Remember as you read more and more news like this that many of the owners of Y Combinator supported this.
You're burning your credibility here fast as the new moderator. dang derived his respect as an admin from not getting into fights in the threads. It additonaly tarnishes your credibility as you're doing this in defense of your employer. You look like a rage-poster who has the same response copied and ready to go from thread to thread.
Please take a moment to step back and examine if this is the image you want to be projecting as the official representative of YC and HN.
i think dang is successful at moderation in part because he does have a reputation and track record of being fair and unbiased in his moderation, and i do agree showing bias in conversations can make people question moderation decisions more, but i'm not sure tom is showing bias by including information relevant to people he knows, and i think he can both discuss however he likes while also being transparent and genuine in unbiased moderation
tom has and does stay out of debates and in-depth conversations around HN related stuff. he's simply dropping some information in to dispel disinformation, which i think is reasonable
Can you point to a comment of mine where that's not the case? I'll happily have it pointed out so I can avoid it in future.
Where we get it wrong, I'm happy for it to be pointed out so we can improve. That's always been the case with HN moderation, and it's what I like about the work. The community demands that we operate to a high standard, and is quick to call us out when we get things wrong. That's the way it should be.
Where it stops being OK is when people make false (or extrapolated-to-the-point-of-absurdity) claims about YC’s actions/intentions, and its influence on HN moderation (and thus HN’s integrity).
Where this happens, the least I can do is (a) provide some balancing context when claims/insinuations are made of, say, YC's leaders being in cahoots with the administration and HN moderators enabling it because it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it, and (b) ask people who accuse us of censorship to provide details of their claims so we can explain it or investigate further.
I know I'm not going to please or win credibility from everybody, especially those who seem motivated to portray HN moderation and YC management in the worst possible light.
But the problem is that if we let these claims/accusations sit there without any balancing context, people who are open-minded will read them and think they are accurate, then form a negative opinion of YC and HN, based on incomplete information or falsehoods.
I realised just how damaging this can be when I spent time around the YC offices in SF in the past month, for the first time in a few years, spending lots time with dang and in staff meetings and having casual chats with YC staff and partners and startup founders. I realised just how different the vibe and attitude is, and how different the orientation towards politics is, compared to how it is so often portrayed in HN comments.
I also saw how frustrated and dispirited dang is by being subjected to these accusations for so long. And it hit me that these kinds of comments have become so pervasive on HN for so long that even I – who has been behind the scenes at HN for years (but not in the office) – had started to believe them, and become disenchanted about YC. And only when I spent time in the office and in the meetings did I realise just how much of an inaccurate portrayal they are.
I don't for a moment think YC is perfect, and I have plenty of my own ideas about how it can be doing better. And it's still very much the case that HN is an independent arm of YC, and it's not the moderators' role to defend or advocate for YC management.
But I think it’s important that we can provide balancing context when assertions are made about HN moderation and YC's influence on our moderation practices.
(Edited 5th par to be less dismissive/accusatory.)
Jared Friedman endorsing DOGE
https://x.com/snowmaker/status/1886672263216504853
Garry Tan hanging with a DOGE flunky
1) Yes, Jared posted (nearly three months ago) that DOGE reminded him of (and indeed is the same entity as) USDS, a program launched by Obama in 2014 – evidently a program that Jared liked and supported.
2) Yes, Garry was photographed with Joe Gebbia, a notable YC alum who is volunteering with DOGE.
The next day, Garry posted a photo of himself with prominent Democratic Senator Cory Booker:
https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/1907526506840003025
He also posted the full video of Sen. Booker giving a long, impassioned speech at a YC-hosted conference:
https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/1907537541550469410
People will make up their own minds as to whether the tweets cited by the parent pass the test of campaigning or advocating for the administration or any particular agenda.
They don't for me, given the full context.
Still, the relevant matter for HN moderation is the political signals that will influence us or cause us to be biased. The strongest signal is from pg and it’s in the opposite direction to what is being claimed in the comments that accuse us of bias. Of course we don’t want to be influenced in that direction either.
900+ upvotes
- it has nothing to do with tech
- it's about a hot button political issue
- it helps the Republican cause.
Not flagged
I guess it can have different interpretation.
Either way I'd really prefer not to see this stuff on Hacker News. We have enough things that push people buttons in other places.
Your original comment was about the change in tone, I'm giving what I think is the main reason. He spews hateful rhetoric and insults people constantly. Tens of millions voted for him to represent them in the highest position in the world.
>. It used to be more purposeful, useful and meaningful for me
I think the articles where you'll find the highest percentage of comments you'd dislike are obvious. Just don't click on them.
>The purpose is the help understand current state of play.
This is improved if the information is accurate right? Calling out those that might be lying helps.
No amount of shouting from the rooftops that this time was actually different convinced anyone. I can't really blame us collectively, we resoundingly voted for this— it's as much of a mandate you're likely to ever get in the US and we're in the find out stage of fucking around.
Looking back on old social media posts the theme is that everyone, supporters and not, were high on copium that Trump would do <list of things I like | aren't so bad> and the <list of truly terrible things> was just obviously crazy and wouldn't actually happen or were a joke.
* Paul Graham
* Mark Zuckerberg
* The Ghost of Elon Musk before he fell down the alt right pipeline and now is no longer liberal-tarian.
* Sundar Pichai
* Jeff Bezos
* Sam Altman
* Jensen Huang
* Tim Cook
A who's who of people who felt their businesses were being threatened by the Biden administration with a starry-eyed view of how this next round might benefit them and being in denial of the crazy.
Elon and his loud hangers-on in the VC community have made SV look a lot more MAGA than it is
If we're going to judge these folks, judge them by their words and actions.
Most of those people are just cowardly bending to corruption, which is not the same thing as what was originally asked for.
Trump received a minority of the popular vote. The 1.5% margin was slim compared to recent elections even.