Tell HN: Please add a way for people to contact you in your profile
I've been using HN and its search feature a lot for my research, and there are a lot of insightful comments from people that seem to be working on the same problem with which I would love to exchange ideas with, and hopefully start collaborating on something meaningful.
Yet it seems that many users don't provide any way for people to contact them, so these serendipitous opportunities to connect with like-minded humans never happen, and it's such a shame.
I know that I could beg our @dang to act as intermediary and contact the user in question on my behalf, but he's too busy and valuable to turn into a glorified phone operator :-)
So, unless you want to remain unreachable, please add an email, an X profile, a phone number, something people can use to contact and discuss "face to face" with you. You never know which door it might open for you.
In these days of anonymous cowards on the internet shouting at each other, having a discussion with a real human stranger by email feels good, and personally I truly treasure the few HN users that have written me over the years about comments I posted, and you might too.
> I know that I could beg our @dang to act as intermediary and contact the user in question on my behalf, but he's too busy and valuable to turn into a glorified phone operator :-)
Oh my god no. I intentionally am uncontactable on here and I’m sure that’s true for many others. I don’t want HN people to connect with me, open doors, etc. It may surprise some folks, but some of us don’t give a shit about networking, hustling, etc. via online message boards.
For all the high quality tech people on here, there seems to be a similar number of hucksters, get-rich-quick people, life-optimization-influencers, technical dilettantes, and other types I actively would like to avoid ever being contacted by. If the admins ever facilitate piercing that anonymity that would kill this site forever for me.
In OPs defense, this sounds like an optional take. I do not think anyone is forcing you to commit to changes. He is simply proposing a connect channel with folks that want to sync up or continue on subject matter content.
> Oh my god no. I intentionally am uncontactable on here and I’m sure that’s true for many others.
Then don't add an email to your profile.
I have been on this site 10 years more than you, and I have yet to be contacted by a scammer, con artist or whatever else you are afraid of, FWIW. Not everyone is out to scam their fellow neighbour.
Again, no one is forcing you to become contactable.
I have received multiple emails that were initiated by my email in HN. Most of them were legitimate contacts related to job positions or participating in open source projects but a good 20% that I didn't engage were probably scams.
So people who don’t want to be contacted by others don’t get an option for password recovery? Interesting perspective…
Adding your email to HN and adding it to your public profile are different things, you can add your email without make it public.
OP‘s idea was that HN‘s admins use the private/non-public email field in the profile to play middleman.
I know that I could beg our @dang to act as intermediary and contact the user in question on my behalf, but he's too busy and valuable to turn into a glorified phone operator
He would not do that. If people do not wish to be contacted outside of HN they leave their contact information out of the profile. I personally like that I have the option and to keep conversations here. If something was urgent I can create a throw-away email and temporarily list it in my profile, then remove it.
I would suggest that if people opt to share contact info in their profile, they should use a canary address that can be discarded without causing grief as there are some unhinged lurkers. I see them planning raids on this site from other sites from time to time.
I have my real email address in my profile, and I've only been contacted once that I can remember (and it was by a non-troll).
I have no argument with anyone who prefers to remain anonymous, but the negative consequences you described haven't materialized for me.
Likewise here, I've been a bit more active.
> I would suggest that if people opt to share contact info in their profile, they should use a canary address that can be discarded without causing grief as there are some unhinged lurkers. I see them planning raids on this site from other sites from time to time.
The day I'm afraid of Internet trolls finding my email is the day I leave the Internet forever.
The days of internet trolls turning to physical nuisances or outright danger, happens daily.
It was much worse in the bbs days when things were smaller.
That's been happening for many, many years.
Citation?
Maybe people want to be unreachable? HN is one of the safe spaces for those of us from the olden days of the ‘net, before it was real names and total visibility. Anyone who wants to be contacted puts their info in the about box. Those who don’t, don’t.
Recently, I found it creepy that someone actually found me elsewhere on the internet because they got upset with something I said on here, then were trailing my fairly well manicured online presence for ad hominems to use here. I could see it in my analytics logs. I found it pretty weird, so I for one wouldn’t want any more of my contact details available here, where I’m free to say whatever I want and let the community upvote or downvote it.
The best is when people post on “Who wants to be hired” with no way to contact them, I don’t get it.
reverse filter. selects for the most motivated hire-ers
:raises-hand: I tracked down one person after finding an old comment where they linked to a GH project, from there I found them on mastodon. I can't remember if they linked to it or if it was just username reuse (same profile pic as well). Then PM'd them on mastodon. They got back to me a week later saying they had accepted another job already.
A thread of frustration this is, because people who agree or are neutral will remain silent even if outnumber those who criticize. Note taken, but personally I try to keep my internet “images” disconnected for unclear forward privacy reasons. And maintaining yet another fake email for that - too lazy.
I think that unless you’re going to reach people daily, it’s probably okay to find a recent comment of a user and try to explain your ideas and communicate under it. Worst case they’ll politely pretend being offline.
> I know that I could beg our @dang to act as intermediary and contact the user in question on my behalf, but he's too busy and valuable to turn into a glorified phone operator :-)
The response to this bit is a little surprising. It's really not that uncommon for a platform operator to forward the rare message between users - even Github does this (I've requested they forward several messages to users in regards to acquiring particular usernames)
There's still a way to contact people who want to be contacted : they leave their website address or in any of their post, you may find something to get in contact with them.
Most of us don't want to be contacted on HN, we just want to discuss randomly in comments, that's it!
OP here: I guess I shouldn't have included the dang thing because it's all people are focused about now. Indeed it is very possible for dang NOT to contact one on anyone's behalf, it was just a silly assumption on my part for sake of argument, I didn't expect people to clutch their pearls. This post is not prescriptive.
The idea is if you want people to contact you, add an email, you maybe forgot to. If you don't want to, move along, nothing to see here.
Good idea!
nonsense to me
if you want to contact somebody just make the move, ask in a comment
This isn't really a great suggestion on HN. You don't get notified of replies, it can be tricky to keep track of what you have read, etc.
ah, I am using https://hnreplies.com
I've built https://hackernewsalerts.com which does that, and also checks for comments on your posts too.
thanks, I'll try it out, too
Btw: I suggest to everybody using these tools (external to ycombinator.com) to use email aliases instead of their real email, of course
Hey neat!
To be fair I don't always read the responses to my comments.
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