

Ask HN: Why is this 131-point posting critical of a YC job advert dead? - jrwoodruff

I know this is getting far too meta for HN, but why is this posting critical of a YC job advertisement on HN dead?<p>http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2703771<p>I think it's a valid criticism, with a good amount of interesting discussion that startup founders (and others) could learn from.<p>Is HN really so disconnected that it can't accept criticism? Or was this marked dead because this is (apparently) an advert for a YC startup?<p>Until this post, I hadn't even realized HN had advertisements of any sort. This opaque posting of advertisements, and the fact that this criticism is now dead, among other recent events here, is really turning me off of this forum.
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JonnieCache
This happens from time to time. Threads critical of, or problematic for y
combinator companies or affiliated companies are killed without warning or
explanation.

Pg has to protect his assets I guess. This is capitalism after all.

This is what is meant by having contacts and influence in the industry.
Pulling strings and all that. One of the most oft cited advantages of being
part of yc is being able to call pg for favors, I imagine that includes having
threads killed on here.

EDIT: actual job ads can probably be killed by the companies who posted them,
however I have seen multiple user submitted links killed in this context,
including one I posted myself.

EDIT2: for reference, here is the link i posted that got killed when near the
top of the front page:

<http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/reddit.com>

we were having a nice discussion about how the top search term referer for
reddit is "jailbait" then boom, dead. The motivation for having that one
killed isn't hard to see. I'll see if i can find the link to the thread
itself...

~~~
jrwoodruff
I don't see how this is terribly problematic for the company, or even YC. It
is critical of the posting, but criticism, when done correctly, is helpful.
This thread contained offers of help, as well as genuine insight from other
industry professionals.

Especially considering that, to those not in the inner circles of YC, the
company behind this is unknown, I don't see the upside to killing this post.

Isn't part of HN to be educational? Isn't part of YC accepting criticism and
learning from it?

~~~
JonnieCache
YC is about making money.

EDIT: here is the link to that reddit jailbait thread I mentioned:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2367714>

It now mysteriously appears to have been un-killed. I assure you that it was
killed at the time. Curiouser and curiouser...

~~~
JoachimSchipper
It's [dead] for me.

------
kinkora
Oh cool, you found the discussion. Though I wasn't asking about the moderation
exactly, I posted a similar question earlier:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2704833>

I just reviewed the guidelines and my feeling as to why it was removed is
because of this:

 _Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something (e.g. to ask us
questions about Y Combinator, or to ask or complain about moderation). If you
want to say something to us, please send it to info@ycombinator.com_

p/s: Funnily, i think it applies to this post to. :)

Anyway, that is assuming that the post was moderated or deleted by the admins.
It could just simply be the OP regretted posting it, deleted it and
coincidentally the YC company that posted the job ad decided to remove the ad
after receiving much criticism.

~~~
icey
If you're looking for a suggestion of things to do, I can tell you something
that the posters of the original ad didn't do that rubs me the wrong way:
Respond to people who have emailed you, even if it's just to say "hey we got
your email".

I emailed the company from the original ad because we may have been a great
fit (seemed great on paper at least), but heard nothing back at all. Who knows
if they put a typo in their throwaway email address, or just don't care; but
to me it says a lot about how people run their business.

I know it certainly killed my interest in whatever they were working on.

~~~
kinkora
That is actually an excellent suggestion. Would you have mind if it was an
automated canned response?

~~~
icey
Honestly, I think any kind of response is better than no response. If anything
just to verify that the email got where it was meant to go.

------
latch
I'm the OP of the criticism. I thought there was some useful feedback in both
my post (available at
[https://raw.github.com/gist/1051210/fd7008d908c2929f8476ad57...](https://raw.github.com/gist/1051210/fd7008d908c2929f8476ad577b3a7ae3c4cd798f/gistfile1.txt))
and the comments which followed.

However, it was slightly rantish, and some of the comments followed that line
as well. I should have been more tactful (whether or not this was a YC
company).

------
g123g
So criticism of Google, Facebook or Groupon is ok on HN. But criticism of a no
named startup is not ok on HN. And it was not a criticism of that startup but
it was just of the wordings in their job ad. What kind of censorship is this?
On top of that there is no explanation of why the post was deleted.

Land of the free? I don't think so.

~~~
yid
What caused you to think HN was "land of the free"? That's not implied
anywhere.

------
ColinWright
Clickable: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2703771>

------
JackStraw
didnt see the add, just the resulting comments. am curious to.

