I was reading this and thinking ... I wish someone had submitted some of these companies to HN. Some of those apps are very interesting and I think the discussion would have been too. Why haven't I heard about these apps before?
* FiltrBox 7 pts: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=246634
* TC 09 Graduation discussion 29 pts, 6 comments: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=746347
* OneFourty 1pt: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=849893
Majority never even make it past 1 point, they ether are set to dead for some reason or just have no support to ever make it out to the front page and if they do, community at large are simply not receptive to the story so it dies quickly. The confrontation goes back to when TechStars first started in 07 because they were the 2nd tech start up "incubator" (even though more correct term is accelerator) and YC community felt ether threatened or uninterested by the proposition and simply ignored those submissions. Solution is simple, just get your TechStars fix somewhere else, perhaps a filtrbox keyword search for techstars is a great start :)
Edit: would love to hear the reason for the downvotes.
We could form a gang and get enough upvotes to make the front page, but once its there, community has to be interested enough to keep it on the home page for any useful period of time, and as many experiences in the past indicate, thats just hasn't been the case.
e.g: " they either are set to dead for some reason "
For the one example I looked at (from the links you provided) PG explained that the reason it was set to dead was that it was a duplicate. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=746980. That isn't "some reason". That is a very clear reason.
"YC community felt either threatened or uninterested"
The first guess is stupid.
What basis do you have for this? Just state the facts ("These didn't get many upvotes") and leave the amateur psychoanalysis where it belongs.
Imagining conspiracy theories where there aren't any is worth a downvote.
As sachinag points out above, if the community didn't up vote the submission, it didn't upvote the submission. That's all.
Now if something you submitted didn't get any upvotes there is no need to whine about it or imagine a conspiracy. It happens to all of us.
I do present you with 1 interesting discussion on a few similarities between techstars and ycominator startups (Loopt/Brightkite, Foodzie/Foodoro and IntenseDebate/Disqus) which of course brings up great points for both sides of the argument: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=547991
What argument?
No one here is arguing there aren't similarities between YC startups or TS startups (which is what the discussion you pointed to seems to be about. One fellow seemed to make nebulous accusations and PG responded strongly http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=548102).
I don't see the "similarity" argument in the comments above anywhere. I am not sure why you provided this link as supporting "both sides of the argument".
so again, what argument is this new link supporting? Your "argument" (such as it was) was that the YC community is threatened by TS and so doesn't upvote or flags content about them. And when asked for supporting rationale you don't have any.
Fwiw I don't have a startup, have no plans of starting one in the near future and YC doesn't operate where I live. I hang out here because it is a great forum full of interesting people, contributing great comments and topics. That is it.
Ok. You asked why you were downvoted and I said why I downvoted. I am done with this thread. Onward!
If there is something we can share, teach or learn, we are here.