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Comment by kossTKR | Hacker News Reader

Isn't that a weird thing to say when this thread is filled with people absolutely praising them and this achievement?

I doubt HN is more or less toxic than traffic from any other mainstream site, but maybe i'm wrong.

I imagine since they're on the receiving end, they'd know. Also if even one HNer tried to dox me I'd ban the lot of you, and I'm a relatively cantankerous straight white guy.

I get it. I guess i find it so exceedingly bizarre to dox someone, especially when known for being brilliant people - it probably doesn't register properly.

Doxing is an exaggeration of what it is. They have a very public online presence in the first place and made it pretty obvious, and they self-promote. It's just putting 2 and 2 together. The "block" on HN seems to have more to do with their gripes about inaccurate or negative comments than about attacks, unless I missed something.

Most of the harm of "doxing" isn't revealing information, which in many cases can be found online for people like software engineers who have public CVs, but rather targeting of those individuals in communities that are predisposed against them and willing to take action be it through emails, comments, etc.

There's a lot to be said about any number of people privately or publicly spamming you, intimidating you, or threatening you on a _personal_ level.

100% It's about proving to the victim that they don't have control.

I agree, but I don't think there's any harm in being honest about in this case, since it's pretty on-brand for their public persona. It just seems like a weird hang-up, which ironically fuels the rumor mill. "Hey, isn't this Twitter account run by the same person as that Twitter account?" is pretty harmless as far as "doxing" goes, and when you've let it slip a number of times, what's the point? It's naive to expect total anonymity and zero negative attention with a flamboyant public persona (not meant to be derogatory), especially when you're making money from it, and if you add fuel on the fire on top of that...

"Half" is hyperbole, but it's a sizable minority that's obnoxious and persistent enough that nearly every trans hacker I follow has a gripe with HN. (Which is a greater number than you'd think; not that long ago I found out it's a meme in the transfemme community to refer to striped thigh-highs as "programmer socks")

There a reason a number of sites have taken similar positions about HN.

It’s more toxic on a few axis.

> toxic on a few axes.

(Sorry, you did tee it up)

Ugh, HN users with axes to grind...

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