I wish we could petition y-combinator to allow them to allow a member to delete their Hacker News account and comments.
This year for spring cleaning. I deleted facebook, twitter, disqus, and thousands of comments I left on websites from over a decade ago. No archiving, just permanent deletion. It was the the most beautiful feeling. I felt free. Like a new person. Like there wasn't a part of me roaming around on the internet building up dust anymore.
I know space is cheap and startups love data but we should study what all that does to a person emotionally.
IF {Google Glass was suppose to keep us connected /BUT/ Google glass failed because we felt too connected /BECAUSE OF/ a human emotional desire to be left alone and let the mind relax.}
THEN {Permanently archiving all your content is suppose to be a feature /BUT/ people are deleting their content /BECAUSE OF/ a human emotional desire to start over, clean up, and not leave things strewn about}
That being said I really wish the Hacker News team would add a "DELETE ACCOUNT and all comments" feature. It's ironic that Y-Combinator's hacker news team stands up for so many positive internet movements yet feel that they can permanently keep all the content I generated. It is MY content after all. Do they own the copyright to MY words? The excuse has always been "it's a part of the public dialog". Everything is. Facebook, Twitter, & Disqus are also part of the public dialog. And they let me delete myself off of their services.
Be careful of the Streisand Effect[0]. If you're scrubbing, we are looking!
I did't delete all my accounts because I've said something wrong. For the same reason people don't spring clean their home because they're getting rid of murder evidence. It's all about getting rid of the feeling that you and your thoughts from 20 years ago are all over the place. Little pieces of you are everywhere all over the internet.
There's a dread that a user feels when they realize they don't remember what they said or who they were 10 years ago, but the whole internet does.
> Little pieces of you are everywhere all over the internet
This is why it's important to choose random nyms not attached to your main identity in any way, and to strive for anonymity. On HN, create a throwaway account and run your posts through something like anonymouth[0] if you're concerned with correlation attacks, or having your stylometric patterns uncovered...