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A helpful middleground is to allow us to comment on these threads. Some of these companies are undesirable for various reasons and for the community to be prec

by 0des 4y ago

A helpful middleground is to allow us to comment on these threads. Some of these companies are undesirable for various reasons and for the community to be precluded from discussing their experiences, but only when its a YC company, is disingenuous, and renders the parent comment questionable. We talk about all manner of companies here. Why is a YC company immune from discourse? Fairness is when every post is treated the same.

pvg 4y ago
You can write stuff about these companies anywhere on HN, you can post stuff about these companies to HN, etc.
- 0des 4y ago
  > You can write stuff about these companies anywhere on HN False, you cannot comment on a YC hiring post. Either all posts are treated the same, or they're not. All we are discussing here is the ability to comment, I'm not saying I need a filter toggle, though I'd happily use one.
  - pvg 4y ago
    These are job ads, you can't go off on tangents in people's job ads on Who's Hiring threads either. All posts are not treated the same and this is one of the biggest not-same type of post on HN. Topicality is pretty important to HN threads. There's really no shortage of ways to be both on topic and say things about more or less any company, YC or not, on HN.
    - 0des 4y ago
      - pvg 4y ago
        You reply doesn't really engage with my argument at all, you pick a single word and head right for bombast and innuendo. If that's the sort of thing you want to write on job ads, it's a solid point against the idea.
dang 4y ago
HN is for thoughtful conversation about topics of intellectual curiosity, and job ads are intrinsically uninteresting. Threads on uninteresting, predictable topics tend to be tedious and nasty (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=mind%20amuse%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). It's easy to predict what threads on job ads would look like: a generic boo-or-yay referendum on each company, repeated each time. But the highest-motivated commenters would be ones with pre-existing grievances, so it wouldn't even be boo-or-yay. It would mostly just be boo. That would make HN worse, not better. Uninteresting posts like job ads arguably shouldn't be on HN in the first place, but they're there for an out-of-band reason, which is that it's proper for HN to give something back to YC in exchange for funding it. Since that's their only reason for existing, it doesn't make sense to turn them into regular threads. The opposite is true of Launch HNs, incidentally, which is one of the other concessions HN gives to YC. In those cases, there is something new and interesting to discuss—the launch of a startup—and since each company only gets one such thread, repeats aren't an issue. It's in HN's interest to have open comment threads on those submissions, so we do: https://news.ycombinator.com/launches https://news.ycombinator.com/launches.
- 0des 4y ago
  > But since the only commenters motivated to participate in such discussions would be disgruntled ones with pre-existing grievances, it wouldn't even be boo-or-yay. It would just be boo. Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I take issue with this statement though, because daily there are companies posted here that get a critical review, and inevitably a crowd amasses that comes in to provide counterpoints to the negative testimonials, the majority of the time a lot of good on topic and off topic conversations ensue. To me, that makes HN better. I get that I'll catch heat for even suggesting this, but maybe consider a poll, some day if you have a change of heart. I think you might be surprised that the community would like to participate in those job threads the same way they do in "Whos Hiring?" for example, they're the same nature.
  - csdreamer7 4y ago
    > daily there are companies posted here that get a critical review, and inevitably a crowd amasses that comes in to provide counterpoints to the negative testimonials, the majority of the time a lot of good on topic and off topic conversations ensue. Aren't those companies already established? Isn't the topic usually about something related to a new product or scandal? Usually the topic circles around that. A new YC startup job ad likely won't have that. With that said, any YC startups want to give it a shot? Allow comments and see if the questions helps with their recruitment? Might help craft a better ad.

by 0des 4y ago

pvg 4y ago

You can write stuff about these companies anywhere on HN, you can post stuff about these companies to HN, etc.

0des 4y ago
> You can write stuff about these companies anywhere on HN False, you cannot comment on a YC hiring post. Either all posts are treated the same, or they're not. All we are discussing here is the ability to comment, I'm not saying I need a filter toggle, though I'd happily use one.
- pvg 4y ago
  These are job ads, you can't go off on tangents in people's job ads on Who's Hiring threads either. All posts are not treated the same and this is one of the biggest not-same type of post on HN. Topicality is pretty important to HN threads. There's really no shortage of ways to be both on topic and say things about more or less any company, YC or not, on HN.
  - 0des 4y ago
    - pvg 4y ago
      You reply doesn't really engage with my argument at all, you pick a single word and head right for bombast and innuendo. If that's the sort of thing you want to write on job ads, it's a solid point against the idea.

dang 4y ago

HN is for thoughtful conversation about topics of intellectual curiosity, and job ads are intrinsically uninteresting. Threads on uninteresting, predictable topics tend to be tedious and nasty (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=mind%20amuse%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). It's easy to predict what threads on job ads would look like: a generic boo-or-yay referendum on each company, repeated each time. But the highest-motivated commenters would be ones with pre-existing grievances, so it wouldn't even be boo-or-yay. It would mostly just be boo. That would make HN worse, not better. Uninteresting posts like job ads arguably shouldn't be on HN in the first place, but they're there for an out-of-band reason, which is that it's proper for HN to give something back to YC in exchange for funding it. Since that's their only reason for existing, it doesn't make sense to turn them into regular threads. The opposite is true of Launch HNs, incidentally, which is one of the other concessions HN gives to YC. In those cases, there is something new and interesting to discuss—the launch of a startup—and since each company only gets one such thread, repeats aren't an issue. It's in HN's interest to have open comment threads on those submissions, so we do: https://news.ycombinator.com/launches https://news.ycombinator.com/launches.

0des 4y ago
> But since the only commenters motivated to participate in such discussions would be disgruntled ones with pre-existing grievances, it wouldn't even be boo-or-yay. It would just be boo. Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I take issue with this statement though, because daily there are companies posted here that get a critical review, and inevitably a crowd amasses that comes in to provide counterpoints to the negative testimonials, the majority of the time a lot of good on topic and off topic conversations ensue. To me, that makes HN better. I get that I'll catch heat for even suggesting this, but maybe consider a poll, some day if you have a change of heart. I think you might be surprised that the community would like to participate in those job threads the same way they do in "Whos Hiring?" for example, they're the same nature.
- csdreamer7 4y ago
  > daily there are companies posted here that get a critical review, and inevitably a crowd amasses that comes in to provide counterpoints to the negative testimonials, the majority of the time a lot of good on topic and off topic conversations ensue. Aren't those companies already established? Isn't the topic usually about something related to a new product or scandal? Usually the topic circles around that. A new YC startup job ad likely won't have that. With that said, any YC startups want to give it a shot? Allow comments and see if the questions helps with their recruitment? Might help craft a better ad.