He stated the source, and information about his Docker affiliation is readily available. HN guidelines discourage signing comments:
Please don't sign comments; they're already signed with your username. If other users want to learn more about you, they can click on it to see your profile.
There's a huge difference between having a generic signature for every comment you post and disclosing an affiliation that adds validity to the claims made in the comment.
It doesn't say "don't sign all your comments", it simply says "don't sign comments". Also, it should be interpreted in the light of the fact that modern netiquette on other sites like Stack Overflow which have usernames is to never sign your posts.
Here it is to disclose affiliation, which else people would forget to check due to nature of 'battle'.
Also, there is an assumption that the signature contains up to date information and/or does not change over time. The latter situation would else impact historical purpose. The signature has changed and does not refer to the position/information related to the moment of writing.
I agree with how both jwildeboer (Jan) and shykes (Solomon) approached this. Much appreciated in this case.
But yes, in a normal situation, this is irrelevant and the username signature is sufficient.
I don't know that there is a huge difference between those two. What I do know is that in this case there was no difference of any significance.
The comment was signed with his username, and his Docker affiliation was disclosed under said username. That was all that was needed to add validity to the claims in the comment.
All HN comments have that "generic signature". All HN users are free to disclose information about themselves on their profile, and all HN readers are free to click usernames to learn more about the the people who comment on HN.
Please don't sign comments; they're already signed with your username. If other users want to learn more about you, they can click on it to see your profile.