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A contest for admission was announced to be conducted entirely in HNews threads and based on popularity. Pinboard won overwhelmingly but was disqualified based

by Lazare 11y 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 11y 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.
- dang 11y ago
  FWIW, that's not quite what happened. We revised the rules when it became clear that Kevin wouldn't include Pinboard in the YCF program, but that only happened at the last minute. Before that, both Kevin and I were fine with Pinboard winning, which is why it was in the final poll.
  - santoshalper 11y ago
    I really appreciate that you guys apologized for all this and did the charity thing. But constantly changing your story does not make you seem trustworthy at all. "He made me uncomfortable" "It wasn't a serious application" "He'd be a bad fit" "He vote brigaded" Which just makes it look like you're throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. My advice, put down the shovel and stop digging the hole deeper.
    - Lazare 11y ago
      "Kevin reluctantly concluded that Maciej doesn’t want to participate in the program as intended." "the simple answer is he won the votes, he won the poll, but he made me feel uncomfortable in the end. I went into my good-faith phone call with him very much wanting this to work out and I was disappointed to come out of it tense and with less energy than when I went in. It’s touchy feely, I know, but the truth." "We revised the rules when it became clear that Kevin wouldn't include Pinboard in the YCF program" It's seriously hard to even keep track of the different conflicting stories. :)
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
  - akamaka 11y ago
    To me, it was crystal clear from the beginning that there was not any well-defined rules about how this would work. The message I got was that the purpose of this experiment was to get ideas from the community about interesting startup ideas that YC might have been blind to in the past. At no point did I have the impression that this was meant to be an exercise in strict democratic voting for its own sake. Everyone knows the perils of online voting. dang, I think the criticism you're getting is unfair considering the openness with which you conduct yourself. You could have easily avoided trouble by being secretive, but you didn't. I hope you don't let a contigent of vocally pedantic people discourage you from continuing your experimentation, which benefits us all when done so openly.

by Lazare 11y ago

thaumasiotes 11y 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.

dang 11y ago
FWIW, that's not quite what happened. We revised the rules when it became clear that Kevin wouldn't include Pinboard in the YCF program, but that only happened at the last minute. Before that, both Kevin and I were fine with Pinboard winning, which is why it was in the final poll.
- santoshalper 11y ago
  I really appreciate that you guys apologized for all this and did the charity thing. But constantly changing your story does not make you seem trustworthy at all. "He made me uncomfortable" "It wasn't a serious application" "He'd be a bad fit" "He vote brigaded" Which just makes it look like you're throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. My advice, put down the shovel and stop digging the hole deeper.
  - Lazare 11y ago
    "Kevin reluctantly concluded that Maciej doesn’t want to participate in the program as intended." "the simple answer is he won the votes, he won the poll, but he made me feel uncomfortable in the end. I went into my good-faith phone call with him very much wanting this to work out and I was disappointed to come out of it tense and with less energy than when I went in. It’s touchy feely, I know, but the truth." "We revised the rules when it became clear that Kevin wouldn't include Pinboard in the YCF program" It's seriously hard to even keep track of the different conflicting stories. :)
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
- akamaka 11y ago
  To me, it was crystal clear from the beginning that there was not any well-defined rules about how this would work. The message I got was that the purpose of this experiment was to get ideas from the community about interesting startup ideas that YC might have been blind to in the past. At no point did I have the impression that this was meant to be an exercise in strict democratic voting for its own sake. Everyone knows the perils of online voting. dang, I think the criticism you're getting is unfair considering the openness with which you conduct yourself. You could have easily avoided trouble by being secretive, but you didn't. I hope you don't let a contigent of vocally pedantic people discourage you from continuing your experimentation, which benefits us all when done so openly.