[Edd1CC]

HN usernames aren't case-sensitive:

> That username conflicts with an existing one. Names are case-insensitive. Please choose another.

[Retr0id]

They're case-sensitive for the purpose of scraping a profile page.

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Retr0id - 200

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=retr0id - 404 (Edit: 200 now?)

[michaelmior]

That second one doesn't give me a 404 but correctly shows your profile.

[Retr0id]

Weird, it also works for me now, I could've sworn it didn't work before.

The firebase API on the other hand remains case-sensitive:

https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/user/Retr0id.json => full response

https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/user/retr0id.json => null

[diggan]

I think maybe you're thinking about the "threads" list/page:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Retr0id - Works

- https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=retr0id - Doesn't work

Which somehow I guess the API is using.

[Retr0id]

Possibly, although according to this[0] the main profile URL used to be case-sensitive too. It must've changed recently, but I have no idea when.

[0] https://github.com/keybase/keybase-issues/issues/939