
Ask HN: Why can't I delete my HN account? - helsinki
I would like to continue using the service, but I have no interest in maintaining my account. Why is account deletion not an option?
======
ikeboy
On a related note, I'm annoyed at sites that typically let you delete your own
content, but it's possible for you to get blocked from seeing it and then you
can't remove it any more.

For example, if you post or comment in a Facebook group and then leave it, you
can't remove those comments. Same if you comment on someone's post and they
then block you.

On Reddit if you post in a private sub or a gold-only sub and later don't have
access you can't delete or access it. I think you should at the very least be
able to see your own content at any point, and if deleting is typically
allowed you should be able to delete your own content.

~~~
ebbv
Similarly if you delete your reddit account but don’t spend the time to delete
all your posts and comments before you do, they won’t go away.

~~~
wingerlang
Deleting a comment on reddit also doesn't delete the content. For that to
happen you first need to edit it to be blank, then remove it.

~~~
ikeboy
Can't edit comments over 6 months old or so

------
JPLeRouzic
There is an unofficial FAQ by Jacques Mattheij, with an answer to this very
question:

[https://jacquesmattheij.com/the-unofficial-hn-
faq#deleteacco...](https://jacquesmattheij.com/the-unofficial-hn-
faq#deleteaccount)

There is also indeed the official FAQ:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

~~~
hoodoof
Yes but times have changed and I think, depending on where you live in the
world perhaps, that there is a growing expectation that you should be allowed
to delete your digital tracks.

There's a certain level of hubris to an attitude in which a given site that
feels it's needs are more important than users.

Saying you can't delete all your posts/account is the same as saying "you do
not have the right to control your own posts here".

I think it should be OK on HN to delete all your comments on your account if
you want. I appreciate that this would degrade the quality of impacted
historical comment threads but hey that's the price for giving people back
control over their digital lives.

It happens on Reddit and whilst every now and then I encounter a reddit thread
with deleted items, in general it has not destroyed reddit, and I respect the
right of those users to have deleted their digital comments.

I rate respect for user wishes over the importance of maintaining historical
threads integrity on HN.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_There 's a certain level of hubris to an attitude in which a given site that
feels it's needs are more important than users._

There's even more hubris in expecting individual rights to outweigh the value
of a community in every instance.

~~~
talaketu
By "community" do you mean the website forum operated by Y Combinator
Management LLC? That's some hubris.

------
gabept
I also always wondered why is there no option to delete submissions and
comments?

That is an awfully exposing experience IMO.

~~~
Mononokay
You have the opportunity during the first two hours of them being submitted,
unless there's a response to them, if I remember correctly.

Being exposing is a bit of a benefit for HN, in that it's a very good way to
serve as a snapshot of culture at any given time. People can't just whitewash
their histories or wrong actions on HN.

~~~
xg15
The proponents of the EU's right to be forgotten would like to have a word
about that.

~~~
andybak
HN doesn't enforce real names so it's rather different.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
From a legal standpoint, I don't think it makes a lot of difference.
Especially since unless you are specifically trying to make a throwaway,
figuring out who you are is trivial, especially if you use a chunk of your RL
name in your username. Or in my case, if your username is commonly
identifiable as you and tied to your RL name on other sites.

I don't think anything about Right To Be Forgotten leaves it to the
individual's responsibility to mask their identity.

~~~
Mononokay
From a legal standpoint, HN doesn't sell products, use user data for profit,
or operate in the EU. Both it and YC have made it rather clear they don't want
to touch the EU.

Complying with GDPR would basically be an act of goodwill more than anything,
and even that's debatable.

~~~
nl
_Both it and YC have made it rather clear they don 't want to touch the EU._

Not sure where you are getting that. YC have funded a lot of EU companies, and
some partners are from the EU.

YC certainly has revenue (from investors). HN isn't some separate legal entity
- it's right there in the domain name.

~~~
Mononokay
They require every founder to come to the US and register as a US company.
That's not particularly touching it.

~~~
xg15
Unless they IP ban the whole of the EU, they will still be subject to the GDPR
once any EU citizen accesses their site. (Which, agreeing with
AmericanChopper, is a purely theoretical thing - until the moment where YC
wants to conduct any kind of business in the EU)

~~~
icebraining
Simply being accessible from the EU does _not_ automatically mean the GDPR
applies to a site. See Recital 23: [https://gdpr-
info.eu/recitals/no-23/](https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-23/)

~~~
xg15
Ah, that's a fair point, I didn't see that.

------
baron816
I've had a comment deleted long after I posted. I had to email them. I'm sure
they'll delete your account if you do the same. I don't know _why_ they make
you contact them though.

~~~
MikkoFinell
No they will actually refuse to delete your account as well. They did however
present the option of renaming the account, but then it turned out that's not
possible either.

------
shiado
The policy is explained quite clearly right here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/robots.txt](https://news.ycombinator.com/robots.txt)

The internet is forever.

------
app4soft
> I would like to continue using the service, but I have no interest in
> maintaining my account.

Just do "logout"

> Why is account deletion not an option?

Because, each submission & comments posted by you should be stored for
historic reason - somebody already bookmark or quote it.

Think, HN has something like "Hemingway Mode"[0], there also related XKCD[1].

[0] [https://blog.ghost.org/hemingway-mode/](https://blog.ghost.org/hemingway-
mode/)

[1] [https://xkcd.com/1540/](https://xkcd.com/1540/)

~~~
xg15
The can have all my posts they like - but that's no reason to also store my
email address and force me to secure/manage the password of an account that I
never intend to use again.

~~~
FooHentai
I agree with you. However as a workaround in the meantime what you may be able
to do is:

1\. Change the email address to a disposable one. There's so many services, no
way HN can prevent you doing this.

2\. Update the password to a unique, complex password. Store it or don't, your
choice.

3\. Walk away from the account.

