
Ask HN: Is there a mapping of HN usernames to well known people in tech? - anderspitman
I know many high profile developers participate on HN, and I often see people mention projects they&#x27;ve worked on which I&#x27;ve heard of or used before. While it can be nice to read a comment completely oblivious to who the author is, often extra context can add insight. A lot of the time the HN handle is non-obvious and even different from their GitHub username (if they have one). Is there something like a public list that shows some of the more seasoned voices and what their HN username is?
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danso
I started making a spreadsheet of interesting folks but then realized it
wasn't worth the effort. Some of the more famous folks (e.g. stevewoz,
brianchesky) don't post any more after their initial activity years ago. And
the ones who do (norvig, BrendanEich, alankay1) have names that are
immediately noticeable, and I almost never read the name on a comment before
reading the comment anyway.

edit: It's been more interesting tracking first announcements of products/Show
HNs done by the creator of now-famous products/services, e.g. the oft-referred
to Dropbox thread
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863),
or Github Pages:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=402648](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=402648)

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bjourne
A good argument stands on its own. Who the maker of it is, is irrelevant.

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johnfn
This seems like it should be true but I don't think it actually is. It's very
easy to frame up a plausible argument which is actually false, and
inexperienced people do it all the time. The problem is that if the reader of
the argument is also inexperienced, he will be unable to recognize the flaws
in the argument.

For people like that, post author is an excellent heuristic.

~~~
JadeNB
> It's very easy to frame up a plausible argument which is actually false, and
> inexperienced people do it all the time.

The problem is that experienced people do it too, though (hopefully) less
often; so, if you get in the habit of trusting arguments more because of who
has made them, then you will never have a chance of catching that mistake.

~~~
mod
When you're "unable to recognize the flaws in the argument" you should make
that "mistake."

If you're enough of an expert on a topic, I think you decide for yourself
regardless.

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MWil
It happened recently that I saw someone insert their email in a comment and
upon researching, I determined they are my arch-nemesis. Like not in just a
business sense, I have fully committed my life's work to undoing this guy's
daily work. And I hate that he's gotten rich doing it.

I'm not going to call him out but it hurts low-income citizens across the
country so knock it off, asshole!

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et-al
A tool like this might be useful, but I'd be concerned with the potential of
hero worship and arguments from authority.

~~~
ythl
Linus Torvalds: "That's a cool show HN and all, but it's actually garbage and
complete s---, and the creators of it should be thrown in prison"

Worshippers: "Oh, yeah, now that you mention it, it _is_ garbage! Grab your
pitchforks!"

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vincent_s
Search for CEOs on HN:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=ceo%20of%20*%20here&sort=byPop...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=ceo%20of%20*%20here&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)

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marczellm
I would like a mapping from my username to a well known person in tech :)

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fusiongyro
If they want, they can use keybase.io for that. All my digital identities are
linked up through that, but of course, I'm not a "well known" person in Tech.

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jlarocco
I hope not.

If a person wants to comment anonymously, or keep their HN account separate
from the rest of their online activities, that's up to them.

~~~
chipgap98
Agreed, but I think there are a lot of somewhat well known figures in tech who
haves accounts on here and they are trying to be anonymous, but also newer HN
members may not know who they are. I don't feel like we need this mapping but
I could see how some might find it useful.

We DEFINITELY don't need people's account to be de-anonymized who are trying
to remain anonymous

~~~
JadeNB
> Agreed, but I think there are a lot of somewhat well known figures in tech
> who haves accounts on here and they are trying to be anonymous, but also
> newer HN members may not know who they are.

I think that I don't understand this post. This sentence seems to start by
saying that we should respect people's desire to be anonymous, but to conclude
by saying that it's a problem when … we don't know who they are?

~~~
qaq
A lot of famous people openly post about who they are but they have non-
obvious nicks, so it is hard to remember.

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thebiglebrewski
This could be a pretty cool Chrome extension!

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protomyth
I have toyed with the idea of an extension that lets you keep notes / tags /
custom color by username with the idea of allowing the memory deficient to
figure out the history of comments with that user.

I suppose the USENET kill file would inevitability be the results :(

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mercer
You mean something like this:
[http://imgur.com/1cxzLzD](http://imgur.com/1cxzLzD)

It's a (somewhat recent?) addition to the Hacker News Enhancement Suite chrome
extension.

~~~
protomyth
Yeah, that looks like part of what I want. I'll have to take a look, thanks.

