[jackvalentine]

I did that once and got this reply:

Hi <real name>,

I’m sorry to disappoint, but Hacker News doesn’t delete entire accounts because that would gut the threads it participated in. We do sometimes remove specific comments if users are worried they’ll get in trouble, and we’re also working on the ability to rename accounts. Would either of those help?

Regards,

   <name> (a moderator)

I don’t quite agree with it but have to recognise I have no leverage here.