Comment by throwaway55356 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway55356 | Hacker News Reader

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It's really important to be able to fairly criticize a company for their interviewing/hiring practices. I think it's in-context if they are a poster on Who is hiring. Some of us recognize the regulars on here. We want to figure out if they are just trolling for resumes, a recruiter that is trying to be stealthy, or if they are just plain not serious about hiring (a waste of time).

I think it's facetious to say that the Who is hiring thread should be held to a courtroom's standard. A lot of companies have a hiring process that is definitely nowhere near that, no matter how much they may believe in it. It is certainly important to tell the truth. It is also inappropriate to call out individuals by name (as has happened a few times).

I think it's also pejorative to say that there is a "genre" of people bringing hard feelings from interview. We are just people. The hiring process is very cynical these days and most of us trying to get a job are on our best behavior, and we have similar expectations from the other side.

(By 'genre' I meant the type of comment, not the type of people.)

I don't disagree, but it doesn't answer the point: we have no way to tell what's true vs. false in these posts. Bad hiring practices are a thing and disgruntled applicants are a thing. Who Is Hiring threads are in no position to tell one apart from the other. Just imagine the mess if people started litigating the details here?

But they can't, anyhow, because no matter what someone posts, the person representing the company can usually only reply with something generic. A situation in which it's impossible to hear both sides and impossible to determine the facts is not one that is possible for the rest of us to decide fairly.

But so what if it's messy? As the parent commenter pointed out, this isn't a courtroom. It's a discussion forum.

The only decision to be made (at least of the yea/nay form you seem to be positing) is in pursuing a particular job posting. Surely the vast majority of HN readers are savvy enough not to let mere sour grapes dissuade them. Perhaps more imporantly, so what? Does the loss of volume, if there is even is any, either in job postings or in applicants, actually hurt anyone? Is the increased volume on the thread really a problem in the face of the "[-]" clickable feature?

Does it justify essentially stifling all commentary speech here?

I'd assume that the policy is to stifle negative comments, especially in these days where criticize is frowned upon.

If the policy setters can't possibly (by their own admission) determine the mere truth of comments, how could they determine something as subjective as negativity? [1]

After all, I personally already feel the chilling effect of the stated "no complaints" policy, as I mentioned originally, in that I now would not even post what I would have thought to be obviously helpful/constructive criticism such as a broken URL, since that could be construed as a complaint.

That gets back to my original request: If this is to be a post-only thread, with no commentary allowed, then just make it that. There would be no ambiguity and no pretending there might be room for discussion.

[1] That is, in the context of an otherwise civil, well thought-out comment that would otherwise be welcome elsewhere on the forum. I'm not advocating permitting the equivalent of corporate ad-hominem attacks here, and I'd even go so far as to say that discussions that are merely about a particular company (e.g. the ethics of working somewhere with a recent high-profile scandal) and not about the hiring process or working environment itself could be reasonably deemed off-topic.

In this era, you are only allowed to express positivity or neutrality. Instead of expressing negativity to any degree, you are expected to allow the other person to stay in their bubble, perhaps silently judge them, and move on permanently. Unsavory or unpleasant truths are not allowed. This will be enforced by the speech police.

If this becomes a job post-only thread, that implies that everybody posting a job is on equal footing, treats everybody equally, and does nothing wrong. And that is not true. I have personally gotten downright horrible, inappropriate questions and remarks during interviews at companies I found through this thread. A lot worse than you will find in my comment history. I too have experienced the chilling effect of this policy. Hiring managers have tried to gaslight me about bias or whatever else is going on. The censorship goes on right here in one of the best technical, non-political forums. And the inappropriate behavior continues, even though it should not.

I'm not sure I agree with the conclusion about the universality of censorship in this era, and I think you're arguing a position that's sufficiently extreme that it hurts your cause. To the extent that your cause is better information through freer speech, I agree with it.

One of the resources I rely on when considering even applying to a company is Glassdoor. Although I've experienced what seemed to me like similar censorship on one previous occasion with an interview review submission, they do not seem to be averse to negativity and have a history of protecting anonimity.

I'd argue that GD is a better forum for the critiques you're suggesting, accusatory of doing something "wrong", but I don't feel that strongly about it. What I'm most sad to see go are the "time waste" warning comments, since that can save someone a significant investment of effort doing further, even basic, research on GD, LinkedIn, Crunchbase, and elsewhere.

Lastly, I disagree that a post-only forum implies equality or absence of wrongdoing. It only implies they posted according to the rules (or haven't gotten caught breaking those rules yet). I'd go so far as to say that technically enforced silence says even less about the posters than "voluntary" (really chilling effect but which could seem voluntary to a naive reader) silence. That's why I asked for a technical solution instead of vague policy enforced with arbitrary moderator punishment of detachment and marking off-topic.

To my defense, all interview are being recorded, so it would be very easy to verify my points. My issues is that there is an obvious difference between their talk and their action (eg. I'm still waiting for them to follow up on the support ticket I opened).

Btw, this is not the first "Who's hiring" thread where this company is being criticized.

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