
Is this how to get banned for life from Y Combinator? - nostrademons
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/11/09/the-y-combinator-companies/#comment-365012
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far33d
That's the stupidest thing I've ever seen someone attach their name to.

~~~
bootload
Hands up who makes mistakes? I do, usually technical, a lot social but some
mistakes reveal more about character. Character is lot harder to judge than
skillset, passion and being smart. Character means you can trust this person,
know that they will do what they say they will do. Do the right thing.

Two instances I've seen where someones character has been exposed, one
resulted in sacking (trying to hack the server & being caught, then police
being called) and the other - hacking (after being in the company for 1 day,
hacked root, added themselves to wheel & logged in externally via ssh, ordered
software on company money). What was their motive? Curiosity, greed? I don't
know. I do know I wouldn't want to work with them. You simply can't trust them
to do the right thing.

From the looks this bloke is pretty young & eager. [0], [1] Reading the post
does expose a character flaw (we all have them), _impatience_. More and more
I'm reading of people getting frustrated in not getting acceptance as if this
is their only shot. Now or never. This is simply not the case. In fact if you
think this I really question you _determination_ and resolve.

Now back to ' _cash for comments_ '. Inside information for the highest
bidder. So what was the cash for? Well to start the startup of course. Just
another way to raise money? Well it's pretty stupid, ill planned and looking
at the responses out of step in what's expected. And to do it on such a high-
profile site with your name. That's punishment enough.

Maybe there ought to be another item added in, 'Startup Mistakes'. [2] Perhaps
what should be added is something about _"how you respond to failure &
setback"_. What is the right way? What is the wrong way explaining what you
have to loose.

Reference

[0] bootload, 'What's the best thing you could be working on, and why aren't
you?':

<http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=13193>

[1] In a post I added on what 'best is the best idea you _could_ be working
on' rms gave this reply ~<http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=13193>

Reading the reply may give you a better insight into his _character_ and help
you determine his motives.

[2] pg, 'The 18 mistakes that kill startups'

<http://paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html>

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jaggederest
Why do you always post footnotes? It's starting to bother me a lot.

Especially when you cite yourself. First.

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bootload
' _... Especially when you cite yourself. First. ...'_

If you follow the post thread you'll see why. It's been asked here
~<http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=14404> to death.

'hint': Meaning Economy ~
<http://jeremie.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry070328-000042>

~~~
jaggederest
Self quoting is bad form any time, it's worse when you do it recursively.
Especially to boost your own relevance in google.

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bootload
Do you have anything meaningful to add? I do ~
<http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=11826>

~~~
jaggederest
Simple answer: yes. Relationship credit models have been pretty widely
explored.

A decent way to do it is to build a matrix of friends/enemies/etc and iterate
over it until you have absolute values.

Example implementation (not mine) here:
<http://bitchun.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/bitchun/tracker/ruby/>

~~~
bootload
' _... Simple answer: yes... build a matrix of friends/enemies/etc and iterate
over it until you have absolute values ...'_

Slashdot tried a model similar to this. The result you still got polarisation
of views, short snipes without any real value. I don't think it's simple. Why?
You can't change "human behaviour". Anything you do there will be some person
trying to find a loophole. Joshua Schachter (delicious fame) went into great
lengths in his talk on itconversation about this.

Especially just with an algorythm approach. Though one thing I can think of
that did more than anything for me was a points filter (meaning you can simply
not view someones comments below a certain threshold ) . A more broader
approach has better chances of encouraging (enforcing) good behaviour.

One successful approach I have seen, can be found in the _perlmonks_ (a perl
programming) site where users gain karma through numerous means (time on the
system, posts and moderation) enforced by a top down 'Benovolent dictatorship'
and in effect a hierarchy.

You join the site as a novice & work your way up earning rights through
encouraged & enforced behaviour. For instance you have to be a certain level
(say level 5) before you can front-page a post. Another level and you can join
groups effecting the design of the site. This type of conditioning means for
instance users don't have power beyond their maturity. If they do things _out-
of-line_ (say for instance random down-modding or excessive referencing) they
can be pulled in before the inevitable _kitten fights_ (al-la slashdot)
begins.

In time, as a user reaches a certain level (of maturity) certain rights are
allowed. So the combination of brute user moderation and a more subtle
framework encourages finding solutions to problems rather than /. type brawls.

I don't think mere code alone solves undesirable behaviour in systems. And it
would be a good area for developers with a 'psychology', 'group dynamics'
background to explore and add more knowledge.

~~~
jaggederest
The system I pointed out is free from those flaws, for precisely one reason:
karma in that sort of system is always relative.

That is, everyone moderates according to their own tastes, and nobody is
'better' than anyone else. It all sums to zero, the only filtering is by
individual preference.

~~~
bootload
_'The system I pointed out is free from those flaws, for precisely one reason:
karma in that sort of system is always relative '_

Can you give me some sites that use this (aside from skype)? Can you explain
how say person 1, rates person 2 and how the rating is viewed from person 2's
point of view? ... or say person 3 observing?

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jaggederest
person 1 allocates one or many positive or negative points to person 2.

person 2 shows person 1 as having higher/lower karma, person 1 shows person 2
as having higher/lower karma.

Person 3 has no viewpoint unless they are in the system. There is no
'absolute' objective viewpoint without taking a stance.

A user with no ratings of anyone sees everyone with the same karma.

All four of the major extended interactions work too. (friend of a friend,
enemy of a friend, enemy of an enemy, friend of an enemy)

Another property is that it doesn't matter how many points you use. You may
rate someone up or down as much as you desire, or make up your own rating
system, whatever works for you.

~~~
bootload
' _... Person 3 has no viewpoint unless they are in the system ...'_ So there
is effectively no visible karma? - unless person 3 intersects person 1 and
person 2?

That's a pretty good system. How do you measure (unless you have admin on the
system) person 1 compared to person 2 and person 3? From the way I see this
would it work on a system where a (visible) reward is given out for effort? (I
define effort as creating links + comment).

The reason I ask is that how do you encourage users here to add content and
create a leader board? I know the constraints are bit tight, but if you solve
this it would be worth recommending to features.

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jaggederest
Well, one way is to pick a viewpoint and use that. But really, the important
thing is, you see that you are valued by the people you respect. As long as
you're a user in the system, it's obvious whether you have good or bad karma.

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plusbryan
When I saw this post several months ago, I e-mailed the guy and chewed him out
("what on earth are you thinking", yadda yadda). He emailed back with an
apology, something along the lines of him being a bit drunk when he posted it.
Fair enough.

He had the balls a few weeks later to ask me if I would VOUCH for him to PG.
Yeah, no, that didn't happen.

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mynameishere
Web-based OS. LOL:

CPU multitasking ... OS Scheduler ... Threads as implemented by C++ or
whatever ... Browser ... Javascript Interpreter ... Faked-out single-threaded
multi-thread emulator ... "Browser-based OS".

And of course, if you want an "application" in your "OS" you can always fire
up Sun HotSpot.

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rms
Um... I readily admit that Web OS is a misnomer. I mean a browser start page
that implements useful tasks beyond what Netvibes and Pageflakes offer.

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juwo
Banned? Wasn't rms selected at this most recent SFP?

