Re:Rethinking the computer ‘desktop’ as a concept
by gautamcgoel on Monday May 31, 2021 @11:06PM
(#27350359)
May I ask how do you know it's the same person across accounts? Do you guys track our IP addresses or something?
Re:Rethinking the computer ‘desktop’ as a concept
by Wowfunhappy on Tuesday June 01, 2021 @02:33PM
(#27359204)
I'm not a mod, but they almost certainly track the IP addresses of people who create accounts. It's basically impossible to do spam prevention otherwise.
Re:Rethinking the computer ‘desktop’ as a concept
by hutrdvnj on Tuesday June 01, 2021 @04:33PM
(#27360903)
I think that most people don't have static IPs and then there are proxies and VPNs... I don't think that IP is a meaningful identifier. From my experience IP bans never really work, except maybe for range IP bans, but then you might affect other users too and of course you could still circumvent it with a VPN.
Re:Rethinking the computer ‘desktop’ as a concept
by Wowfunhappy on Tuesday June 01, 2021 @06:56PM
(#27362528)
I once created a throwaway on HN for something sensitive, and I happened to be on a VPN at the time. My comment started out dead and I had to vouch for it on my main account.
So I think that's just the tradeoff they make, in order for HN to be able to exist. It probably gets reversed if you email the support link.
You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...