You can have your old HN comments deleted by emailing the mods. There's limits to how much they'll delete, but they definitely don't want you to get into trouble over something you posted on HN.
Yes it's a huge problem. Many of us (or maybe just me?) would not have been so candid on HN had we known our comments would be indelibly preserved forever with no option for deletion.
The stated reasons for this policy I've seen from 'dang amount to "we don't like the look of a bunch of comment chains with [deleted] everywhere" which I find insulting.
I have a suspicion that the real reason is that the site software conveniently doesn't have a mass-deletion function.
They are perfectly able to add features to the site, and would absolutely add a feature if they thought it was as important as you think this one is.
I get the feeling you've never actually attempted to engage with them in good faith, because they're willing to put in quite a lot of work to dissociate you from your comments while leaving the comment intact. In case you missed it, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23623799 is linked from the FAQ.
> They are perfectly able to add features to the site, and would absolutely add a feature if they thought it was as important as you think this one is.
I mean we're talking about the forum software that can't handle more than a few hundred comments without resorting to pagination, so I feel justified in my thesis that engineering hours going into HN are pretty limited.
Again, you're not doing much to convince me you've actually gone out of your way to have a conversation with them.
They have other fish to fry, because maintaining a community doesn't just mean maintaining a codebase. They have a bunch of existing code that is architected in a way that makes some changes (like removing the comment render limit) not so easy. Though some of the consequences are annoying, they've never stopped anyone from using HN.
My personal experience is that they are implementing features and doing experiments, and it seems to me you've just never bothered to reach out and check with them because you think you know better.
Enjoy your thesis, or whatever. They're nice people and I recommend emailing them.
