HN is a news site, not a customer support forum for companies funded by YC, and in fact the site guidelines explicitly ask that it not be used that way:
http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Strictly speaking I should have killed the post entirely, but that would just have inflamed conspiracy theorists further.
But, on the other hand, this is somewhat newsworthy. You have a company trying to start up in a very tough space where you need to be super-reliable and super-transparent. Coinbase's actions this entire week were neither. Let me repeat that important middle part. An entire week. This is not an "OMG my transaction took a day instead of an hour!" for one or two people.
It's not like I was posting a customer service request for myself. Look at twitter and you'll see a lot of people with troubles greater than mine.
Perhaps I should have prompted some Bitcoin-related blogger to write a nasty post and then link to it? Would that have turned the post into a "news" one and passed the gate?
As per PG's guidelines, that is the only compliant way. If I were him I'd much rather have the conversation on HN than to have the blogosphere or financial media light up over a controversy.
The guidelines state: "In titles, please don't describe things by their relation to YC unless they're actually associated with YC."
AFAICT Coinbase is associated with YC, so the appearance makes perfect sense.
"Strictly speaking I should have killed the post entirely"
The real question is why it took an HN post that reached the frontpage to see any sort of response from coinbase. If you read the comments and the original assertion "because nobody trying to trade with Coinbase can get a public answer", it seems like people have tried other means and couldn't reach anyone at Coinbase.
please don't use HN posts to ask YC-funded companies questions that you could ask by emailing them.
Instead you change the subject with "The real question is..." when, in fact, that wasn't the question. The question was about title changes. No doubt a dozen more "real questions" are waiting in the wings.
There's no way PG can win this game of whack-a-troll. I'm surprised both that he even tries and that he doesn't snap more often.
[Edit: deleted a dumb and superfluous bit here.]
You didn't read the parent posts, did you? You should review the conversation. The entire issue at hand is the fact that the title was changed. To summarize:
joezydeco: a mod just deleted the "YC ('12)" off the headline https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5428387
pg: Must mean that we're trying to hide the fact that we funded them, right? It could only mean that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5428426
niggler: It's a very relevant fact (after all, this is a YC site and Coinbase is a YC company) that was explicitly removed by a moderator. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5428449
In that context, what's being discussed is the renaming, for which PG replies by saying "That convention is for company names that appear in headlines of stories." and pointing to the news guidelines. The rest of the post is a non-sequitur.
I replied by pointing to the only part of the guidelines that discuss titles.
Now you tell me who is being intellectually dishonest :)
The only statement he made on that point is:
"That convention is for company names that appear in headlines of stories."
And in pointing to the guidelines, there is something that is relevant to the titles: "In titles, please don't describe things by their relation to YC unless they're actually associated with YC."
So he didn't give a response that explained why the title was changed. He thinks the issue is between "killing the story" and "renaming the title". But if he thinks that killing the story is a way to respond, that suggests he doesn't appreciate the severity of the situation.
I've seen a similar situation before with much more money (15M) so I know how frustrating it is to wonder if you will ever get your money back and to plan for lawsuits. In my case, it took complaints to SEC to get them to finally return the money. You may think this is a trivial issue, but it's very hard to re-establish trust once it is lost.
Back on point, I don't think PG appreciates the severity of the issue at hand.
I'm inclined to engage in that kind of interaction myself, having learned somewhere along the way that it's what a certain kind of intelligent person does. So I thought it was something to emulate. But I've been re-examining that assumption, largely in reaction to conversations I've seen on HN. I try not to engage in rapid back-and-forth threads that go more than a couple of posts deep. And I try to keep snark at a minimum. Sometimes I fail, but when I do I feel guilty about it, like I'm dragging the site down. I do not feel like I'm accomplishing something with it.
On the other hand, I feel free to be snarky on Reddit since that site is hopeless anyway. :-)
We often see laments about the declining quality of conversation on this site, and I believe such rapid-fire exchanges from leaders in the community are a contributing factor there. It sets a bad tone.
I know what you mean about trying and failing. 95% of the time I resist the impulse to make comments like this. Most of the other 5% I go back and delete it.
Thanks for the surprisingly thoughtful comment.