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Daniel, this is just my opinion, but I'm not sure if it was fair for you to take this down / flag it. I understand your concerns, but maybe give this one a pass

Daniel, this is just my opinion, but I'm not sure if it was fair for you to take this down / flag it. I understand your concerns, but maybe give this one a pass? This is obviously a controversial topic. You say you're impressed with how people have responded - why not let "the market" sort itself out? Mike is a very influential figure in SV, and it might be good for the community as a whole to air their grievances and try and work out how they themselves feel about the issue, and broader implications about the world of VC and how it interplays with companies, founders and employees. I worry that by moderating this HN is artificially contributing to the echo chamber here; flagging this post doesn't remove the Facebook posts and Tweets proclaiming the evils of VC without room for discussion.

cinquemb 9y ago
On the ycombinator thought exchange, it makes sense that satirical posts like these in general are frowned/flagged/weighted down upon (ignoring anecdotes of subjective good and bad discourse on such) like how during the the heat of the GFC some exchanges rolled back unprofitable trades of those who did the most volume on their exchanges. When the topic of such posts probably have a > 0 percent stake in YC companies, such actions from mods is only to be expected to some degree.
- dang 9y ago
  We moderate HN less, not more, when YC or YC startups are involved. This is literally the first rule of HN moderation and I've posted about it a ton over the years. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=by:dang%20yc%20less%20not%20more https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=...
  - cinquemb 9y ago
    Somehow, I find it hard to accept that YC and their stakeholders/agents can completely avoid the human biases that also affect every organization to some degree. Linking to posts where you say "less not more" is much different then say, getting the flag/weighting factor data on every post, and running a classifier that segments out YC affiliated ones from ones that are not, and there being a statistical representation of your assertion. But like I've said to some degree before, your forum, your rules :)
    - dang 9y ago
      That's fair. I'd never claim to be immune from unconscious bias. But we do have a rule to help us mitigate it, and a lot of practice applying it. It's the first thing pg explained to me about HN moderation—before I could grab a chair, even—and the first thing I've explained to every moderator since. There's a deeper issue too. We don't think about HN in terms of furthering YC's immediate interests. Nothing could be dumber, because the community would notice immediately—in Monty Python's classic phrase, "God would see through a cheap ploy like that". We just think about how to make HN more interesting. That's how to make it more valuable—including its hard business value. I wrote about this here too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16019486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16019486 Of course we use 'interesting' in a somewhat specialized way, and no community of this size can ever be entirely pleased, as people differ in what interests them. But if we moderate a post like the OP, it isn't because of an opinion about venture capital or China or workers or whatever. It's because of what counts as interesting on HN, and what we know from experience adds or detracts from it.
dang 9y ago
People are welcome to discuss the Moritz piece if they think it's important, though even there I'm skeptical; the thread would likely just be the usual reiterations of the usual. But to post it through a rage filter like this is just off topic for HN, for two reasons: (1) starting off with indignation is statistically guaranteed to produce flamewars and other junk, and (2) this genre is a internet cliché. From long experience we know that if HN is to have a solid discussion on a divisive topic, the starting point can't be something as shallow as this. There's also the site guidelines, which ask: Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- keithwhor 9y ago
  Thanks for the response. My concern is this; I've seen a few posts by friends, colleagues, etc. lambasting Mike's piece. My co-founder and employees read it and we had an earnest discussion about it. We all burn the midnight oil in pursuit of our vision, but it opened up important distinctions between risk-adjusted compensation and expectations now vs. as the company matures, as well as how we manage customer, VC and employee expectations and keep each other healthy and happy. Given the right framing, I think it's possible to turn "outrage" pieces into thoughtful discussion pieces and examine the intricacies of why individuals may have certain opinions or behave certain ways. Facebook and Twitter aren't great mediums; Twitter is practically an outrage-manufacturing hot-take machine and Facebook is restrictive in content distribution. I guess part of me just wonders if by silencing outrage we're actually helping it proliferate in other mediums - that emotional energy has to dissipate somewhere. Edit: Saw your edit with link to guidelines afterwards. I understand completely. Given this is a hot-button topic I guess I was supposing this might be a good opportunity to let people air out concerns, but I also understand the need to be consistent in enforcement. Cheers!
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - dang 9y ago
    I have no quarrel with what you're saying. Why don't you submit the original article and then post a version of your comments in this thread as a first comment to that one? This may help to seed good discussion. If it turns into a flamewar we can always deal with that later.

