username2 comments on Open Thread August 31 - September 6 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Elo 30 August 2015 09:26PM

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Comment author: username2 02 September 2015 02:14:51AM *  6 points [-]

Someone changed the password on the Username public throwaway account. It's a shame a troll finally got to it after several years.

Comment author: gjm 02 September 2015 11:08:13AM 2 points [-]

It's worth contacting a moderator and seeing whether they can do anything about it.

Comment author: ChristianKl 02 September 2015 11:54:43AM 0 points [-]

Even if they set the password it's a nature of a public account that the PW can always be set differently.

Comment author: username2 02 September 2015 12:32:53PM 2 points [-]

How about make the password reset automatically every X minutes ?

Comment author: Dahlen 02 September 2015 02:15:35PM 1 point [-]

I actually meant to ask at some point whether the Username account would have protection against people changing passwords willy-nilly, but I didn't because, you know... information hazards and all that. Didn't want to give people the idea. But now that it's happened, I suppose I could ask retrospectively: how come nobody ensured some protection against that?

Comment author: ChristianKl 02 September 2015 02:29:42PM 2 points [-]

But now that it's happened, I suppose I could ask retrospectively: how come nobody ensured some protection against that?

Because in general a forum that's designed to allow anonymous comments would allow anonymous comments and not let people go through the hack of using a separate account for it. The account wasn't created by any moderator but simple by a using who thinks that such an account would be good to have.

While being in infohazard territory: It's not only possible to change passwords. It's also possible to delete accounts.

Comment author: MrMind 07 September 2015 10:18:01AM 0 points [-]

Then nuke the account and recreate it with the old password.

Comment author: moridinamael 02 September 2015 05:31:36PM 0 points [-]

I always assumed that was just one person. I feel like someone died. (Not really. But, how was I supposed to know it was an open account?)

Comment author: username2 02 September 2015 06:45:16PM 4 points [-]

The beauty of the account laid in the fact that it was not publicized, so only people who were long-time lurkers would know about it.

Comment author: Clarity 02 September 2015 07:18:25AM *  0 points [-]

Far out, that was an excellent account and several people had clearly used it to make important contributions.

It would be nice if there was a way to memorialize the posts or something externally. Or, perhaps the moderators could implement an 'official' throw-away to protect against this.

I have been a beneficiary of comments from the Username account and believe it does...or did a true service to the community. Thank you for taking it upon yourself to report this and making a new account.

Comment author: entirelyuseless 02 September 2015 12:56:50PM 3 points [-]

While I had no objection to the existence of the account and in fact used it several times myself, it was a bit annoying to me that someone was using it as his personal account rather than bothering to create his own.