Untitled topic • Hacker News Board

Re: undefined

#91

Post by toomuchtodo » Tue, Feb 04, 2014, 5:42 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #87

toomuchtodo wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take 2: "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. " People are honestly interested on how this issue is going to be handled by Drchrono. People are more interested in how pg handles (or in this case, handled) the conflict of interest between supporting a YC company and supporting th…

> the ability to have open discourse on what is a public forum. I think that's the mistake right there. HN is not a public forum.

Then communicate to your users that its your playground, not an open forum. Or is the fear that if you do that the audience will go elsewhere?

EDIT: Annnnnnd PG killed this thread as well.

Re: undefined

#92

Post by atourgates » Tue, Feb 04, 2014, 5:43 PM UTC

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…

Hey Michael,

This is tangentially related, but one of Dr. Dal's complaints was about raising your pricing for billing services. He made it sound like these were a fixed fee, which would be unusual for the medical billing service industry.

Nearly every medical billing service I've seen charges a percentage of collections, and I've seen them range between 4% and 10%. It's a model that seems to work well from the perspective of a provider, since the billing service is financially incentivized to collect more.

Have you decided on a different pricing model for drchrono, and if so, what made you decide to deviate from the norm?

Re: undefined

#93

Post by isaacb » Tue, Feb 04, 2014, 5:46 PM UTC

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.

Unfortunately, the poster already talked to them. This wasn't a question of how to proceed legally, nor was it a complaint about the company. It was an appeal to the startup community about the morals of suing, potentially successfully, a young startup.

Re: undefined

#94

Post by doktrin » Tue, Feb 04, 2014, 5:47 PM UTC

magikarp wrote: post #53

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.…

What PG is saying is that HN can be used to criticize anyone except companies backed by YC. That's unacceptable.

I agree. My trust in HN as a tech news source is shaken by this selective censorship.

Of course, this isn't my sandbox and I don't make the rules. Etc.

Re: undefined

#95

Post by sheetjs » Tue, Feb 04, 2014, 5:48 PM UTC

selmnoo wrote: post #79

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'm going to suggest something possibly inflammatory, but I promise I say it with only the best intentions. There's something wrong with the fact that such a big forum for hackers/startups is controlled mainly by individuals who also run a startup incubator. There're issues of conflicts of interest here through and through. This thread is perhaps the best example of things going wrong -- hellbanning/rankbanning (ask…

You should suggest something a little more provocative: there is something broken at YC.

For some very strange reason, this reads exactly like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6929705, down to the PG retort about the guidelines.

Why do I say something is broken with YC? They should be inculcating certain values, including not leaving customers high and dry (which is what would happened here and in other cases had the posts not reached the front page). You may argue, correctly, that the customers in question were made whole, but that's only because HN worked as a forum for airing grievances about YC companies.