
Ask HN: Would the job postings be better with comments? - ecaron
Since I&#x27;m the kind of person that likes Stripe&#x27;s take on email transparency[1], I might just be over-opinionated on the matter when I think that the YC job posts would be better if conversation was able to occur within them.<p>Some examples:<p>* Clever - https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9082693 - what does code refactoring have to do with that position?<p>* LivBlends - https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9047329 - any YouTube videos of your product in action?<p>* Mailgun - https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=7681316 - is there any correlation between the positions and the locations?<p>Sometimes the conversation is going to be asking for more details. Sometimes making suggestions. Sometimes OT. But I can&#x27;t think of many situations where inspired conversations would detract from the quality of the posting...<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stripe.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;email-transparency
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buckbova
> Clever -
> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9082693](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9082693)
> \- what does code refactoring have to do with that position?

I've been on teams pushed to create feature after feature. After some time, we
literally begged to refactor code. We begged to do what was best for the
company. Guess what? They didn't listen and new features became painful to
implement. Of course some of us refactored code on the down low, but this is
dangerous (they aren't fully QA'd or reviewed) and kind of insulting to have
to sneak around doing the right thing.

For me hearing a company refactors its code is refreshing.

~~~
serverhorror
What I don't get is the mindset that refactoring is optional.

If I'd be the customer and people came to me to tell me "Of course we can do
feature X but we also LIKE to do Y" what I hear is "We can do what you want
for amount EUR x but we'd like to sell you something that costs EUR x+k".

So I'm not talking about the customer believing it's optional, I'm talking
about the development teams themselves believing it's optional.

I't would sound a whole lot different to state "Sure we can do X. It's EUR x.
This is what is necessary..." (the list of work packages would include
refactoring, maybe worded in a way that is better understandable by my
customers).

I'm going to spare you the the usual comparison to car makers or whatnot. I
think the mistake is with ourselves to simply state that it is necessary and
not optional to maintain quality. After all if you can take the risk of
implementing features without maintaining a quality product isn't -- and thus
loosing customers as implementing features only when maintaining quality --
and thus loosing customers to competitors who are willing to reduce quality
for the other risk, and a possibly lower price for a single project or two?

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negrit
So i've been running a private job board with 3k members for few years now.
People can comment on job posts.

There are 4 kinds of comments:

* Mention of someone, to make him/her aware that job may interest him/her

* Correct the person who posted on the job on a typo

* Mocking the job. Often a big circle jerk we have to moderate

* Someone saying that the company is awesome they have worked there or know the founders, ...

I find it quite interesting however, it's never really bringing anything
valuable to the job post. The comments are never about asking what are the use
of X language, how are the teams, ....

~~~
Gracana
> Mocking the job. Often a big circle jerk we have to moderate

That's pretty much what I would expect to see. Ever clicked the link to
discuss an ad on reddit? It's rare that someone commented because they had
something nice to say.

What if job postings were a weekly thread here, where people could comment on
all of them/talk about other positions, etc? There might be more useful
discussion to be had in a general jobs thread.

~~~
chc
There are general jobs threads posted monthly (two of them — "Who is hiring?"
and "Freelancer? Seeking freelancer?"). These comment-less job posts are a
special privilege of YC companies that offers greater visibility.

~~~
negrit
The thing with the monthly threads is that there is rarely a followup on the
questions.

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jack-r-abbit
Seems to have slowed recently but Clever was borderline SPAM there for awhile.
On more than one occasion I wished I could flag their post. (I understand that
would probably be a slight misuse of the flag button.) Had there been a
comments section I likely would have said something to get myself banned for a
bit. So maybe it was a good thing I couldn't comment.

~~~
schimmy_changa
I think that's a side-effect from allowing control of our industry messaging
board to rest in the hands of YC instead of the community. I've actually hoped
that the balance would swing back to /r/programming where moderation is done
by the community. Also the revenue to keep the site running would be generated
by neutral-ish advertising instead of YC gaining value by being able to push
their own startups.

I suppose that this is a strange thing to say, as I work at a YC company which
takes advantage of those connections... In fact we maybe draw on it too much
(I do work at Clever, sorry if our posts bothered you!).

Overall, I think YC are pretty benign overlords, and they have an incentive to
not rock the boat. YMMV though :)

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hamburglar
I'm not sure if this is a minority opinion or not, but since I don't see
anybody saying it: the job postings would be better if they could be filtered
out or at least throttled. I am so tired of being asked if I'd like to disrupt
the big telecom companies or build drones in SF that it makes me contemplate
writing a filtering RSS proxy whenever I see them.

------
the_cat_kittles
since a lot of people on here have probably been involved / applied for
companies posted on here, their feedback would probably be useful. in my case,
an unnamed YC company made me a really insulting lowball offer. i feel the
desire to mention that every time they post on here. maybe thats not what you
want, but i think its good for everyone if companies are accountable and dont
try to take advantage of people in the hiring process.

