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Very interesting.

It would be cool to have the HN handles, with links to their profiles, next to each bio blub.

Would also be cool to have lists of the people in each location -- I'd be curious to see who the 7 in NYC are, or the 2 in Berlin.

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I thought about listing usernames with the bios, but I thought it might be unwelcome for some people. Of course they're all people who are public in a sense anyway, but not all of them are trivially linked in the realname->username direction if you Google. For example some people's HN profile just has a URL, and then their real name is at the URL. Others post under a well-known real name but don't directly link their RL identity in the profile. That setup means people who know their RL identity don't as easily stumble across their HN profile: the HN profile doesn't list their real name verbatim, or come up in a search for the real name, which would change if I put up an googleable index of username/real-name pairs. Maybe I'm being too cautious, though.

No, I think you're doing the right thing.

We've had discussions on HN about real names and handles...I think the consensus is that most everyone who has their real name or bio linked into their profile are OK with people knowing it, and the welcome side effect for some such persons is that they have another incentive to stay civil.

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