5 ms·

This is a cryptic post, what, in direct terms, happened?

by forgottenacc56 10y ago

paraxisi 10y ago
Look at the linked threads perhaps?
- eterm 10y ago
  Without context the threads don't add much narative. I haven't been following applyHN and it's not until quite deep into those threads that you can piece together what actually happened. Seemed to be: Something won a vote People running the vote decided they didn't like the outcome so they ignored the vote. It's basically Boaty McBoatface again with similar lessons of "don't run online polls".
  - Typhon 10y ago
    Possibly merely "don't run open-ended online polls with unclear rules for submission". Don't be too quick to generalize.
  - dang 10y ago
    > It's basically Boaty McBoatface again with similar lessons of "don't run online polls". I was tempted to draw that conclusion too, but decided it's important to resist. Finding new ways to productively engage this community is a big deal to us. We obviously have a lot to learn, so screw-ups are inevitable, but we're ok with that as long as we can make them right.
  - cperciva 10y ago
    It's basically Boaty McBoatface again with similar lessons of "don't run online polls". Fooy McFooface is the inevitable outcome of online polls which are open to the entire internet, allow arbitrary submissions, and can have traffic easily driven to them. Other forms of online polling -- high-turnout votes with a preset voters list, polls which are hidden away in unlinkable parts of member-only sites, or polls with a moderated list of options, for example -- don't have those problems.
DanBC 10y ago
This is a nice apology. Why rake through the problems, again, here? The threads have been linked to in OP.
- drauh 10y ago
  Because a summary for those of us who don't have time to read through the very long and multithreaded original posts would have been nice.
pyb 10y ago
This is the thread in question. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633270
tptacek 10y ago
It's not cryptic. This was all hashed out on the announcement thread. Pinboard won HN's endorsement overwhelmingly, but Pinboard itself isn't a good fit for YCF. When "Apply HN" was conceived of, it wasn't clear that the winners would still need to be interviewed by YC. It became clear that they'd need to be. An interview step was added. Maciej talked to Kevin, Kevin decided not to move forward with Pinboard. If YC does an "Apply HN" thing again, no doubt the interview step will be in the announcement, but it wasn't this time. The rest is just miscommunication and bad optics.
- madeofpalk 10y ago
  I read through that and I didn't really see anything that required an apology and $20k to be given to a charity. 'What' did Pinboard supposedly win? I can't find any poll or submission that appears to be contentious. I searched HN https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22apply%20hn%22&sort=byPopularity&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22apply%20hn%22&sort=byPopula... and found this joke submission https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11441480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11441480 I mean, I think I've pieced together what's happened, but I'm still fairly confused and feel like I'm missing a lot of context.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    He, under "idlewords," demanded he get the $20k. I can't remember on the apology. He didn't say shit about a charity in the threads I was reading: talking of domain names, office space, whatever to expand the business. It's only confusing unless I think of the word "trolling." Then it makes a bit more sense.
  - duiker101 10y ago
    Pinboard won by having the most votes, but was disqualified for vote brigading apparently. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633278 And the "joke submission" wasn't joke at all
Mz 10y ago
Some guy got the most upvotes for his submission, but did not "win." Beyond that, I don't know. I hadn't followed all the action closely enough.
lalos 10y ago
Boils down to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633517
jlarocco 10y ago
From what I can tell: The founder of Pinboard (Maciej, HN user idlewords) applied to "Apply HN". The application was (probably) done a bit tongue in cheek and ironically, because (as I understand it) he's had interesting previous interactions with YC and has posted some "anti-Paul Graham" blog posts BUT, he "won" ApplyHN with more than double the votes of the next runner up: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22apply%20hn%22&sort=byPopularity&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22apply%20hn%22&sort=byPopula... However, he was not selected and there was this post to the winner's announcement yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633278 making it appear there was some bias involved. FWIW, Pinboard is awesome.
Lazare 10y ago
A contest for admission was announced to be conducted entirely in HNews threads and based on popularity. Pinboard won overwhelmingly but was disqualified based on a private, ambiguous, and somewhat troubling conversation that took place outside of HNews threads (where Pinboard's founder made the YCombinator partner interviewing him "unconfortable" for unspecified reasons). When people expressed reservations about this, the story was revised: The YCombinator partner actually believed that Pinboard's application was just a joke, and in any case Pinboard had violated a secret/unwritten rule not to solicit votes outside of HNews, which disqualified them anyhow. As todays announcement probably made clear, that didn't really solve the problem, because it felt way too much like "We don't like Pinboard's founder, and we'll revise the rules until he loses." Not saying in any way that's what happened, but that's the optics. Anyhow, I'm glad things are resolved, it seems everyone walked away reasonable happy, and YCombinator seems to have moved quickly and decisively to draw a line under it and move on. However... ...in my personal view the problem arose 100% because of a series of poor decisions by YCombinator. :( Edit: The conditions of winning were described as "At the end of the month, we'll rank the startups and YC will fund two. The ranking will depend both on upvotes and on the quality of discussion, similar to how the ranking of stories works. We can talk about this in the comments, but to answer one question I know will come up: Upvotes are an important factor but they're too brittle to rely on exclusively; doing so would encourage the wrong kind of trying to game the system. So we're going to gauge community interest both by upvotes and comments, and in case of doubt I'll make the final call—or better, figure out a way to put the final call to the community." The problem is that 1) the contest was expressed as "find us someone to fund", not "find us someone to interview", and 2) Pinboard wasn't disqualified based on either upvotes or comments, but based on other factors not mentioned in the post.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  > As todays announcement probably made clear, that didn't really solve the problem, because it felt way too much like "We don't like Pinboard's founder, and we'll revise the rules until he loses." Not saying in any way that's what happened, but that's the optics. This is understated. dang is on the record ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11636651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11636651 ) that that's exactly what happened.

