Not to be cynical, I don't think he did. He was doing what he was doing till the time he was caught. It's not like he told the community himself.
He is just trying to play the nice guy game to save his image. His doing this is dishonest -- plain and simple. Don't get me wrong. He is really good in his field and knows a lot. I learned a lot from him and if he posts stuff, I will read it again. But this behaviour is dishonesty.
> He is just trying to play the nice guy game to save his image. His doing this is dishonest -- plain and simple.
If he was being honest, would it look any different? Or is the pitchfork mob just demanding blood?
On the one hand a reputation takes years to create and only a second to destroy. On the other hand, holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
Personally I think if you want to be angry at something there's much more insidious manipulation going on. Unidan makes great content and gets people excited about his biology research... remember him for that, not for his amateur inability to execute a proper astroturfing botnet campaign.
At the very least, let him be reborn with a new username and see what he can build. Isn't the ability to bounce back from failure and mistakes what we celebrate here on hn?
He actually lied, straight-up. He said he only downvoted misinformation, but it turns out he downvoted others' submissions (to make his own submissions look better).
He is just trying to play the nice guy game to save his image. His doing this is dishonest -- plain and simple. Don't get me wrong. He is really good in his field and knows a lot. I learned a lot from him and if he posts stuff, I will read it again. But this behaviour is dishonesty.