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.
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.