This is a cryptic post, what, in direct terms, happened?

paraxisi 10y ago

Look at the linked threads perhaps?

eterm 10y ago
Without context the threads don't add much narative. I haven't been following applyHN and it's not until quite deep into those threads that you can piece together what actually happened. Seemed to be: Something won a vote People running the vote decided they didn't like the outcome so they ignored the vote. It's basically Boaty McBoatface again with similar lessons of "don't run online polls".
- Typhon 10y ago
  Possibly merely "don't run open-ended online polls with unclear rules for submission". Don't be too quick to generalize.
- dang 10y ago
  > It's basically Boaty McBoatface again with similar lessons of "don't run online polls". I was tempted to draw that conclusion too, but decided it's important to resist. Finding new ways to productively engage this community is a big deal to us. We obviously have a lot to learn, so screw-ups are inevitable, but we're ok with that as long as we can make them right.
- cperciva 10y ago
  It's basically Boaty McBoatface again with similar lessons of "don't run online polls". Fooy McFooface is the inevitable outcome of online polls which are open to the entire internet, allow arbitrary submissions, and can have traffic easily driven to them. Other forms of online polling -- high-turnout votes with a preset voters list, polls which are hidden away in unlinkable parts of member-only sites, or polls with a moderated list of options, for example -- don't have those problems.

DanBC 10y ago

This is a nice apology. Why rake through the problems, again, here? The threads have been linked to in OP.

drauh 10y ago
Because a summary for those of us who don't have time to read through the very long and multithreaded original posts would have been nice.

pyb 10y ago

This is the thread in question. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633270

tptacek 10y ago

It's not cryptic. This was all hashed out on the announcement thread. Pinboard won HN's endorsement overwhelmingly, but Pinboard itself isn't a good fit for YCF. When "Apply HN" was conceived of, it wasn't clear that the winners would still need to be interviewed by YC. It became clear that they'd need to be. An interview step was added. Maciej talked to Kevin, Kevin decided not to move forward with Pinboard. If YC does an "Apply HN" thing again, no doubt the interview step will be in the announcement, but it wasn't this time. The rest is just miscommunication and bad optics.

