proprietary information is a buzzword. That sounds like a defense contractor term.

It's also not "guesses as truths." That's a very curious way to describe "shared knowledge." The person seems to have gotten information from their coworkers, and they're talking about it in the context of that.

Sending a private message on another protocol/platform brings zero accountability while reducing the person's anonymity (which they're clearly worried about maintaining), while this at least leaves a mark that can't be deleted (by replying to it, you actually made it so it couldn't be deleted if the person wanted to within the deletion window. That's one of my favorite features of HN; it makes historically-relevant information stay there forever, essentially).

A public forum is an appropriate place to tell someone who has power over you that someone else who has power over you should be fired, especially given Digital Ocean's seeming lack of a way to do so with anonymity otherwise. Anonymous disclosure is necessary for power structures to function without serious abuse.

Spreading vague rumors of misbehavior without any evidence nor detail is not helpful to anyone.

It gave enough detail so that 'raiyu will know who it is; it was very descriptive in that way.

Send an anonymous email and you'll be ignored. Reply to a big boss on HN, and you might make some waves.