
What are reasons people use throwaway accounts on HN? - grzm
I&#x27;ve used HN for a few years as a news resource and only recently started commenting. Now that I&#x27;m paying attention (and seeing green usernames), I&#x27;m really surprised at the number of throwaway accounts -- many obviously so, including &quot;throwaway&quot; in their name.<p>I can think of a couple reasons people might want to use a throwaway account:<p><pre><code>  1) Mask their identity to espouse a position they are
     afraid to have associated with their &quot;main&quot; account
  2) Troll (variant of 1)
  3) Manipulate voting
</code></pre>
Thoughts on any others? I looked for previous discussion but didn&#x27;t see much.<p>(Posted with my one and only account -- not passing judgement, honestly asking the question)
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andrewmcwatters
In the context of user points, #1 has to be the biggest issue, which
highlights a big problem with voting in the HN community. Downvoting is a
feature given to people with favorable stances in the community, thus shunning
others with alternative views.

While some say downvotes should be used to deter comments that do not add to
the discussion, this isn't realistic. Interestingly, this places those who
hold popular opinion in control of the discussion, effectively keeping others'
opinions less visible, and status quo strong until tipping points occur in
positions where a majority of the community conversely agrees.

~~~
grzm
Yeah, watching what's been down voted and flagged has been interesting. I've
seen examples of both civil, substantive comments _and_ abusive/empty comments
down voted. And sometimes the former don't even appear controversial. Being
new to the community, I've tried to pay attention to what is acceptable
behavior.

Thanks for the feedback!

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sharemywin
Question regarding personal work relationship issues that could be traced back
to other people that might offend the person.

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patmcguire
Yeah, this is the useful one. There's no pat HR answer for a lot of questions
like:

"I was hired for X money and Y percent equity to do Z but then Z didn't make
any money so we transitioned to something else. We were someone successful in
that, I got my H1B visa job description transferred over to the new
responsibilities, the founder went on strange power trip about redesigning
everything so we had to do a fire sale and the Y equity all went away. The new
company wants to pay me less than X because of the job description change,
what do I do?"

Which, while not an exact story, is the kind of thing that happens in tech a
lot. Just so many weird, weird situations.

~~~
grzm
This was one I hadn't thought of, and makes a lot of sense. Thanks, sharemywin
and patmcguire.

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pbarnes_1
That's basically it.

People don't want some inflammatory thing to be associated with them. Which
should make those people think about their position, rather than post it here
anonymously.

Let me put it this way: when someone's hiring or doing a business deal, they
Google your name.

~~~
grzm
> Which should make those people think about their position, rather than post
> it here anonymously.

Isn't that the truth! I can see people with honest, good faith questions that
they're not ready to be public about, but my impression is that is
significantly in the minority.

And it does seem like better quality discussion comes from identifiable users.

Thanks for the feedback!

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LordWinstanley
Because of the obvious [and sneakily hidden censorship], I'd imagine

