That information might be possible to determine from a comprehensive archive of HN, but it would be much harder to obtain.
The ability to disown a specific set of content (I'm not sure HN permits this) would avoid that issue. The associated account would just have a limited history, not an empty one. That would be equivalent to an after-the-fact throwaway account, which is much less attention-grabbing.
The only thing they do is change your username on every comment you’ve ever made to something else. But they’re all the same , so you can still link all the comments to one identity, and if even one comment makes it clear it’s a real person, then they all are.
Requesting anything more results in them saying “oh yes, we respect users wishes, blah, blah” and no action.
We are willing to do this.
> Requesting anything more results in them saying “oh yes, we respect users wishes, blah, blah” and no action
We gladly work with users to redact any material that identifies a person or reveals their location, or that otherwise poses risk to their welfare.
More broadly, this is why it's extremely unfair to make public accusations the way this user has done in this thread. The way we handle these cases actually takes far more time and involves more effort and care than it would take to implement the approach being advocated here.
You said yourself it would take less effort, and the outcome is better.
Win, win.