cinquemb 9y ago

On the ycombinator thought exchange, it makes sense that satirical posts like these in general are frowned/flagged/weighted down upon (ignoring anecdotes of subjective good and bad discourse on such) like how during the the heat of the GFC some exchanges rolled back unprofitable trades of those who did the most volume on their exchanges. When the topic of such posts probably have a > 0 percent stake in YC companies, such actions from mods is only to be expected to some degree.

dang 9y ago
We moderate HN less, not more, when YC or YC startups are involved. This is literally the first rule of HN moderation and I've posted about it a ton over the years. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=by:dang%20yc%20less%20not%20more https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=...
- cinquemb 9y ago
  Somehow, I find it hard to accept that YC and their stakeholders/agents can completely avoid the human biases that also affect every organization to some degree. Linking to posts where you say "less not more" is much different then say, getting the flag/weighting factor data on every post, and running a classifier that segments out YC affiliated ones from ones that are not, and there being a statistical representation of your assertion. But like I've said to some degree before, your forum, your rules :)
  - dang 9y ago
    That's fair. I'd never claim to be immune from unconscious bias. But we do have a rule to help us mitigate it, and a lot of practice applying it. It's the first thing pg explained to me about HN moderation—before I could grab a chair, even—and the first thing I've explained to every moderator since. There's a deeper issue too. We don't think about HN in terms of furthering YC's immediate interests. Nothing could be dumber, because the community would notice immediately—in Monty Python's classic phrase, "God would see through a cheap ploy like that". We just think about how to make HN more interesting. That's how to make it more valuable—including its hard business value. I wrote about this here too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16019486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16019486 Of course we use 'interesting' in a somewhat specialized way, and no community of this size can ever be entirely pleased, as people differ in what interests them. But if we moderate a post like the OP, it isn't because of an opinion about venture capital or China or workers or whatever. It's because of what counts as interesting on HN, and what we know from experience adds or detracts from it.

dang 9y ago

People are welcome to discuss the Moritz piece if they think it's important, though even there I'm skeptical; the thread would likely just be the usual reiterations of the usual. But to post it through a rage filter like this is just off topic for HN, for two reasons: (1) starting off with indignation is statistically guaranteed to produce flamewars and other junk, and (2) this genre is a internet cliché. From long experience we know that if HN is to have a solid discussion on a divisive topic, the starting point can't be something as shallow as this. There's also the site guidelines, which ask: Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

keithwhor 9y ago
Thanks for the response. My concern is this; I've seen a few posts by friends, colleagues, etc. lambasting Mike's piece. My co-founder and employees read it and we had an earnest discussion about it. We all burn the midnight oil in pursuit of our vision, but it opened up important distinctions between risk-adjusted compensation and expectations now vs. as the company matures, as well as how we manage customer, VC and employee expectations and keep each other healthy and happy. Given the right framing, I think it's possible to turn "outrage" pieces into thoughtful discussion pieces and examine the intricacies of why individuals may have certain opinions or behave certain ways. Facebook and Twitter aren't great mediums; Twitter is practically an outrage-manufacturing hot-take machine and Facebook is restrictive in content distribution. I guess part of me just wonders if by silencing outrage we're actually helping it proliferate in other mediums - that emotional energy has to dissipate somewhere. Edit: Saw your edit with link to guidelines afterwards. I understand completely. Given this is a hot-button topic I guess I was supposing this might be a good opportunity to let people air out concerns, but I also understand the need to be consistent in enforcement. Cheers!
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 9y ago
  I have no quarrel with what you're saying. Why don't you submit the original article and then post a version of your comments in this thread as a first comment to that one? This may help to seed good discussion. If it turns into a flamewar we can always deal with that later.