
Ask HN: Does HN "help" upvoting posts by YC-backed companies? - rifme
One post by a YC-backed company was on the frontpage for some hours, got 30&#x27;ish upvotes and landed on page two rather quickly. Then, some hours later it was back on the frontpage with over 300 votes.<p>If I understand the HN algorithm correctly, it is unlikely that this happens organically or am I totally wrong?
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hdtl
HN is an independent entity within YC, and it wouldn't be in their interest to
play favorites. Instead, they focus on making the front page as intellectually
gratifying as possible:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

If the story was bumped to the front page, it's because it was substantive,
not because it was from a YC co.

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staunch
Yeah, unfortunately, there are de facto voting blocs on HN these days. It
wasn't always like this.

But now there are 10,000 YC affiliated people, 50,000 from
Google/Microsoft/Amazon, etc and so it totally skews the results towards these
larger organizations.

I would be happy if users were asked to provide their Bigco employer in a
private field, and then I could filter out their votes by visiting /nobigco or
something.

But ideally, voting on stories/comments related to your own BigCo employer
would be disabled entirely.

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treyhuffine
It appears they do. Right now, #7 on the front page is a YC company with no
points or comment count associated with their post.

[https://imgur.com/m7HzrHs](https://imgur.com/m7HzrHs)

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hdtl
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7571449](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7571449)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9987870](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9987870)

~~~
treyhuffine
Thanks for the links. Makes sense.

