It seems it might be against the terms of use, emphasis mine:
> You must not use any Output relating to a person for any purpose that could have a legal or material impact on that person, such as making credit, educational, employment, housing, insurance, legal, medical, or other important decisions about them.
Merriam Webster's first definition of a secret is "something kept hidden or unexplained," emphasis mine[1]. Secrets are not usually unknowns, but things purposefully hidden or not shared. I don't see how unpopular or unconventional has anything to do with secrets either. Those features will be dependent on the information in question.
He immediately equates something unknown with something purposefully hidden. That seems like paranoia to me, which would explain some of his behavior.
One of the most common mistakes I see managers make is to enact a rule affecting employees without consulting them first, and then afterwards, they ask "How is this? Why doesn't this work? How do we improve it?"
Shoot first and ask questions later as a strategy.
Risking a visible failure hiring a bad candidate, with no reward for hiring a good one, managers defer hiring as long as possible, preferring candidates with credentials or people they know.
Maybe create a "Tell HN" post; "Tell HN: Reviews on Who's Hiring (March 2024)"
Unfortunately, I doubt most of the posters are interested in feedback. Hiring is a joke. It's almost entirely Credentialism, i.e. "It's not what you know, it's who you know." It's actually disgusting that this has been the case for so long.
It could be a nice way to warn applicants about dodgy or unresponsive posters, but it seems most of the posts are junk.
I did mean Terry Prachett, was probably overly coy about it, but I definitely need check out David Whyte! I had to google the "gibberish" quote and was very pleasantly surprised! For those curious it is Discworld Dwarvish for:
> In Greek mythology, Cerberus... often referred to as the hound of Hades, is a multi-headed dog that guards the gates of the Underworld to prevent the dead from leaving. He was the offspring of the monsters Echidna and Typhon, and was usually described as having three heads, a serpent for a tail, and snakes protruding from his body.