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Comment by zamadatix | Hacker News Reader

To hopefully save some here the risk of an embarrassing redaction mistake:

Redaction should be done by deleting the content from the media AND THEN adding decoration you want to indicate the material was removed.

If you do things any other way you're liable to end up with something like the attempt on the site where the email might as well have been highlighted instead.

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Can also be useful information to have if you want to give the appearance of having diligently redacted without doing too much to protect some asshole. IMO if the author of that email wanted to protect their anonymity and employability they should have used a throwaway, Don is doing them an undeserved service by even half-assedly blocking it out.

I don't think that's the kind of person Don is. If he wanted to out them he wouldn't have tried to act like it was an accident.

I don't think so either, I'm saying he's a better person than I am for blocking it out as much as he did. If someone sends me a filthy email like that I don't particularly care if their name and contact info are made public or what happens afterwards.

I'm not here to pass judgement one way or the other on what one would/should do in regards to redactions but there are reasons beyond politeness to not share such private communications & information publicly without consent (especially in Europe where Don is).

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