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The HN comment originally made by 'austenallred in https://www.sandofsky.com/content/images/2024/05/image-13.png https://www.sandofsky.com/content/images/2024/0

The HN comment originally made by 'austenallred in https://www.sandofsky.com/content/images/2024/05/image-13.png https://www.sandofsky.com/content/images/2024/05/image-13.pn... is still available at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13502774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13502774 but is now by user '_pecl. The ownership of the comment changed between July 3, 2019 and January 31, 2020 according to https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13502774 https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://news.ycombinator.com/i.... I guess the author realized it reflected badly on him and contacted HN to anonymize the comment. Edit: This is not to suggest 'austenallred received special treatment.

DangLovesAusten 2y ago
Dang just banned my other account because I questioned if the comment was really just Austen using his network of burners. pretty obvious the HN people are in cohoots with their precious Austen and don't want to see his terrible reputation tarnished even more
- dang 2y ago
  No idea which account you're referring to but I certainly haven't banned anyone for that reason. In fact I just restored your other comments in this thread.
  - joshmanders 2y ago
    It's insane to read all the vile abuse thrown at you because people are angry at Silicon Valley big wigs and your absolute composure over it. You're a beast, dang, and I highly respect you for it.
    - dang 2y ago
      That's nice of you to say! It's been quite a decade of operant conditioning.
DangFksAusten 2y ago
Dang has to protect their investment. Which is why this whole site is a fucking scam. Can't possible let someone know they invested in a scammer piece of shit
- dang 2y ago
  We delete and/or redact things for users who ask us to (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20redact&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... ), we take care of such requests every day, and we treat every user the same. More at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40732867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40732867 in this thread. Edit: also, here's the last time this came up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26949343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26949343. It's a more complete explanation than I have time to give right now, and nothing has changed since then.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bitwize 2y ago
Hackernews has "protected people", typically high-ranking Silicon Valley types, for whom, if it is revealed they are scumbags, they will run interference, changing account names and replacing their powerwords with [redacted]. An example is the high-ranking GitHub engineer who has an Indian first name but goes by "Alex", who was accused of mistreating women, and actually pled guilty to at least one incidence of such.
- dang 2y ago
  Renaming accounts, redacting posts, etc. are all things that we do for users in general. We make no distinction between "high-ranking" users and others. We take care of these requests every day and have bent over backwards (e.g. spending hours writing code) to help people individually in cases where their needs were unusually complex. I can tell you for sure that whether the person is high- or low-status in $whoever's eyes has nothing to do with this. Often I don't even know who the person is. Our approach boils down to this: we don't want anyone to get in trouble from anything they posted to HN. It doesn't matter who the "anyone" is. Countless times I've deleted posts, redacted personal data and/or randomized usernames for accounts that had long been abusing and trolling HN. I don't rub their nose in it—I just pretend not to have noticed. You'd be surprised how polite and thankful people become when they need something. I'm not surprised to see accounts like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40732721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40732721 being scurrilously silly, but you've been around here long enough to know better. Edit: here's the last time this came up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26949343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26949343. It's a more complete explanation than I have time to give right now, and nothing has changed since then.
  - monero-xmr 2y ago
    I was totally unaware that HN mods would treat certain accounts better than others, and give special anonymous edits, totally news to me. I have seen a lot of selective application of HN rules over the (many) years. My 2 cents.
    - gnabgib 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
DistractionRect 2y ago
In light of the flaming, I'd like to underscore why it's entirely reasonable to redact the author of the comment in question: the author outted themselves as knowingly and egregiously violating a ToS for another site, and using//promoting services which are at best unethical, but probably illegal (residential proxies//large scale proxy services are usually built off the backs of botnets//malware). This isn't, IMO, favoritism or protecting YC interests//founders. The thread in question has nothing to do with Lamda, YC, or anything in that regard. It's someone talking about blackhat growth hacking in the open, which might bite them in the ass later. It's a textbook example of HN's stated policy about deletion/redaction in action.
- networked 2y ago
  I think this is correct. My intent was to point out it looked like 'austenallred realized he'd admitted to doing wrong. I knew HN could redact a user's data at their request and wrote my comment accordingly, but I didn't make it explicit. Unfortunately, my comment became a magnet for accusations against HN staff and 'dang personally. The lesson seems to be to anticipate moderators being accused of conspiracy and malice more when you discuss moderator actions. This appears true not just where the stakes are high, like in startups, but everywhere. If you talk about something that may look like special privileges but you know is normal, acknowledge it to save the moderators some trouble. It may deter some of the accusatory comments and give the passerby a more accurate impression.
  - dang 2y ago
    I doubt that it will deter accusatory responses, and you may get a few yourself! But it's helpful to disambiguate intent and I personally appreciate it.
  - DistractionRect 2y ago
    I understood your intent, my comment was aimed at the child comments that collected under yours. I just felt like it needed to be explicitly said that this isn't some conspiracy/cover up. The content is still there, and who said it isn't really consequential. It doesn't help or hurt YC, it maybe shielded Austen from getting booted from Twitter, but beyond that who cares? People getting out their pitchforks because HN mods did something inconsequential, four years ago, for a person who's now labeled $bad today seems silly. More so since it's well documented that they'll do it for anyone on request. I just don't see the what justifies their outrage. I agree partly with the lesson but more broadly I think it is that any hint of impartiality//conflict of interest for governing/regulatory bodies will be construed in a negative light. Where I disagree is that you could have saved the mods the trouble. I don't think there was any way you could have worded your original comment, or I mine, or Dang his, that would entirely quell the accusations that followed. There's one person in the thread that continued to insinuate that this isn't a policy or it's a new policy; even though Dang showed his comments about this policy going back almost a decade.

