I don't believe there is a way to lock it. But if you really want to clear the comments, you can use the API to recurse and delete all the comments--this is a quick Nodejs snip from Bing Chat with Octokit:
https://gist.github.com/extremeheat/1042a8a933f0987b265a70d4...
I just deleted it. I'll figure out what to do with all of the emails about all of the comments later. Probably something fun with sentiment analysis and large language models.
And what possible motivation would they have to do so? This is the biggest new development in the last two days, and it's well-written, with good grammar, etc. There is ZERO reason for legitimate users to flag this story.
This is something it's natural for people to worry about, and even to assume, but (a) no we don't do that, (b) I've explained this hundreds of times over the last decade:
Q: Are negative stories about YC suppressed on HN?
A: No, we moderate less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is the topic. The good will of the community is worth more than any story.
Btw, your question about story rank is also in the FAQ:
Q: Why is A ranked below B even though A has more points and is newer?
A: You can't derive rank from votes and time alone. See "How are stories ranked?" above.
Moderators haven't touched this post. All you've been seeing is just the regular tug of war between upvotes and flags, as handled by HN's software. No need for sinister speculation, other than for entertainment I suppose.
You say this. Where's the proof? I have screenshots and am friends with an FBI agent who just happens to be in a cybercrimes unit. I'll wait a few hours to see if the story continues to be absent from HN and after that I'm submitting a tip.
I didn't look just once, what I have is essentially a time lapse, with screenshots which I took every 15 seconds, roughly. If it turns out that someone at YC used even the flagging feature of their regular (non-mod) user account to manipulate this YC-owned forum for financial gain, then that could certainly be in Cybercrimes' jurisdiction, with the caveat being that it has to be inter-state to be in Federal jurisdiction. So this would only apply if one of the people conducting manipulation was located outside of California. .... Unless it can be argued that since OpenAI is legally in Delaware, that even a person based in California would meet the interstate criteria via the California-Delaware distinction.
"Proof" isn't achievable. If you don't believe what I'm saying, that's totally ok, but then you wouldn't believe me if I said anything proofier either. One can always find reasons why someone could be lying. Even if I showed you all of the code and all of the data, I might have snuck in and edited something, no?
We've found the best approach is to answer questions openly, let the answer persuade those who find it persuasive, and not chase diminishing returns down the long tail of objections. That approach only works if the community finds it persuasive—otherwise hellfire would rain on our heads—but empirically, the bulk of the community does. I think most people understand that it isn't in our interests to lie about how we administer HN. The good faith of the community is the only value that HN has. Why would we risk that, and for what?
Edit: actually this is kind of an interesting example to work through. Let's assume the OP is authentic, everything in it is true, and that it's an important new development (what I called SNI here yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38357788). How would it help YC if we suppressed it on HN? It would only make the HN threads less interesting, since (by hypothesis) the real story wouldn't be getting discussed. People would leave HN in search of interesting discussion elsewhere. That would make HN less valuable. Meanwhile, being an important story, it would end up getting attention everywhere else, people would keep posting it to HN, and we'd have to keep suppressing it. We'd end up in a fight with the community, a fight we'd be sure to lose. This is a way to destroy HN, not squeeze extra value out of it!
My guess is that users are flagging this story because of some combo of: they doubt that it's authentic; they doubt that its claims are true; and/or they don't think the claims are SNI* even if they are true. Perhaps some are thinking "oh my god, not another open letter—I'm so sick of this saga..."
I get that you do consider it true and important, but so far, the community verdict is against your view. If the flaggers are wrong, they story will get some confirmatory reporting soon enough. I'd be surprised if a few eager reporters aren't already looking into it. If they find some there there, we'll be able to have a discussion soon enough. In the meantime, this story hasn't yet cleared the bar for SNI—especially since there are dozens of articles being posted about this topic right now.
Right after I posted this comment, the story suspiciously jumped straight to spot #5 on the front page, skipping all the #10s and #20s that a story normally has to climb up to - like it was being artificially suppressed and then it immediately shot up when someone removed the suppression bool after seeing my comment. Then, my comment went up to 3 points, likely from real users upvoting it. Now, it is down to 1 point, possibly from manipulation, and I expect it to fall into negative points soon.
I have screenshots of every single step in this story's suppressed rise to the HN frontpage, and of my comment's scores over time. If YC is ever investigated for stock manipulation, journalists may contact me for access to these screenshots which may be valuable evidence.
As an observer not affiliated with ycombinator, your comment reads like shizoposting. Maybe it’s time for a walk.
I can’t speak for the reason why users might have flagged it, but these candidates come to mind:
- the OpenAI debacle was discussed and theorized in depth for days
- the gist contains absolutely nothing substantial
Moderators haven't touched this post, as I explained above, and there's no manipulation going on - it's just normal cycle-of-life stuff: some users think this post should be on the front page while others think it should not be. This is also the reason why your comment's score is fluctuating: some users agree with / like it, and others don't.
