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>I'm not sure what you're alluding to I have no opinion on the matter, but clearly the OP is alluding to the fact that HN will bury negative stories about thei

>I'm not sure what you're alluding to I have no opinion on the matter, but clearly the OP is alluding to the fact that HN will bury negative stories about their investments.

dang 10y ago
That first tweet is about Uber. Uber is not a YC investment. It's also one of the most heavily discussed topics on HN, so it's hard to understand what's being claimed there. The idea that HN "buries stories about [YC] investments" is one some people assume must be true—as you did, for example, in your use of the word 'fact' above. But the truth is the opposite. When stories are negative about YC or YC-funded companies, we moderate them less, not more, than we otherwise would. I've posted about this plenty of times, e.g. recently at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13861389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13861389. For example, consider the current post. This is not a good HN story, because it doesn't describe anything of intellectual interest. It also has a baity and misleading title, which breaks the rules at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. But we haven't penalized it, and we haven't replaced the title other than to put quotation marks around "bribes", in response to a user's objection. Intervening less in such cases, even at the expense of HN's quality, is the price we pay for being able to answer comments like yours and the GP's in good faith.
- gamblor956 10y ago
  This might be a new policy now that you're the head moderator, but the reason this complaint pops up every time there's a negative post about a YC company is because for several years there was a noticeable, nearly 100% correlation between "negative post about a YC company" and "gone from the front page within 3 hours despite dozens or even hundreds of upvotes."
  - dang 10y ago
    It isn't a new policy; as I've posted elsewhere in the thread, "moderate HN less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is involved" is literally the first thing pg taught me about how to moderate HN. In fact he blurted it at me before I even had a chance to grab a chair. I doubt these complaints pop up because of years ago, though. People just assume that's how it works whether it does that way or not, and confirmation bias does the rest, i.e. we notice the data points that match our assumptions much more than ones that don't. Plus it's fun to trade those with others who share the same view.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Dan has been the head moderator for years, and was a moderator long before it was public that he was. PG was more capricious with moderation than Dan was, but when Dan says Paul Graham believed not showing favoritism to YC was a priority of his, I believe him. Say what you want about anybody else at YC, but Dan is one of the most trustworthy people in show business. If he says a story didn't get suppressed by the mods, bank on that.
    - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
      >If he says a story didn't get suppressed by the mods, bank on that. // I don't really doubt you tptacek, nor indeed doubt dang, but this is a problem with closed moderation we can't see whether YC manipulates the rankings to their benefit financially or otherwise and for those people who don't know you or dang personally there's little provable trust to be carried by such comments as you've made here.
- untilHellbanned 10y ago
  It's HN users who are more guilty of the biases in this thread.

>I'm not sure what you're alluding to I have no opinion on the matter, but clearly the OP is alluding to the fact that HN will bury negative stories about their investments.

dang 10y ago

That first tweet is about Uber. Uber is not a YC investment. It's also one of the most heavily discussed topics on HN, so it's hard to understand what's being claimed there. The idea that HN "buries stories about [YC] investments" is one some people assume must be true—as you did, for example, in your use of the word 'fact' above. But the truth is the opposite. When stories are negative about YC or YC-funded companies, we moderate them less, not more, than we otherwise would. I've posted about this plenty of times, e.g. recently at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13861389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13861389. For example, consider the current post. This is not a good HN story, because it doesn't describe anything of intellectual interest. It also has a baity and misleading title, which breaks the rules at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. But we haven't penalized it, and we haven't replaced the title other than to put quotation marks around "bribes", in response to a user's objection. Intervening less in such cases, even at the expense of HN's quality, is the price we pay for being able to answer comments like yours and the GP's in good faith.

gamblor956 10y ago
This might be a new policy now that you're the head moderator, but the reason this complaint pops up every time there's a negative post about a YC company is because for several years there was a noticeable, nearly 100% correlation between "negative post about a YC company" and "gone from the front page within 3 hours despite dozens or even hundreds of upvotes."
- dang 10y ago
  It isn't a new policy; as I've posted elsewhere in the thread, "moderate HN less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is involved" is literally the first thing pg taught me about how to moderate HN. In fact he blurted it at me before I even had a chance to grab a chair. I doubt these complaints pop up because of years ago, though. People just assume that's how it works whether it does that way or not, and confirmation bias does the rest, i.e. we notice the data points that match our assumptions much more than ones that don't. Plus it's fun to trade those with others who share the same view.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Dan has been the head moderator for years, and was a moderator long before it was public that he was. PG was more capricious with moderation than Dan was, but when Dan says Paul Graham believed not showing favoritism to YC was a priority of his, I believe him. Say what you want about anybody else at YC, but Dan is one of the most trustworthy people in show business. If he says a story didn't get suppressed by the mods, bank on that.
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    >If he says a story didn't get suppressed by the mods, bank on that. // I don't really doubt you tptacek, nor indeed doubt dang, but this is a problem with closed moderation we can't see whether YC manipulates the rankings to their benefit financially or otherwise and for those people who don't know you or dang personally there's little provable trust to be carried by such comments as you've made here.
untilHellbanned 10y ago
It's HN users who are more guilty of the biases in this thread.