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by etfb 4394 days ago
I agree with most of his points. I stopped reading Slashdot because I didn't like how the voting affected my interaction with the site, and I went cold turkey on Reddit and haven't been back (or even missed it) for maybe a year now. Maybe I should ditch my HN account too. Other than as an experiment in how to craft an inoffensive comment that will be accepted by the tiny subset of humanity who lurk here, it doesn't really have much benefit.

What a shame there's no "delete account" option. Should I do something unutterably awful to get pg's attention (accuse him of murdering kittens or raping puppies or writing software in Visual C++?) or shall I just do as the OP did and change my password to something unmemorable? If I change my email to a random mailinator account, that will make password recovery impossible too, I suspect.
1 comments
carrotleads 4394 days ago
well the OP mentioned changing the password to long unrecoverable string.

How did he manage to come back? did he store pwd somewhere? pull strings at YC??

How?

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etfb 4394 days ago
Made a new account? I don't know.

It's kind of crazy that there's no "forgot password" option. I can understand not allowing account deletion, because you don't want to break conversations by having someone's comments mass-deleted, but not having a password retrieval mechanism is just foolish. Amateur hour incarnate. This does not look like a system designed by someone who's making a real commitment.

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mhartl 4394 days ago
I've wondered the same thing. He returned under the same username, so it looks like he recovered his password somehow. Matt is a Y Combinator alumnus, so it's possible he talked to PG directly.
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mattmaroon 4394 days ago
There is a password reset feature. It works via typing in the wrong password. Go to the login page, type in a wrong pwd, and it magically appears.

If I recall correctly PG told me that at a YC event. Damn you PG! :)

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etfb 4394 days ago
Aha! So there is. So it's not bad implementation, just bad UI design.

So the trick is:

- Change your email address to something like kjghoyvgljhbvljhvkljhbv@mailinator.com.

- If you get a confirmation message to your old address, delete it.

- Change your password to jkhvouyflkjbv7897t^%REjhvljyyf.

- Go to the mailinator address to confirm the change.

- Clear your browser history.

Then you're free of HN forever! ... Or until you make a new account.

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