I know that sinister speculation is more exciting than unglamorous usualness, but the tedious truth is that we don't do any of the things you're talking about. We don't want to, it wouldn't feel good, and luckily for us, none of it is necessary.
What's your explanation for how it jumped straight to #5, skipping every intervening slot from #6 through #30? I spend way too much time on this site and from the more than a decade I've spent hanging out here, I've never seen stories jump straight to any spot above about #15 under any circumstances I've witnessed.
The explanation is the same: the software works that way sometimes. It's not so uncommon. If you haven't noticed it before, that may be because you weren't as interested in those other stories as you are in this one.
It happens particularly when an article contains sensational content that attracts a rush of quick upvotes, and then other readers see it on the front page, have a "WTF?" reaction, and flag it.
Now it's completely gone. I just searched with control-F through pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 which is the last page and it's not in any of the 20 pages. It's literally not in the top 584 results (20 pages worth).
If you look at page 20 https://news.ycombinator.com/?p=20 , you will see that even stories marked [dupe] are still retained, at around that page. Yet this story is not.
I have screenshots of every page from this quick test.
This does seem like it could be plausibly explained as an attempt to control the narrative -- market manipulation by YC -- and that that would be the type of thing you’d expect Sam to force YC to do if the allegations in this suppressed letter of Sam’s bullying are true.
If anyone YC-affiliated is using their user account (not their mod privileges, their ordinary personal user account) to flag this to suppress the story for financial gain, that could get the person behind bars. If you're reading this and you've been doing that, I suggest you unflag the post and please move on.
I have issues with language like ”…As you have now witnessed what happens when you dare stand up to Sam Altman.”
This is worded like they are following a messiah and anything said after that is now tainted with worship speak. I get that they have concerns but this isn’t the way.
I'm a little confused by your comment. The line in question isn't saying "Now you have angered our messiah," it's saying "Now you see what we've had to deal with for years; sucks, right?"
It's just not language I would come to expect from board members and/or statements from the board to employees or any form of official communication. A better phrasing and one that wouldn't invoke worship speak would be "The challenges we face are due to the pop-star like treatment of Sam Altman". I agree the meaning behind it is as you describe. "See what we have to deal with now..." but using words like "dare" invokes conflict before a point is even taken.
95+% of the company disagrees as made obvious by publicly signing with their own real names documents saying that they'll quit unless Sam returns. I don't see much evidence this "OpenAI" message actually represents the views of people at OpenAI; it may not have even been written by employees.
Not signing the letter might mean the company falls apart, and most of these employees have millions worth of shares that they were about to have an option to sell in a new funding round.
Well, that only shows that those 95% of folks are truly either religious fanatics or are just in it all for money [1]. No fucks given about moral principles.
(although there's or course a third possibility of them just being bright but too naive to STILL not see the sham that Sam has played for years and manipulated [2] them into believing it)
There's no way the current episode doesn't damage reputation of everyone involved. On the flip side, there's nothing more revealing about powerful people in just how they defend (or attack) other powerful people, while useful idiots scurry around.
I believe people are flagging it because it is not apparent that it is actually from anyone at OpenAI. Not that it couldn’t be, but there are reasons to be suspicious.
If they strongly believe in what they're saying, they should come forward. If you hide behind an pseudonym, credibility takes a big hit. It's not like we're under a dictatorship and they're going to disappear if they do so.
You have almost every single employee vouching for Sam, people outside the company vouching for him, an anon letter is paper thin as far credibility goes.
And ofc, any employee that got pushed out is going to have an axe to grind. Losing out on 900k+/year has to sting. At that compensation and in a startup, performance, disagreeing and comitting are key to the success of the venture. You should expect attrition to be high (though how did author of the letter get to 50%? who knows)
The board is hiding, one of which has a direct competitor to a recently launched product so obv. conflict of interest, the employees are calling bs, Ilya himself turned, etc. This is just stupid.
Some others have put this perfectly, given what has transpired so far, how do they expect to align an agi? You'd expect resignations based on that alone.
57 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 86.4 ms ] thread- https://www.teamblind.com/post/OpenAI-employees-did-you-sign...
- https://www.reddit.com/user/Anxious_Bandicoot126
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
and (c) it's in the FAQ:
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.htmlBtw, your question about story rank is also in the FAQ:
Moderators haven't touched this post. All you've been seeing is just the regular tug of war between upvotes and flags, as handled by HN's software. No need for sinister speculation, other than for entertainment I suppose.Here's an example FBI case from their website that shares some similar overall features to what the crime would be, if there turns out to have been a crime. https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/two-new-yorkers-plead-g...
