Your experience makes sense to me, and it feels like just the sort of hacker-ethos tinkering that brings a smile to a lot of faces around here, mine included. Complete with the thrill of discovering that kind of power, then the “ick” factor catching up with you, and you deciding to stop.

Reminds me of rougher-and-readier days, when everything about online discourse felt more self-evidently… what’s the word… contingent? Provisional? Local? Playful, game-like, made-up? Afforded the seriousness of pub banter, rather than any kind of indicator of some broader Truth.

I think my point—which I apologize for putting a little snidely—echoed @rkomorn’s: I completely accept that you or “agencies” can manipulate HN’s proudly old-school mechanics. I just feel like our hangout here is less important in the scheme of things than we’d like to imagine it to be. At least to the sort of agencies who do that kind of work. They could, but why?