zlacker

>>chaps+(OP)
For more context here Flock Safety is a YC-backed company [1][2]

[1] https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety

[2] https://x.com/garrytan/status/1856016868580151615

>>kklisu+2m
I wonder if that's why this post, with more upvotes than a number of the other ones on the front page, has seemingly vanished from it.

>>riboso+UN
No, it's the other way around. This post is ranked higher on the frontpage than it would be if it weren't YC-related. (In fact, it probably wouldn't be on the frontpage at all in that case.)

A core principle is that we moderate less, not more, when YC or a YC-funded startup is part of the story. Many past explanations: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

>>dang+p41
I believe you when you say that nobody at YC put their thumb on the scale for this story in particular.

However, YC very much has control over the algorithm used to rank stories on the Hacker News front page, and this algorithm very commonly downranks threads which are detected as being "controversial."

If the algorithm "working as intended" consistently downranks stories that cast a bad light on YCombinator, the sorts of people y'all mingle with, or the tech industry in general...is that any better than putting your thumb on the scale?

This is kind of why I feel obligated to use https://news.ycombinator.com/active - after all, it's a very good indication of what Hacker News' algorithm and certain cohorts of its readership wants to hide from the casual viewer. And given the sorts of stories it tends to hide, it doesn't reflect well on this site or its users.

>>LexiMa+xa1
Everything you've said here is answerable by anyone who is willing to read some of the posts I just linked to. Here's the link again: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu....

HN is designed to downweight sensational-indignant stories, internet dramas, and riler-uppers, for the obvious reason that if we didn't, then they would dominate HN's frontpage like they dominate the rest of the internet. Anyone who spends time here (or has read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) knows that this is not what the site is for. The vast majority of HN readers like HN for just this reason. It is not some arbitrary switch that we could just flip, if only we would stop being censoriously sinister It's essential to the operation of the site.

At the same time, we downweight such threads less when the sensational-indignant story, drama, or riler-upper happens to be about YC or a YC-related startup. Note that word less. It means we "put our thumb on the scale" in the opposite direction you're implying: to make those stories rank higher than they otherwise would.

How you get from that all the way back to the notion that we moderate HN specifically to suppress negative stories about YC strikes me as escape-artist-level logic, and citing a web page that we ourselves publish as the best (only?) supposed evidence for this is surely a bit ironic.