My article was #1 on Hackernews yesterday and it was an unpleasant experience

I wrote an article on the 1st of May about Google updating the country associated with my account automatically. I cross-posted it here also.

I wrote the article to raise awareness about this topic, someone's country association may be right or wrong if this process happens automatically. Certainly if you use a VPN, then your IP address is a less reliable indicator of your location, so that is one way that Google may get it wrong.

Yesterday, I received an email from someone telling me that my article was number 1 on Hackernews and asked (politely) if the change of country for my account was correct.

I made the mistake of looking at the thread! I was glad it raised awareness about the matter, but I found the debate disconcerting.

The discussion didn't seem very constructive. Some people were making unpleasant inferences about me. Very little of the discussion was about what Google's policy actually is. That was the crux of my article. People are free to discuss what they want, but I didn't want to get involved.

I guess this is a more sensitive topic for some people than I imagined, and it stirred up some feelings. That is not an excuse to take it out on other people. I just wish people would lead with a desire to understand and look for constructive ways to move things forward. That's all I try to do.

I would appreciate it if you don't post my articles on Hackernews in the future! 🙏😅 If there is a next time, I will ignore everything related to it.