We've found the best approach is to answer questions openly, let the answer persuade those who find it persuasive, and not chase diminishing returns down the long tail of objections. That approach only works if the community finds it persuasive—otherwise hellfire would rain on our heads—but empirically, the bulk of the community does. I think most people understand that it isn't in our interests to lie about how we administer HN. The good faith of the community is the only value that HN has. Why would we risk that, and for what?
Edit: actually this is kind of an interesting example to work through. Let's assume the OP is authentic, everything in it is true, and that it's an important new development (what I called SNI here yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38357788). How would it help YC if we suppressed it on HN? It would only make the HN threads less interesting, since (by hypothesis) the real story wouldn't be getting discussed. People would leave HN in search of interesting discussion elsewhere. That would make HN less valuable. Meanwhile, being an important story, it would end up getting attention everywhere else, people would keep posting it to HN, and we'd have to keep suppressing it. We'd end up in a fight with the community, a fight we'd be sure to lose. This is a way to destroy HN, not squeeze extra value out of it!
My guess is that users are flagging this story because of some combo of: they doubt that it's authentic; they doubt that its claims are true; and/or they don't think the claims are SNI* even if they are true. Perhaps some are thinking "oh my god, not another open letter—I'm so sick of this saga..."
I get that you do consider it true and important, but so far, the community verdict is against your view. If the flaggers are wrong, they story will get some confirmatory reporting soon enough. I'd be surprised if a few eager reporters aren't already looking into it. If they find some there there, we'll be able to have a discussion soon enough. In the meantime, this story hasn't yet cleared the bar for SNI—especially since there are dozens of articles being posted about this topic right now.
* Significant New Information - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38357788 etc.
I have screenshots of every single step in this story's suppressed rise to the HN frontpage, and of my comment's scores over time. If YC is ever investigated for stock manipulation, journalists may contact me for access to these screenshots which may be valuable evidence.
I can’t speak for the reason why users might have flagged it, but these candidates come to mind: - the OpenAI debacle was discussed and theorized in depth for days - the gist contains absolutely nothing substantial
I know that sinister speculation is more exciting than unglamorous usualness, but the tedious truth is that we don't do any of the things you're talking about. We don't want to, it wouldn't feel good, and luckily for us, none of it is necessary.
It happens particularly when an article contains sensational content that attracts a rush of quick upvotes, and then other readers see it on the front page, have a "WTF?" reaction, and flag it.
If you look at page 20 https://news.ycombinator.com/?p=20 , you will see that even stories marked [dupe] are still retained, at around that page. Yet this story is not.
I have screenshots of every page from this quick test.
This does seem like it could be plausibly explained as an attempt to control the narrative -- market manipulation by YC -- and that that would be the type of thing you’d expect Sam to force YC to do if the allegations in this suppressed letter of Sam’s bullying are true.
If anyone YC-affiliated is using their user account (not their mod privileges, their ordinary personal user account) to flag this to suppress the story for financial gain, that could get the person behind bars. If you're reading this and you've been doing that, I suggest you unflag the post and please move on.
This is worded like they are following a messiah and anything said after that is now tainted with worship speak. I get that they have concerns but this isn’t the way.
Not signing the letter might mean the company falls apart, and most of these employees have millions worth of shares that they were about to have an option to sell in a new funding round.
(although there's or course a third possibility of them just being bright but too naive to STILL not see the sham that Sam has played for years and manipulated [2] them into believing it)
[1] https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/look-at-scientology-to-...
[2] https://twitter.com/geoffreyirving/status/172675427022402397...
There's no way the current episode doesn't damage reputation of everyone involved. On the flip side, there's nothing more revealing about powerful people in just how they defend (or attack) other powerful people, while useful idiots scurry around.
We are those useful idiots.
This isn’t to say it’s not fair to criticize Sam and Greg but none of these sound like issues that would lead to them being fired.
You have almost every single employee vouching for Sam, people outside the company vouching for him, an anon letter is paper thin as far credibility goes.
And ofc, any employee that got pushed out is going to have an axe to grind. Losing out on 900k+/year has to sting. At that compensation and in a startup, performance, disagreeing and comitting are key to the success of the venture. You should expect attrition to be high (though how did author of the letter get to 50%? who knows)
The board is hiding, one of which has a direct competitor to a recently launched product so obv. conflict of interest, the employees are calling bs, Ilya himself turned, etc. This is just stupid.
Some others have put this perfectly, given what has transpired so far, how do they expect to align an agi? You'd expect resignations based on that alone.
https://static.space/sha2-256:a53e64b47b45972c3086e0300a8bb0...
(including its digest in the URL -- even if the content is moved elsewhere, we can know for sure whether it was modified)