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Re: undefined

#31

Post by yapcguy »

chrisacky wrote: post #2

PG already responded in the post. (He got downvoted heavily so his post is muted): As we say in the guidelines, http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html HN is a news site, not a forum for people with issues with companies we've funded (even when concealed as Ask HNs). So I'm killing this. If you have an issue with Dr Chrono, please contact them directly. If you ask me, there wasn't anything wrong with the question.…

I feel PG is wrong to kill the Doctor's valid question.

It's obvious that HN is not a news site, but a discussion forum based upon censored news. If this complaint had been about a non-YC funded company, the moderators would have left the story up. Heck, every other story on HN is usually about somebody complaining about a company's product or conduct.

Why is YC afraid of open discussion? So what if one company out of the portfolio is having problems? Nobody expects the investments to be perfect, yet killing the conversation makes it look far worse, as though there is something to hide.

End of the day, profit trumps transparency. Remember that the next time people get on the soap box and talk about internet freedom blah blah blah.

Re: undefined

#32

Post by tptacek »

He explained why on that post, but if you're wondering when this page falls off the top of the front page, keep in mind the possibility that it was flagged off by users like me. This thread is pure, distilled drama.

Re: undefined

#33

Post by k-mcgrady »

>> "HN is a news site, not a forum for people with issues with companies we've funded (even when concealed as Ask HNs). So I'm killing this. If you have an issue with Dr Chrono, please contact them directly."

I understand the reasoning behind killing it but considering the guy was only here as a last resort after trying everything else + it was a YC company it would have been more appropriate to offer some help, especially considering the OP had already tried pg's suggestion of contacting the company.

Also - around a month ago there were several Ask HN posts from people having trouble with Coinbase and they weren't killed. Why? [1]

[1] This is an example from almost a year ago but there were several in the last few months too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5427985

NB: We don't know all the facts and can't pass judgement on drchrono but I think the above still holds true regardless.

Re: undefined

#34

Post by jrs235 »

austenallred wrote: post #21
chrisacky wrote: post #2

PG already responded in the post. (He got downvoted heavily so his post is muted): As we say in the guidelines, http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html HN is a news site, not a forum for people with issues with companies we've funded (even when concealed as Ask HNs). So I'm killing this. If you have an issue with Dr Chrono, please contact them directly. If you ask me, there wasn't anything wrong with the question.…

This is one of those weird instances when I think the poster was right to post, and I think PG was right to kill it. The poster was looking to have a conversation about what he should do, but PG saw the inevitable flame war coming (and even beginning in the post itself). I don't think any of us would pretend that thread would end up as constructive, so PG gave the definitive answer: Talk to them.

I agree. And if the OP really just wanted honest advice on whether to sue a start up or not the OP should have omitted the name of the start up. However, the name was provided because HN was not being used to get advice but was used as a side channel to provoke action from a Y Combinator funded company.

Re: undefined

#35

Post by undoware »

The answer is obvious. HN is not a bastion of independent journalism -- it is the 2014 edition of a trade rag.

This is not to say HN is evil. Think of all the problems that legitimate news outfits have with conflicts of interest. Now take away the imperative to do journalism -- HN has never taken on that mantle -- and there is now no reason to resolve said conflicts in the usual news-outlet ways.

We are in the uncanny valley of news: not quite corporate propaganda, not quite integral journalism. I happen to enjoy it, but let's not pretend that YC is the NYT.

Re: undefined

#36

Post by arethuza »

Skeletor wrote: post #22

This is Michael, CEO of drchrono. It's definitely a rude awakening to wake up to see a post on top of Hacker News from an angry customer. I've reached out to Dr. Dal to have a phone call today to see how we can resolve his issues. Me and my staff have attempted to have a phone call with him for the past several weeks to address his issues. Rather than try to dig into the issues he brought up publicly, we'll do our be…

Now you've just established the fact that HN is a good place to raise problems with YC companies. :-)

Re: undefined

#37

Post by yapcguy »

throwaway_yy2Di wrote: post #12

This was classless of pg. (Tangent: I found out that if you submit a story linking into the killed thread, your submission gets auto-killed. This one apparently survived because the text URI was not parsed as such).

Maybe the moderators will ban this post manually?

At some point there will a rather innocuous post which will be blocked, and it will be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

I think it's coming. I think people are sick of the nannying and censorship and ready to move on from HN.

Re: undefined

#38

Post by ScottWhigham »

I read pg's reply [0] but to kill this story but not to kill all the other complaint-based stories that we see here on a weekly basis is a double standard. How many other stories do we see here that are "I hope my blog post/Ask HN post causes enough of a ruckus that I get what I want"? Tons, yet they aren't killed despite being possibly against the guidelines. This is the first YC-backed complaint we've seen and, to have it killed, was just poor form IMO. I don't see how it was against the guidelines anymore than the people trying to get their gmail/paypal/godaddy/twitter/etc accounts back.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7178300

Re: undefined

#39

Post by ig1 »

Perhaps HN should just ban negative complaints completely, because the same applies regardless of if a company is YC or non-YC.

After all, what was FiftyThree's letter to Facebook about Paper other than an attempt to leverage public opinion to get a company to respond to an issue ?

Negative threads often turn into flamewars and make people behave aggressively with each other. Sure there's a place for negative articles, but maybe that place shouldn't be HN.

Remember when HN was about startup founders and hackers helping each other ?

Re: undefined

#40

Post by shiven »

Why is this user's (drdal) other comments not showing up from his user page?

His Ask HN on an entirely different topic seems to have disappeared from his user page:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7173135
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7153132
Or, are Ask HNs not counted as submissions?
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