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Edit: OK, message received! Thanks everyone for the feedback. We're turned off the downweights and will keep this on the front page. == The problem with posts

by tomhow 1y ago

Edit: OK, message received! Thanks everyone for the feedback. We're turned off the downweights and will keep this on the front page. == The problem with posts like this is that they give a very one-sided view of the situation and don't allow an uninformed reader (i.e., everyone other than the author and those close to them with direct knowledge of the situation) to understand the backstory and the reasoning for the pricing change. I'm having to do Google searches to understand why this might have happened, and can only speculate. Is it that previously this company was eligible for a heavy discount as a nonprofit, and now something about that has changed? What has changed? We're not told anything. According to their website, Slack offers discounts to charities [1] and educational institutions [2]. Does this organisation qualify now? Did they qualify previously? Has something changed in the organisation's status, or in Slack's policies, or has the organisation been misclassified and Slack has only just noticed? This post doesn't even attempt to explain any of those details. I'm not saying that what Slack did was justifiable. It sounds like a terrible situation for this organization to be in, and I sympathize. But without knowing any details at all about Slack's basis for making this change, this is the kind of post that generates a lot of heat but not much light. [1] https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/help/articles/204368833-Apply-for-the-Slack-for-Charities-discount https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/help/articles/204368833-Apply-f... [2] https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/help/articles/206646877-Apply-for-the-Slack-for-Education-discount https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/help/articles/206646877-Apply-f...

novatea 1y ago
Hack Club had a $5,000/year contract with Slack (renewed in May iirc), but Salesforce just suddenly told them to pay $50,000 within a week and $200,000/year, without warning, or they would deactivate the whole workspace. That's how the HC founder told it in the Slack announcement, anyways.
- tomhow 1y ago
  Yes, but there has to be more to the story, that we're not being told. Without knowing why this organization was previously eligible for the discount, but no longer is eligible for that discount, we really don't know much at all.
  - milkshakes 1y ago
    it seems your concerns are addressed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45285280 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45285280 why has this post been taken off the front page, and why has the title been editorialized?
    - dang 1y ago
      Yup we agree and have restored the post. The extra background was helpful, plus the community response is clear from the thread and we try never to fight the community. The title edit is standard practice though - the word "extorted" is too baity for HN's frontpage (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait."). Making titles somewhat more factual/neutral is normal HN moderation. That's not a criticism of the OP, mind you! - we'd feel the same way too in their position.
      - yerushalayim 1y ago
        Oh, please!
    - colonelspace 1y ago
      > why has the title been editorialized Indeed, the HN guidelines: > please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize
      - dang 1y ago
        By "editorialize" we mean changing a title to introduce spin, or cherry-picking one detail to bias the reader in the direction that the submitter personally wants, rather than reflecting the article as a whole (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45202136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45202136 for a recent comment about that). In this case, that wasn't at issue. The operative clause is "unless it is misleading or linkbait". A word like "extorted" is too baity for HN's frontpage. This is nothing personal against the OP! It's actually better for them and for Hack Club if the HN title is relatively neutral while still conveying the critical information.
SigmaEpsilonChi 1y ago
I work for this foundation, I can guarantee that nothing has changed about our status or Slack's policies. We qualified before and we qualify today, which is why earlier this year when Slack took us off their free plan the rate they negotiated with us was so low. Slack was extremely reasonable during that process and we have no complaints about them. The thing that changed is that we aren't dealing with Slack anymore, all of a sudden we're dealing with Salesforce. I can only assume they are shaking the money tree at all levels of the organization since their recent disappointing earnings report (I guess they've had a lot of those lately). I appreciate the nuanced perspective you're bringing here but it really is as scummy as it's written in the post. They are asking us to pay $50k in the next 5 days, just for the privilege of not having our 11 years of history deleted. They don't owe us continued access to their platform on the cheap, but to demand this much money on that kind of time frame? I don't know what to call that other than extortion.
- tomhow 1y ago
  OK sure, but if you "qualified before and ... qualify today", then you have a contract that they're in breach of. Or something. I don't know. That's the point. It just seems like this post is missing some key details that would help readers to see the whole picture. I can at-once believe that they are acting in a scummy way but also that there is more information about their reasoning that would help readers to understand the whole scenario.
  - milkshakes 1y ago
    unless there is something going on behind the scenes, like an astroturfing signal, this seems like a pretty weak justification for the heavy handed moderation actions taken. it seems at face value like you might have killed an organic front page post attempted by a teenager trying to raise awareness and save his very cool grassroots distributed hackathon charity from an awful lot of unnecessary pain... because there "must be more to the story". i haven't ever seen anything like this on HN.
    - tomhow 1y ago

