Ask HN: Why would my post get buried by a mod?

6 points by cal5k ↗ HN
We had posted an announcement on some new hiring we're doing: http://www.myplanetdigital.com/digital_strategy/blog/myplanet-hiring-billion-people

It was a play on the Groupon announcement. We're a small company, and I'm a Hacker News regular so I figured this would be a great place to tell people about it.

The post was subsequently killed in its entirety. Not edited for perhaps having a silly title (which I will readily admit), but killed altogether.

Is there any way for me to discover why?

9 comments

[ 0.26 ms ] story [ 34.8 ms ] thread
The title was total bull, I guess that's a pretty good reason to kill it, if you go out of your way to produce a hiring ad then you might as well go out of your way to create a title in line with other HN hiring ads.

It's admirable you try to stand out but I think that was not the right way. Keep an eye out for the 'who's hiring threads' that pop up with some regularity and add yourself to those.

I actually have done that regularly, and we consistently get - zero responses.

Look, I agree the title was silly (although did anyone honestly think we were hiring a billion people?) - but I would have gladly edited it if a moderator had asked me to. I'm a regular HN reader, the intent wasn't to spam... I just honestly thought it was the sort of silly headline that other readers would enjoy. Maybe "Myplanet Hiring, Like, Five People" would have been more appropriate.

Sorry if I offended? For something light-hearted it sure engendered strong reactions...

HN is kind of anemic in the humor department.

On odd days I think that's a good thing ;)

Ahhh well, one can try :-)

We did manage to get a few applications in the hour or so the post was up, so it wasn't all for nought.

If enough people flag it, it gets killed without a mod taking any action.

Imo the whole post looks silly, not just the title. (Not sure I'd have flagged it myself, though.)

It was killed by a moderator (it has 10 points).
It's supposed to be a little silly - I was just trying to put a light-hearted spin on our hiring process. The type of people who enjoyed it would probably enjoy working with us.

I suppose I overreached with the title?

Well Groupon actually raised "like a billion dollars" whereas you equate hiring "like a billion people" to 5.
Is satire really such a mortal sin?