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Comment by Traster | Hacker News Reader

>EDIT: And I just don't get why on earth they have to reveal his name if he does not want the NYT to reveal it? What does it add to the story? It's a persons life they are playing with.

I recommend you read the NYT peice then, because it points out that if they publish his name as Scott Alexander (as he was going by) people would find out who he was simply by Googling that name. How exactly is the NYT meant to guarantee that? And what was the result of Siskind's actions? He stirred up a mob against the NYT writer exactly in the same way he feared he would've been subject to.

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I've read the article. There's a difference in having your full name in the news vs. the name he writes his blog under. Even if it is easy to find out, that does make a difference. People can associate and recognise hime just by reading the article.

He's not a public figure, I don't see a reason to so strongly feature his name. The lack of discussion and empathy on the side of the NYT is really concerning, repeating my words before: This is not just an article, it's the life of an ordinary person we are dealing with. He may be unequipped to handle or very afraid of the spotlight he is now in. There's already an article in the New Yorker about the article in the NYT.

I was not defending the person, his actions may be flawed. But the NYT is a journalistic institution that should have high ethical and journalistic standards.

I don't see anything the NYT could have done to give this author the level of anonymity he wanted. He wasn't anonymous to start with, and the standard of "I don't mind being known, I just don't want to be mentioned in the NYT" isn't a reasonable standard.

>I recommend you read the NYT peice then, because it points out that if they publish his name as Scott Alexander (as he was going by) people would find out who he was simply by Googling that name.

If the NY Times published the article that links his pen name to his real name, that would be a stronger link than anything that previously existed. You can dox most people on the Internet if you put in enough effort, but the NY Times bears responsibility in lowering the effort required when there's no real reason to unmask him.

Scott has addressed this at least a few times. He didn't care so much that people could go from Scott Alexander the blogger to Scott Siskind the psychiatrist. That was trivial to do before the NYT got involved. He was more worried about people (ie his patients) googling Scott Siskind the psychiatrist and finding Scott Alexander the blogger, because of how that would impact his relationship with his patients. An article from the NYT plainly stating "Scott Alexander is Scott Siskind" would quickly become the top result for either search.

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