~~~
xg15
Even then the password and/or throwaway address could be leaked in the next
data breach - which in the worst case could allow all kinds of trolls to
access my account and impersonate me without me having a way to recover it or
lock them out. So of course I'd have to store my password.

------
noahdesu
This reminded me of a task I undertook sometime last year in which over the
coarse of the month I attempted to delete my accounts on a number of sites
that I no longer used. The experience was completely crazy. It ranged from a
few sites that had a basic account deletion page that functioned correctly, to
both automated and human confirmations of deletion after which I was still
able to access my account. Sigh...

------
lfpa2
You can ask about it every year and it won't change. Over the months I have
resigned myself to not being able to delete my account. Sometimes I post
comments here...just out of boredom when Reddit has changed his design again -
just accept it, go outside to the park and take a long walk. There should be
important questions you can deal with.

------
ausjke
this really should be as easy as a database DELETE operation, why is it so
difficult? guess the design for HN site is not "user-first".

recalling facebook etc was impossible to remove your account but now it seems
feasible and quick, though not sure if facebook/etc indeed flushes the
deleted-account cleanly.

~~~
krapp
Hacker News doesn't use a database - data is stored in Arc Lisp closures in
flat files.

I'm not certain how it handles usernames, though (I've played around a bit
with Anarki, but can't remember) but I suspect it would probably involve a lot
of file parsing and editing, assuming each username is literally just copied
into a field in each thread file.

~~~
kazinator
> _data is stored in Arc Lisp closures in flat files._

Are you sure? What the word "closure" usually refers to isn't an
externalizable object used for persistent storage.

~~~
Volundr
I can't speak to this particular detail, but it's written in ARC LISP, which
itself is written in Racket, which has serializable closures
([https://docs.racket-lang.org/web-server-
internal/closure.htm...](https://docs.racket-lang.org/web-server-
internal/closure.html)) so it's at least possible.

------
tjr
Might be a good question for hn@ycombinator.com

~~~
kgwxd
4/20/2016

Me: I'd like to either change the username (jasonkostempski) on my account or
delete my account completely. Can help me do that?

HN: Account renaming is something we plan to implement but haven't yet. You're
welcome to email back in the future and check if it's done yet.

HN doesn't delete accounts. We do sometimes delete specific comments when
users are worried about getting in trouble from them. Would that help?

I realize this isn't a very satisfying answer and am sorry.

Me: I didn't say anything nasty so I'm not too worried about it :) I'll just
wait for the feature. Thanks.

7/26/2016

Me: Just want to check in and see if account deleting or username changing has
been implemented.

HN: Not yet, sorry. There are some technical difficulties because YC uses HN
IDs in its internal systems, which are separate, so we need to be extra
careful not to make a breaking change. But we'll get there.

2/19/2017

Me: I need my account deleted immediately. It's a matter of national security,
cannot explain in detail, orders from the President of the United States.

HN: That does sound urgent, so I'm sorry to have to reply this way, but we
don't actually have the ability to do this. At some point we will have the
ability to rename accounts to something anonymous, but unfortunately we don't
have that yet either.

Me: Damn, now he's gonna make me go work on that wall :/

2/22/2018

Me: Are you able to change user names or delete accounts yet?

HN: Not yet, sorry, but it is coming. Do you want to be on an email list to
get notified when it's ready?

Me: Yes, that would be cool, please add me.

HN: Ok, you're added.

~~~
MikkoFinell
Facebook--the most insidious and intrusive data harvester in history--at least
lets its users ostensibly rename their profile and delete their account. Why
does HN give less of a fuck about its users than Facebook does?

------
pentabular
The Billionaires vs. BrandonM [http://zedshaw.com/2018/03/25/the-billionaires-
vs-brandonm/](http://zedshaw.com/2018/03/25/the-billionaires-vs-brandonm/)

~~~
tylermenezes
> Did you know YC startups have special privileges on Hacker News? Nobody
> knows what they are, but rumor has it they can delete stories they don’t
> like, delete comments, and have the ability to get their stories to the
> front.

Rumor is completely wrong. We don't even bypass the spam filter.

------
lowry
If I post a comment, and a dozen people comment on my comment do I have the
moral right to delete my comment? In most cases, the answer should be a big
NO.

A deletion of a parent comment breaks the flow of discussion. Unless a service
makes a point of deleting historical comments, letting users delete their
comments will worsen its historical record.

~~~
anilgulecha
1) Usually users own the copyright of their comments. They do have the moral
right at-least to disallow continued propagation of comments.

2) It should still be possible to delete accounts, without removing comments
-- but reassigning those comments to a temporary/anonymous account id. This
solves for account deletion, but not content deletion.

------
rblion
It's now owned by Mark Zuckerberg. Surprise.

