Hey HN, I made this tool after I read a pretty interesting pg essay - <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html</a><p>He talks about changing some HN usernames' colors to orange and then deciding to revert back<p>So I thought it could be interesting to remove usernames entirely. This Chrome Extension just replaces HN usernames with question marks. I've enjoyed using it so far myself and I'm curious what you think about the concept?
This isn't really a problem given how discreet the usernames on this site are, as opposed to other sites with profile pics or bold usernames. By default I don't really notice the author as I'm reading each comment, so I'm not sure where this supposed bias is coming from.
I usually don't even look at the usernames. In fact I sometimes go back to read all the usernames just to see if the same person is appearing twice in a thread.
I quite honestly don't even look at the names, I just look at what people have to say. Why? Because people can have quite rational, grounded, informed opinions and insight on one field, yet have completely off-the-mark, borderline tinfoil-hat-crap in another. Doesn't mean I don't respect the person, just means that no person knows everything, and putting anybody on a pedestal is something that is eventually going to hurt you and them too.
When you're so impervious to bias that you don't even know that people have a problem with it.<p>Joking aside, have you thought of porting this into a simple user script that anyone can install? That would also mean support for all other browsers, and people don't have to use Google services.
Makes me think of: <a href="https://wakaba.c3.cx/shii/shiichan" rel="nofollow">https://wakaba.c3.cx/shii/shiichan</a>
The only two I'd even recognize are "tptacek", because he appears to be so often in a really bad mood when posting and prolific karmacollector "tomte", who (I assume) tries to politicize HN furthering a personal social justice warrior agenda.