How do people keep tracks of who says what on HN ? With such a large crowd I don't understand how that is done. (or was it luck ?)

I don't think there are that many prolific posters here that you can't start recognizing the regulars.

You click on their name.

I have to wonder if someone started trawling the GP's post history looking to discredit him/her. I know technically how to dig up old posts, but I wonder what the motivation or sequence of events was for this instance. Edit: This is not an accusation, more a cynical statement that I'm not seeing a more likely reason someone would happen to know somebody else posted about being fired.

Or they wanted a more holistic impression of him in order to better help him. But yes, your theory is likely too.