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This is the disconnect. HN wants to come across as a discussion of free ideas that can be voted upon, but some users can down-weight comments to the bottom? Tha

This is the disconnect. HN wants to come across as a discussion of free ideas that can be voted upon, but some users can down-weight comments to the bottom? That’s well within HN’s prerogative since it was started by YC, but they should be straight forward that YC companies are given preferential treatment. Most lurkers and users think YC companies make it to the front page organically and based on merit alone.

dang 4y ago
YC companies are not given preferential treatment, with three exceptions, which are clearly defined in the FAQ (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html): Launch HN posts (https://news.ycombinator.com/launches https://news.ycombinator.com/launches), job ads (https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs), and alumni usernames being displayed in orange to other alumni. Other than that, YC companies have to compete for attention on HN along with everyone else, and I can tell you that most find it maddeningly difficult. In some ways we use moderation power to YC startups' disadvantage - we moderate criticisms of YC startups less, not more, than usual (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20%22not%20more%22%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). For example, the tedious angry-generic-repetitive sort of subthread that tends to get upvoted on most common topics is exactly the kind of thing we downweight as part of standard moderation, but we do that less when a YC startup is the topic. That's not because such discussion is any higher-quality in those cases (it isn't), but rather because people are quick to jump to the conclusion that we're doing nefarious things and we need to be able to answer those concerns in good conscience. The fact that there's all this drama about one such subthread having gotten downweighted is actually an indication of how we don't do that. It happened, but only by mistake.
- theturtletalks 4y ago
  They definitely don’t get preferential treatment outright. But if some users can down-weight comments and that happens on a thread about a YC company, I hope you can see why it would raise some concerns. I personally didn’t know some users had this ability.
  - dang 4y ago
    You're right. I would put it this way: the rule "we moderate less when YC or a YC startup is being criticized" has to take precedence over the rule "we downweight generic and/or offtopic subthreads when we notice them at the top of a page". And it does take precedence—it is literally the #1 moderation principle here. It doesn't work perfectly though—the system is just too complex. In the case we're talking about, the user (not mod) who downweighted the comment was quite aware of both those rules and of their precedence. They just didn't know that Fig was a YC startup. There are thousands of YC startups and people can't remember them all. Since mistakes are inevitable, I think all we can do is be open when they happen, fix them if we can, and explain our general principles are. That's what I've been trying to do in this case, and if there's a question I haven't answered yet, I'd be happy to. None of this is secret.
    - theturtletalks 4y ago
      I really appreciate your transparency and understand this was one-time mistake and not the norm.

dang 4y ago

YC companies are not given preferential treatment, with three exceptions, which are clearly defined in the FAQ (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html): Launch HN posts (https://news.ycombinator.com/launches https://news.ycombinator.com/launches), job ads (https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs), and alumni usernames being displayed in orange to other alumni. Other than that, YC companies have to compete for attention on HN along with everyone else, and I can tell you that most find it maddeningly difficult. In some ways we use moderation power to YC startups' disadvantage - we moderate criticisms of YC startups less, not more, than usual (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20%22not%20more%22%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). For example, the tedious angry-generic-repetitive sort of subthread that tends to get upvoted on most common topics is exactly the kind of thing we downweight as part of standard moderation, but we do that less when a YC startup is the topic. That's not because such discussion is any higher-quality in those cases (it isn't), but rather because people are quick to jump to the conclusion that we're doing nefarious things and we need to be able to answer those concerns in good conscience. The fact that there's all this drama about one such subthread having gotten downweighted is actually an indication of how we don't do that. It happened, but only by mistake.

theturtletalks 4y ago
They definitely don’t get preferential treatment outright. But if some users can down-weight comments and that happens on a thread about a YC company, I hope you can see why it would raise some concerns. I personally didn’t know some users had this ability.
- dang 4y ago
  You're right. I would put it this way: the rule "we moderate less when YC or a YC startup is being criticized" has to take precedence over the rule "we downweight generic and/or offtopic subthreads when we notice them at the top of a page". And it does take precedence—it is literally the #1 moderation principle here. It doesn't work perfectly though—the system is just too complex. In the case we're talking about, the user (not mod) who downweighted the comment was quite aware of both those rules and of their precedence. They just didn't know that Fig was a YC startup. There are thousands of YC startups and people can't remember them all. Since mistakes are inevitable, I think all we can do is be open when they happen, fix them if we can, and explain our general principles are. That's what I've been trying to do in this case, and if there's a question I haven't answered yet, I'd be happy to. None of this is secret.
  - theturtletalks 4y ago
    I really appreciate your transparency and understand this was one-time mistake and not the norm.