~~~
thaumaturgy
> _in my case, an unnamed YC company made me a really insulting lowball offer.
> i feel the desire to mention that every time they post on here._

I think that's actually the danger here. I sympathize with you, but at the
same time, I don't think it would add much value to just give a bunch of
people the opportunity to air their grievances in job postings.

~~~
ecaron
Totally agree with that assessment. If it becomes a place where only
previously rejected candidates can voice their angst, then its all downhill...

~~~
swombat
You'd have to be one hell of an idiot to air your grievances about being
rejected for a job application on a public forum like this. Great way to
reduce your job prospects for the future.

I suspect this sort of thing would be fairly rare, because it looks bad on
both the applicant and the company.

~~~
buckbova
Some folks create throwaway accounts and post anonymously.

------
falcolas
Personally, I think comments would be valuable for FAQ type questions, but
they would likely require more moderation than your average news topic.

~~~
mfisher87
Don't you require some sort of "trusted" status to post a job? I think that
level of trust would mean the same accounts should be able to moderate their
own postings.

~~~
bnb
The "trusted" status is that you took part (and succeeded?) in a YC batch.

------
benologist
Those three you selected co-existed alongside 295 days of many mediocre, dull,
boring and ridiculous job posts that don't foster good or valuable discussion.
I think there was also problem(s) with startups trying to stay secret + being
identifiable from their job listings. There did used to be comments, until
those reasons.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Seems like defaulting to comments on with the option of disabling them if the
startup is in stealth mode would be a good solution.

~~~
benologist
There is discussion about all this buried in PG's submissions history - I
found where points and submitters stopped being shown on jobs 1380 days ago, I
think it was all part of the same overhaul:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2542355](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2542355)

Might be time to revisit it but I think presenting them as HN content is wrong
- they're not HN content, they don't get to the front page because they're
good or because one of our peers thought the rest of us might like it and more
of our peers agreed.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
> they're not HN content

HN is explicitly part of YC. If you disagree with that[1], there's always
[https://lobste.rs](https://lobste.rs) or Reddit

[1] I do, to a certain extent, but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
benologist
They're YC's ads shown alongside HN's content. If they weren't inserted on the
front page automatically they would almost universally never get there because
they're not even _similar_ to our content - otherwise non-YC job posts would
be upvoted to the front page too.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
That's native advertising for you.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_F5GxCwizc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_F5GxCwizc)

------
eli
Valuable to the readers or to the people posting job ads? I wouldn't want
comments on my job ads and I assume the same is true of YC companies posting
here.

I would wager many comments would be negative opinions of the job, the
company, or something entirely unrelated.

------
bramgg
Hacker News job postings are a part of the YC package, allowing users to
comment could lower its value. We're a cynical bunch.

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andrewstuart
In almost all cases it will be people griping, picking issues and holes in the
job ad, running down the company.

There's a reason why few places on the Internet have comments on job ads -
it's because recruiting is the business of rejection.

The naive would think comments would be polite positive enquiry and
enthusiasm.

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GeneralMayhem
Maybe not the most noble or forward-thinking reason, but I'm happily employed
and have no interest in seeing HN job posts, so I appreciate that the job
posts have no comments link, because it makes them easier to mentally filter
out when I'm scanning the front page.

------
twakefield
Mailgun - since you asked...no correlation. We have distributed teams across
the offices.

------
Blackthorn
Absolutely. Companies that are afraid of failed candidates badmouthing them on
here ought to consider making their candidate experience better.

