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dang has said on multiple occasions they don't and he has never given me any reason to doubt his integrity. Quite the opposite.

NicoJuicy 2y ago
There are a lot of HN folks here ( startups, ... ) Dang said they didn't do it and it's being flagged by users. Which obviously makes sense of you think about it.
- freedomben 2y ago
  The flags on hn are extremely powerful, so I don't doubt this. Just a few flags obliterate a post with tons of upvotes. It wouldn't take many people to kill it, and it doesn't require a conspiracy
  - dansiemens 2y ago
    “You don’t need a formal conspiracy when interests converge” - George Carlin
  - sanswork 2y ago
    I will frequently flag posts that are rage bait or where the comments are just the same few people arguing. I haven't flagged this one because I commented in it but it's a very low value post.
    - 11101010001100 2y ago
      What makes it low value in your opinion? The story combines AI, YC, software licenses etc., which are generally of interest to the HN community.
      - sanswork 2y ago
        It's gossip rage bait to feel the feelings of superiority in the writers community vs VC land. It doesn't dive into any of those things, if it did that could be valuable, it's just reporting events to drive feelings.
lopkeny12ko 2y ago
Is this supposed to assauge the concerns of the public? Is dang not employed by, and thus a representative of, Y Combinator? There is every reason to believe he is directly responsible for protecting the interests of the company. "Company investigated Company and found that Company did nothing wrong"
- sanswork 2y ago
  I don't really care about your concerns. If you are willing to lie for an employer we are ethically distant. I've seen no indication dang is willing to do that either and seen him being very open about things he didn't need to be. Also the way ownership works isn't so simple anymore as HN is YC. More like YC is HNs major sponsor these days.
  - lopkeny12ko 2y ago
    I would hardly consider "moderating a public forum in accordance with your employer-mandated job description guidelines" to be "lying." "dang" is a detail--the point is, if someone is being cut a paycheck by a company, the public is well within reason to believe that person has a job obligation to favorably represent the interests of that company.
    - sanswork 2y ago
      But dang has on multiple occasions said he doesn't do this so that would be not just lying up unnecessary lying. Would anyone stop using HN if you knew they buried negative stories about YC? You're all still here so likely no.
    - dragonwriter 2y ago
      > I would hardly consider "moderating a public forum in accordance with your employer-mandated job description guidelines" to be "lying." Explicitly saying you don't do X while doing X is lying, whether or not you are getting a paycheck for it. (And to be clear, I doubt dang is lying; there’s no need to resort to centralized moderation to explain the observed behavior.)
peoplefromibiza 2y ago
> and he has never given me any reason to doubt his integrity in other news: man kills his family, neighbours swear they were a normal happy family, It's totally unexpected, we never would have thought something like this could happen past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior if and only if nothing else changes. not speaking about dang specifically, but IMO it's a bit different to not do something when it benefits your reputation and to not do anything when it can harm your job safety.
dang 2y ago
The rule is "we moderate less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is the story". In other words, we do moderate such stories, we just do less (usually a lot less) than we would if it were a different topic. I posted a longer explanation here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41732846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41732846 and there are 10 years' worth of similar explanations here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20%22less%2C%20not%20more%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu....

NicoJuicy 2y ago

There are a lot of HN folks here ( startups, ... ) Dang said they didn't do it and it's being flagged by users. Which obviously makes sense of you think about it.

freedomben 2y ago
The flags on hn are extremely powerful, so I don't doubt this. Just a few flags obliterate a post with tons of upvotes. It wouldn't take many people to kill it, and it doesn't require a conspiracy
- dansiemens 2y ago
  “You don’t need a formal conspiracy when interests converge” - George Carlin
- sanswork 2y ago
  I will frequently flag posts that are rage bait or where the comments are just the same few people arguing. I haven't flagged this one because I commented in it but it's a very low value post.
  - 11101010001100 2y ago
    What makes it low value in your opinion? The story combines AI, YC, software licenses etc., which are generally of interest to the HN community.
    - sanswork 2y ago
      It's gossip rage bait to feel the feelings of superiority in the writers community vs VC land. It doesn't dive into any of those things, if it did that could be valuable, it's just reporting events to drive feelings.

lopkeny12ko 2y ago

Is this supposed to assauge the concerns of the public? Is dang not employed by, and thus a representative of, Y Combinator? There is every reason to believe he is directly responsible for protecting the interests of the company. "Company investigated Company and found that Company did nothing wrong"

sanswork 2y ago
I don't really care about your concerns. If you are willing to lie for an employer we are ethically distant. I've seen no indication dang is willing to do that either and seen him being very open about things he didn't need to be. Also the way ownership works isn't so simple anymore as HN is YC. More like YC is HNs major sponsor these days.
- lopkeny12ko 2y ago
  I would hardly consider "moderating a public forum in accordance with your employer-mandated job description guidelines" to be "lying." "dang" is a detail--the point is, if someone is being cut a paycheck by a company, the public is well within reason to believe that person has a job obligation to favorably represent the interests of that company.
  - sanswork 2y ago
    But dang has on multiple occasions said he doesn't do this so that would be not just lying up unnecessary lying. Would anyone stop using HN if you knew they buried negative stories about YC? You're all still here so likely no.
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    > I would hardly consider "moderating a public forum in accordance with your employer-mandated job description guidelines" to be "lying." Explicitly saying you don't do X while doing X is lying, whether or not you are getting a paycheck for it. (And to be clear, I doubt dang is lying; there’s no need to resort to centralized moderation to explain the observed behavior.)

peoplefromibiza 2y ago

> and he has never given me any reason to doubt his integrity in other news: man kills his family, neighbours swear they were a normal happy family, It's totally unexpected, we never would have thought something like this could happen past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior if and only if nothing else changes. not speaking about dang specifically, but IMO it's a bit different to not do something when it benefits your reputation and to not do anything when it can harm your job safety.

dang 2y ago

The rule is "we moderate less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is the story". In other words, we do moderate such stories, we just do less (usually a lot less) than we would if it were a different topic. I posted a longer explanation here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41732846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41732846 and there are 10 years' worth of similar explanations here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20%22less%2C%20not%20more%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu....