In a nutshell, a doctor is considering suing drchrono, a HN funded company, for not providing service and breach of contract.
Minutes after bring said grievances to HN, pg killed those stories and turned them into [dead] stories. You can still see them if you click (ASK) at the top.
The success of HN as a general-purpose-forum is an unintended side-effect of trying to corral all the hackers (useful building blocks for start-ups) into a single spot. Many people believe this is a 'better slashdot' or a 'better reddit' but in fact it is neither, it is a news site that a large number of visitors believe is actually an open forum.
YC's conflict of interest forces it to maintain a double standard when it comes to any kind of feedback (positive, negative) about companies that YC has funded or about companies that YC funded companies are in competition with.
Long term this is not a healthy situation and sooner or later it will result in either one of two things happening:
Transparency in moderation or a split of the community.
I hope for the former but I fear it will be the latter.
It works like this:
- Criticize YC, or YC companies, and the post will be killed. - Commend YC companies is fine - Criticize none YC companies is fine. - Commend none YC companies is fine.