DangLovesAusten 2y ago

Dang just banned my other account because I questioned if the comment was really just Austen using his network of burners. pretty obvious the HN people are in cohoots with their precious Austen and don't want to see his terrible reputation tarnished even more

dang 2y ago
No idea which account you're referring to but I certainly haven't banned anyone for that reason. In fact I just restored your other comments in this thread.
- joshmanders 2y ago
  It's insane to read all the vile abuse thrown at you because people are angry at Silicon Valley big wigs and your absolute composure over it. You're a beast, dang, and I highly respect you for it.
  - dang 2y ago
    That's nice of you to say! It's been quite a decade of operant conditioning.

DangFksAusten 2y ago

Dang has to protect their investment. Which is why this whole site is a fucking scam. Can't possible let someone know they invested in a scammer piece of shit

dang 2y ago
We delete and/or redact things for users who ask us to (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20redact&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... ), we take care of such requests every day, and we treat every user the same. More at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40732867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40732867 in this thread. Edit: also, here's the last time this came up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26949343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26949343. It's a more complete explanation than I have time to give right now, and nothing has changed since then.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

bitwize 2y ago

Hackernews has "protected people", typically high-ranking Silicon Valley types, for whom, if it is revealed they are scumbags, they will run interference, changing account names and replacing their powerwords with [redacted]. An example is the high-ranking GitHub engineer who has an Indian first name but goes by "Alex", who was accused of mistreating women, and actually pled guilty to at least one incidence of such.

dang 2y ago
Renaming accounts, redacting posts, etc. are all things that we do for users in general. We make no distinction between "high-ranking" users and others. We take care of these requests every day and have bent over backwards (e.g. spending hours writing code) to help people individually in cases where their needs were unusually complex. I can tell you for sure that whether the person is high- or low-status in $whoever's eyes has nothing to do with this. Often I don't even know who the person is. Our approach boils down to this: we don't want anyone to get in trouble from anything they posted to HN. It doesn't matter who the "anyone" is. Countless times I've deleted posts, redacted personal data and/or randomized usernames for accounts that had long been abusing and trolling HN. I don't rub their nose in it—I just pretend not to have noticed. You'd be surprised how polite and thankful people become when they need something. I'm not surprised to see accounts like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40732721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40732721 being scurrilously silly, but you've been around here long enough to know better. Edit: here's the last time this came up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26949343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26949343. It's a more complete explanation than I have time to give right now, and nothing has changed since then.
- monero-xmr 2y ago
  I was totally unaware that HN mods would treat certain accounts better than others, and give special anonymous edits, totally news to me. I have seen a lot of selective application of HN rules over the (many) years. My 2 cents.
  - gnabgib 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

DistractionRect 2y ago

In light of the flaming, I'd like to underscore why it's entirely reasonable to redact the author of the comment in question: the author outted themselves as knowingly and egregiously violating a ToS for another site, and using//promoting services which are at best unethical, but probably illegal (residential proxies//large scale proxy services are usually built off the backs of botnets//malware). This isn't, IMO, favoritism or protecting YC interests//founders. The thread in question has nothing to do with Lamda, YC, or anything in that regard. It's someone talking about blackhat growth hacking in the open, which might bite them in the ass later. It's a textbook example of HN's stated policy about deletion/redaction in action.

networked 2y ago
I think this is correct. My intent was to point out it looked like 'austenallred realized he'd admitted to doing wrong. I knew HN could redact a user's data at their request and wrote my comment accordingly, but I didn't make it explicit. Unfortunately, my comment became a magnet for accusations against HN staff and 'dang personally. The lesson seems to be to anticipate moderators being accused of conspiracy and malice more when you discuss moderator actions. This appears true not just where the stakes are high, like in startups, but everywhere. If you talk about something that may look like special privileges but you know is normal, acknowledge it to save the moderators some trouble. It may deter some of the accusatory comments and give the passerby a more accurate impression.
- dang 2y ago
  I doubt that it will deter accusatory responses, and you may get a few yourself! But it's helpful to disambiguate intent and I personally appreciate it.
- DistractionRect 2y ago
  I understood your intent, my comment was aimed at the child comments that collected under yours. I just felt like it needed to be explicitly said that this isn't some conspiracy/cover up. The content is still there, and who said it isn't really consequential. It doesn't help or hurt YC, it maybe shielded Austen from getting booted from Twitter, but beyond that who cares? People getting out their pitchforks because HN mods did something inconsequential, four years ago, for a person who's now labeled $bad today seems silly. More so since it's well documented that they'll do it for anyone on request. I just don't see the what justifies their outrage. I agree partly with the lesson but more broadly I think it is that any hint of impartiality//conflict of interest for governing/regulatory bodies will be construed in a negative light. Where I disagree is that you could have saved the mods the trouble. I don't think there was any way you could have worded your original comment, or I mine, or Dang his, that would entirely quell the accusations that followed. There's one person in the thread that continued to insinuate that this isn't a policy or it's a new policy; even though Dang showed his comments about this policy going back almost a decade.