madeofpalk 10y ago
I read through that and I didn't really see anything that required an apology and $20k to be given to a charity. 'What' did Pinboard supposedly win? I can't find any poll or submission that appears to be contentious. I searched HN https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22apply%20hn%22&sort=byPopularity&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22apply%20hn%22&sort=byPopula... and found this joke submission https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11441480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11441480 I mean, I think I've pieced together what's happened, but I'm still fairly confused and feel like I'm missing a lot of context.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  He, under "idlewords," demanded he get the $20k. I can't remember on the apology. He didn't say shit about a charity in the threads I was reading: talking of domain names, office space, whatever to expand the business. It's only confusing unless I think of the word "trolling." Then it makes a bit more sense.
- duiker101 10y ago
  Pinboard won by having the most votes, but was disqualified for vote brigading apparently. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633278 And the "joke submission" wasn't joke at all

Mz 10y ago

Some guy got the most upvotes for his submission, but did not "win." Beyond that, I don't know. I hadn't followed all the action closely enough.

lalos 10y ago

Boils down to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633517

jlarocco 10y ago

From what I can tell: The founder of Pinboard (Maciej, HN user idlewords) applied to "Apply HN". The application was (probably) done a bit tongue in cheek and ironically, because (as I understand it) he's had interesting previous interactions with YC and has posted some "anti-Paul Graham" blog posts BUT, he "won" ApplyHN with more than double the votes of the next runner up: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22apply%20hn%22&sort=byPopularity&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22apply%20hn%22&sort=byPopula... However, he was not selected and there was this post to the winner's announcement yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633278 making it appear there was some bias involved. FWIW, Pinboard is awesome.

Lazare 10y ago

A contest for admission was announced to be conducted entirely in HNews threads and based on popularity. Pinboard won overwhelmingly but was disqualified based on a private, ambiguous, and somewhat troubling conversation that took place outside of HNews threads (where Pinboard's founder made the YCombinator partner interviewing him "unconfortable" for unspecified reasons). When people expressed reservations about this, the story was revised: The YCombinator partner actually believed that Pinboard's application was just a joke, and in any case Pinboard had violated a secret/unwritten rule not to solicit votes outside of HNews, which disqualified them anyhow. As todays announcement probably made clear, that didn't really solve the problem, because it felt way too much like "We don't like Pinboard's founder, and we'll revise the rules until he loses." Not saying in any way that's what happened, but that's the optics. Anyhow, I'm glad things are resolved, it seems everyone walked away reasonable happy, and YCombinator seems to have moved quickly and decisively to draw a line under it and move on. However... ...in my personal view the problem arose 100% because of a series of poor decisions by YCombinator. :( Edit: The conditions of winning were described as "At the end of the month, we'll rank the startups and YC will fund two. The ranking will depend both on upvotes and on the quality of discussion, similar to how the ranking of stories works. We can talk about this in the comments, but to answer one question I know will come up: Upvotes are an important factor but they're too brittle to rely on exclusively; doing so would encourage the wrong kind of trying to game the system. So we're going to gauge community interest both by upvotes and comments, and in case of doubt I'll make the final call—or better, figure out a way to put the final call to the community." The problem is that 1) the contest was expressed as "find us someone to fund", not "find us someone to interview", and 2) Pinboard wasn't disqualified based on either upvotes or comments, but based on other factors not mentioned in the post.

thaumasiotes 10y ago
> As todays announcement probably made clear, that didn't really solve the problem, because it felt way too much like "We don't like Pinboard's founder, and we'll revise the rules until he loses." Not saying in any way that's what happened, but that's the optics. This is understated. dang is on the record ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11636651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11636651 ) that that's exactly what happened.