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Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by thesz on Saturday November 26, 2022 @03:45PM (#33756540)
I keep no alternate accounts, but this tool reports best matches for me that appear to be Slavic or just Russian - and I am Russian. Best match score in my list is just above 0.5. There are some clearly alternate accounts on the list, their match scores with this tool are well above 0.7.

It is probable that persons of same cultural origin will have similar writing style and vocabulary. It is also probable that persons of same cultural origin would have same relationships with the world as a whole, they would like same things and dislike other same things.

So, in my opinion, it is possible that you have found not only alternate accounts (score above 0.7), but accounts of people with same cultural origin (ones that are around 0.6).

Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by vbezhenar on Saturday November 26, 2022 @03:59PM (#33756665)
There're 19 other accounts this tool finds similar to me. Those are not my accounts. 0.46 - 0.56 are numbers.
Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by costco on Saturday November 26, 2022 @04:06PM (#33756725)
I think people are sort of confused at what this tool is supposed to be which I will concede is partially my fault. The results of this tool are by themselves not indicative of having an alternative account. It generates the 20 most similar users for every single user on the site, regardless of whether they have an alt or not (there's obviously no way for me to know that for every single user). In your case further investigation would reveal that none of those accounts are yours.
Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by thesz on Saturday November 26, 2022 @05:28PM (#33757482)
It is a fun tool, I can assure you. It is just people have found use case you haven't foreseen yourself.

I think your tool should have internal embeddings for each of the user. Also, most probably your tool uses cosine similarity for a search.

Thus, I would like to suggest a feature: recognize simple arithmetic operations over user's embeddings, such as "thesz - 2 * patio11". It will make things even more fun, this way we can find users who are like me and much not like patio11. Even simple additions and subtractions would suffice.

(an idea is taken from properties of word2vec embeddings)

Your tool is thought provoking. What I discovered with it made me think about my use of language and what other languages (body, imagery, etc) I use differently because of who I am. Which made me think about my favorite underrated superhero Cypher [1] - would his innate ability to understand languages make him best detective ever?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypher_(Marvel_Comics)

Thank you!

Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by costco on Saturday November 26, 2022 @07:31PM (#33758650)
Really cool idea. I'd need to upgrade the VPS though so all the vectors would fit in memory but it probably wouldn't be too hard (right now I'm just storing a map of username string -> array of 20 username strings because my VPS only has 512mb RAM). I'll think about if I can do this in a way that is more resource conservative.
Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by csa on Saturday November 26, 2022 @04:32PM (#33756980)
Fwiw, and as gp mentioned, > 0.7 seems more likely to be alt territory.
Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by bbarnett on Saturday November 26, 2022 @04:57PM (#33757214)
You are fools, one and all! This tool's only purpose, is to tag people who use it!

Now they know just who cares about which alternate accounts. They know!

They freaking know, man!

You have all fallen for their ploy. Fools!

Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by thesz on Saturday November 26, 2022 @05:08PM (#33757301)
I have no alternate accounts and visited the site out of curiosity, because I used to worked in the domain like this.

What I found was worth visiting the site. Somehow notably many accounts with (relatively) high similarity to mine's are sharing at least one of my personal traits.

Which is fascinating, to me.

And I think is worth to be noticed by others - what and how you write can disclose who you are.

Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by TheOtherHobbes on Saturday November 26, 2022 @05:20PM (#33757414)
It knows my IP now.

(Or does it?)

Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by neodypsis on Saturday November 26, 2022 @05:30PM (#33757505)
It offers no privacy policy, so can't tell.
Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by ricardobayes on Saturday November 26, 2022 @05:17PM (#33757377)
My highest was 0.41 and the person writes nothing like me. I guess I'm a unique snowflake after all.
Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by gilleain on Saturday November 26, 2022 @05:43PM (#33757613)
my second highest hit (ie, third in the list) is gwern at 0.45 who i'm fairly sure is not me.
Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by scarmig on Saturday November 26, 2022 @05:45PM (#33757629)
I was actually just looking at near hits for gwern and found what's almost definitely a defunct alt for him.
Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by gilleain on Saturday November 26, 2022 @05:59PM (#33757794)
Well is certainly NOT me, that's for sure.

On an unrelated topic, I'm starting a service to write comments in the style of others to provide plausible deniability for other alt accounts. Rates negotiable.

Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by jrumbut on Saturday November 26, 2022 @05:51PM (#33757700)
I have a few in the low 0.5's and, honestly, they seem cool and I want to meet them.
Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by Litost on Saturday November 26, 2022 @08:17PM (#33758992)
I was curious about this, my highest match was 0.47 and I have no alts, maybe I'm also a unique snowflake, or haven't said anything noteworthy enough to have been deepfaked yet ;).
Re:Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate... by weaksauce on Saturday November 26, 2022 @06:05PM (#33757844)
I don't have any alternate accounts here either and my writing style is apparently nearly the same as a high profile account that I recognize and has many points. I wouldn't say this is a highly accurate thing.