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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 y
by 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 agoYou'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 agoI really appreciate your transparency and understand this was one-time mistake and not the norm.