[gaylemcd]

Hi, ACTUALLY Gayle Laakmann McDowell here. This substack is not mine. It is an impersonation. I reported but substack hasn't deleted yet. I commented and I was, of course, banned.

(And please upvote this so people see :). Also, feel free to comment on the substack that this is an impersonation.)

[avinassh]

I submitted this post on HN thinking it belonged to you. I guess I made the matters worse and brought more traffic to the site. I don’t see the delete option now. I am really sorry. Please let me know if there is anything I can do

[_fat_santa]

Yeah this is really odd. If you had a personal blog and someone was just copy/pasting your articles to Substack in order to get subscribers I could see it. But based on your comments below it sounds like you didn't even write this (or accept a guest post), it's a complete fabrication in terms of author and post. TBH I wonder if this is a ChatGPT post though it seems almost more like someone is whining and wanted to use your credentials to get on top of HN.

[navjack27]

The formatting of the paragraphs definitely gives Credence to the idea that this could be chat GPT

[tleilaxu]

Damn, that’s rough. I am sorry this happened to you. I hope it’s taken down soon.

Doesn’t detract from the fact that your books are excellent, though! Thank you, they’ve helped me very much at certain points in my career!

Edit: They’re referring to it as a “guest post” now in the comments - ridiculous.

[greenyoda]

Hi Gayle. I've emailed the HN moderator, referencing this comment and your tweet. Hopefully the impersonated site can at least be banned on HN.

This is already the third submission from it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=gaylelaakmann.substac...

[dang]

We've banned it. Thanks.

[intelVISA]

What is the gain in this impersonation? Seems weird af to me.

[scottiebarnes]

Get traffic, sell subscriptions / products

[intelVISA]

Sure but if you can churn this out why not do it organically, or if you must fabricate: through a persona?

I can't imagine this pays off once the real person finds out and gets it closed.

[jeroen]

It's gone now.