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Comment by rlpb | Hacker News Reader

> Each user is tied to their HN login

How does that work, then?

Edit: not sure why this seems so controversial. Making this happen is a hack. This is Hacker News. I was interested in the details.

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I don't know, but it would be easy to do. Give the user a long random string that they need to temporarily add to their HN profile about box.

Bingo. That's how I am doing it.

Depending on how this thing is used (job threads?), you could also scrape comments off of a thread page that satisfy a certain format.

e.g. someone posts

  #HNdex
  Title: Rails developer
  Location: Montreal
  #End

in a thread, they don't have to mess with their profile and sign up for your site (I wouldn't), and they get visibility in comments to people who don't visit your site without having to post twice in different places. Meanwhile you get free authentication and advertising every time someone does this.

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