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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

> makes you think you can do the same for the replies

We can't, and that's the issue. There's no fair way of adjudicating which such complaints are true and valid, vs. which are partly true but distorted, vs. which are outright false.

It seems to me that the status quo is the least-bad feasible option, which is why we stick with it, even though of course it has downsides. I still think the Who Is Hiring threads are valuable, even with those downsides, and trying to do significantly better is one of those things it's important to say 'no' to. The problem is not that it wouldn't be valuable—it's that it would be valuable, but would consume too much of our limited resources and ultimately distract from the main goal of trying to run a good (or good-enough) forum.

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I don't know if it's about trying to do significantly better, but rather who these threads are for. If they're for the seekers, you would let them speak freely about their experiences. If it's for the companies, it makes sense to censor replies. Unfortunately you're put in a position to make this choice no matter if you want to or not.

Thanks for listening to feedback :)

Just a personal opinion, but as an occasional job seeker here, I prefer the current system, seeing "no complaints in replies" policy as efficiency, not censorship. Were it not the case I suspect many job postings would become discussion battlegrounds and people looking for brief summaries would have to scroll through pages of discussions.

It is a painful process for both the seekers (who feel they are being ghosted) and the employers (who feel they are being spammed by AI bots); IMO the best approach is to follow the general HN guidance of "be kind" and "assume good intentions". And if a company ghosted you, downvote their post. My 2c.

I think you've responded to this better than I ever have - thank you!

> "I suspect many job postings would become discussion battlegrounds"

I suspect they wouldn't. I suspect companies that ghost and post fake jobs wouldn't even reply. And companies that have real job posts would reply and have a chance to convince the job is real.

People already have to scroll a ton of job posts that are not for them (due to stack, location, seniority, whatever) and the [-] button is pretty efficient in hiding long discussions.

The way we think of it, it's equally for both sides, hirers and seekers, and we're just trying to be fair to both. I get that it doesn't necessarily feel that way.

I am in favor of not making comments about suspicious posts off-topic. Votes and comments is the natural way that all disputes are handled in this forum.

The [-] button is a pretty good solution for long discussions in a job post.

Let seekers share their experience is a pretty useful signal, even if there is no way to know if the seeker is telling the truth. But downvotes are even more secretive and are allowed.

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