by tomhow 1y ago

novatea 1y ago

Hack Club had a $5,000/year contract with Slack (renewed in May iirc), but Salesforce just suddenly told them to pay $50,000 within a week and $200,000/year, without warning, or they would deactivate the whole workspace. That's how the HC founder told it in the Slack announcement, anyways.

tomhow 1y ago
Yes, but there has to be more to the story, that we're not being told. Without knowing why this organization was previously eligible for the discount, but no longer is eligible for that discount, we really don't know much at all.
- milkshakes 1y ago
  it seems your concerns are addressed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45285280 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45285280 why has this post been taken off the front page, and why has the title been editorialized?
  - dang 1y ago
    Yup we agree and have restored the post. The extra background was helpful, plus the community response is clear from the thread and we try never to fight the community. The title edit is standard practice though - the word "extorted" is too baity for HN's frontpage (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait."). Making titles somewhat more factual/neutral is normal HN moderation. That's not a criticism of the OP, mind you! - we'd feel the same way too in their position.
    - yerushalayim 1y ago
      Oh, please!
  - colonelspace 1y ago
    > why has the title been editorialized Indeed, the HN guidelines: > please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize
    - dang 1y ago
      By "editorialize" we mean changing a title to introduce spin, or cherry-picking one detail to bias the reader in the direction that the submitter personally wants, rather than reflecting the article as a whole (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45202136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45202136 for a recent comment about that). In this case, that wasn't at issue. The operative clause is "unless it is misleading or linkbait". A word like "extorted" is too baity for HN's frontpage. This is nothing personal against the OP! It's actually better for them and for Hack Club if the HN title is relatively neutral while still conveying the critical information.

SigmaEpsilonChi 1y ago

I work for this foundation, I can guarantee that nothing has changed about our status or Slack's policies. We qualified before and we qualify today, which is why earlier this year when Slack took us off their free plan the rate they negotiated with us was so low. Slack was extremely reasonable during that process and we have no complaints about them. The thing that changed is that we aren't dealing with Slack anymore, all of a sudden we're dealing with Salesforce. I can only assume they are shaking the money tree at all levels of the organization since their recent disappointing earnings report (I guess they've had a lot of those lately). I appreciate the nuanced perspective you're bringing here but it really is as scummy as it's written in the post. They are asking us to pay $50k in the next 5 days, just for the privilege of not having our 11 years of history deleted. They don't owe us continued access to their platform on the cheap, but to demand this much money on that kind of time frame? I don't know what to call that other than extortion.

tomhow 1y ago
OK sure, but if you "qualified before and ... qualify today", then you have a contract that they're in breach of. Or something. I don't know. That's the point. It just seems like this post is missing some key details that would help readers to see the whole picture. I can at-once believe that they are acting in a scummy way but also that there is more information about their reasoning that would help readers to understand the whole scenario.
- milkshakes 1y ago
  unless there is something going on behind the scenes, like an astroturfing signal, this seems like a pretty weak justification for the heavy handed moderation actions taken. it seems at face value like you might have killed an organic front page post attempted by a teenager trying to raise awareness and save his very cool grassroots distributed hackathon charity from an awful lot of unnecessary pain... because there "must be more to the story". i haven't ever seen anything like this on HN.
  - tomhow 1y ago