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Ask HN: Why is this 131-point posting critical of a YC job advert dead?

46 points by jrwoodruff ↗ HN
I know this is getting far too meta for HN, but why is this posting critical of a YC job advertisement on HN dead?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2703771

I think it's a valid criticism, with a good amount of interesting discussion that startup founders (and others) could learn from.

Is HN really so disconnected that it can't accept criticism? Or was this marked dead because this is (apparently) an advert for a YC startup?

Until this post, I hadn't even realized HN had advertisements of any sort. This opaque posting of advertisements, and the fact that this criticism is now dead, among other recent events here, is really turning me off of this forum.

17 comments

[ 7.0 ms ] story [ 27.6 ms ] thread
JackStraw
didnt see the add, just the resulting comments. am curious to.
kinkora
Oh cool, you found the discussion. Though I wasn't asking about the moderation exactly, I posted a similar question earlier: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2704833

I just reviewed the guidelines and my feeling as to why it was removed is because of this:

Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something (e.g. to ask us questions about Y Combinator, or to ask or complain about moderation). If you want to say something to us, please send it to info@ycombinator.com

p/s: Funnily, i think it applies to this post to. :)

Anyway, that is assuming that the post was moderated or deleted by the admins. It could just simply be the OP regretted posting it, deleted it and coincidentally the YC company that posted the job ad decided to remove the ad after receiving much criticism.

jrwoodruff
Yea, I know about that guideline but I don't think it applies to the original post. It wasn't complaining about moderation, and it wasn't asking anything about Y Combinator, such as how to apply, etc. It was a genuine critique of what appears to be an advertisement.

My post is certainly in violation of that guideline more than the original critique... :/

icey
If you're looking for a suggestion of things to do, I can tell you something that the posters of the original ad didn't do that rubs me the wrong way: Respond to people who have emailed you, even if it's just to say "hey we got your email".

I emailed the company from the original ad because we may have been a great fit (seemed great on paper at least), but heard nothing back at all. Who knows if they put a typo in their throwaway email address, or just don't care; but to me it says a lot about how people run their business.

I know it certainly killed my interest in whatever they were working on.

kinkora
That is actually an excellent suggestion. Would you have mind if it was an automated canned response?
icey
Honestly, I think any kind of response is better than no response. If anything just to verify that the email got where it was meant to go.
JonnieCache
This happens from time to time. Threads critical of, or problematic for y combinator companies or affiliated companies are killed without warning or explanation.

Pg has to protect his assets I guess. This is capitalism after all.

This is what is meant by having contacts and influence in the industry. Pulling strings and all that. One of the most oft cited advantages of being part of yc is being able to call pg for favors, I imagine that includes having threads killed on here.

EDIT: actual job ads can probably be killed by the companies who posted them, however I have seen multiple user submitted links killed in this context, including one I posted myself.

EDIT2: for reference, here is the link i posted that got killed when near the top of the front page:

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/reddit.com

we were having a nice discussion about how the top search term referer for reddit is "jailbait" then boom, dead. The motivation for having that one killed isn't hard to see. I'll see if i can find the link to the thread itself...

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jrwoodruff
I don't see how this is terribly problematic for the company, or even YC. It is critical of the posting, but criticism, when done correctly, is helpful. This thread contained offers of help, as well as genuine insight from other industry professionals.

Especially considering that, to those not in the inner circles of YC, the company behind this is unknown, I don't see the upside to killing this post.

Isn't part of HN to be educational? Isn't part of YC accepting criticism and learning from it?

latch
I'm the OP of the criticism. I thought there was some useful feedback in both my post (available at https://raw.github.com/gist/1051210/fd7008d908c2929f8476ad57...) and the comments which followed.

However, it was slightly rantish, and some of the comments followed that line as well. I should have been more tactful (whether or not this was a YC company).

g123g
So criticism of Google, Facebook or Groupon is ok on HN. But criticism of a no named startup is not ok on HN. And it was not a criticism of that startup but it was just of the wordings in their job ad. What kind of censorship is this? On top of that there is no explanation of why the post was deleted.

Land of the free? I don't think so.

yid
What caused you to think HN was "land of the free"? That's not implied anywhere.
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