2016-04-20: initial request to rename or delete "Account renaming is something we plan to implement but haven't yet. You're welcome to email back in the future and check if it's done yet."
2016-07-26: check up "Not yet, sorry. There are some technical difficulties because YC uses HN IDs in its internal systems, which are separate, so we need to be extra careful not to make a breaking change. But we'll get there."
2017-02-20: me (falsely) claiming it's a matter of national security "That does sound urgent, so I'm sorry to have to reply this way, but we don't actually have the ability to do this. At some point we will have the ability to rename accounts to something anonymous, but unfortunately we don't have that yet either."
2018-02-22: another check up "Not yet, sorry, but it is coming. Do you want to be on an email list to get notified when it's ready?"
2018-09-06: no email. another check up after a small stalker scenario, and also a business associate mentioning they saw my HN profile while doing a Windows search for my contact info (thanks Cortana /s) "Yes—we can do account renaming now. Haven't announced it yet, but that's coming." rejoice
2019-04-18: check up on deleting "Hacker News doesn’t delete entire posting histories, and we don’t plan to because that would gut the threads others participated in. The intention is to address privacy concerns with account renaming or redacting personal information. "
2016-07-26: check up "Not yet, sorry. There are some technical difficulties because YC uses HN IDs in its internal systems, which are separate, so we need to be extra careful not to make a breaking change. But we'll get there."
2017-02-20: me (falsely) claiming it's a matter of national security "That does sound urgent, so I'm sorry to have to reply this way, but we don't actually have the ability to do this. At some point we will have the ability to rename accounts to something anonymous, but unfortunately we don't have that yet either."
2018-02-22: another check up "Not yet, sorry, but it is coming. Do you want to be on an email list to get notified when it's ready?"
2018-09-06: no email. another check up after a small stalker scenario, and also a business associate mentioning they saw my HN profile while doing a Windows search for my contact info (thanks Cortana /s) "Yes—we can do account renaming now. Haven't announced it yet, but that's coming." rejoice
2019-04-18: check up on deleting "Hacker News doesn’t delete entire posting histories, and we don’t plan to because that would gut the threads others participated in. The intention is to address privacy concerns with account renaming or redacting personal information. "