"Please put a valid address in the email field, or we won't be able to send you a new password if you forget yours. Your address is only visible to you and us. Crawlers and other users can't see it."
Make sure never to commit to a public git repo either.
(Edit)
In all seriousness though, we're really bummed this happened and wish it hadn't. We do code reviews and try our best to prevent this kind of thing from happening. That said, if you truly want your account here to be anonymous, you're right to remove all personally identifiable information. I'd also recommend using tor (and using it correctly).
You could always ask users for their email address at sign-up, send them a random, single-use, account recovery code, and then never store their address.
I've made statements on HN I'd prefer are anonymous to the general public?
Also, there was no mention they were handing the info over to a 3rd party. If you explicitly state something like that, you should follow it and/or change it when the situation changes.
I don't have that issue with git repos.
I'm kinda amused a yc employee went through the effort of downvoting it after pointing out this situation is caused by y'all not following what you actually have in your notices for things.
That some people use email addresses that are personally identifiable in the non-visible portion of their profile but have an otherwise anonymous profile whose comments they do not wish to be traced back to the maker. For instance an Apple employee that speaks about Apple internals anonymously might get sacked if they were exposed.
kogir|11 years ago
(Edit)
In all seriousness though, we're really bummed this happened and wish it hadn't. We do code reviews and try our best to prevent this kind of thing from happening. That said, if you truly want your account here to be anonymous, you're right to remove all personally identifiable information. I'd also recommend using tor (and using it correctly).
im3w1l|11 years ago
xtrumanx|11 years ago
Out of curiosity, how many people are familiar with HN's codebase as I thought it was developed in PG's personal flavor of Lisp?
nly|11 years ago
opendais|11 years ago
Also, there was no mention they were handing the info over to a 3rd party. If you explicitly state something like that, you should follow it and/or change it when the situation changes.
I don't have that issue with git repos.
I'm kinda amused a yc employee went through the effort of downvoting it after pointing out this situation is caused by y'all not following what you actually have in your notices for things.
iLoch|11 years ago
jacquesm|11 years ago