[dang]

Isn't part of the definition of shilling that it's undisclosed? In that case, no: HN's business concessions to YC (job ads, and more recently Launch HNs) are public. Beyond those, we don't moderate HN specifically to promote YC's interests, and in fact err on the side of not doing so. You should see how sharply I scold YC startups who haven't yet had this drilled sufficiently into them.

The best way to make HN valuable for YC is to optimize its value for the community, which is gratifying intellectual curiosity—so that's what we spend our time thinking about. I wrote more about this here if anyone's interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13861971.

[gist]

> Isn't it part of that definition that the shillage is undisclosed?

I will point out before as I did the other day that both you and PG (very ironically) didn't/don't identify who you are with respect to HN. I haven't checked the other partners I have noticed that some do identify as YC partners. Would also expect that any YC funded company might identify themselves as such so their comments or postings could be taken in context.

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pg

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dang

I personally think it's fine the way it operates but in all fairness the disclosure could be more than it is.

[dang]

That's a different concern. HN's culture has always been informal and implicit. That has upsides and downsides, but it's the way HN is and I'm loth to mess with it.

People invoke 'disclosure', 'transparency', etc. as if these were unmitigated benefits, but when you delve into a complex system like HN they turn out to be tradeoffs. On HN the culture is not to spell everything out. That doesn't have to do with hiding anything; the information is all out there. It has to do with respecting users' intelligence, liking minimalism, liking users to have to work just a little, and so on.

The downside of this approach is not that it obscures business interests—just think how excited the community would be to hit on something like that were we ever so dumb as to hide it!—but that it makes things harder for newcomers.

[gist]

> On HN the culture is not to spell everything out. That has nothing to do with hiding anything—the information is all out there and the community knows how to find it. It has to do with respecting users' intelligence, liking minimalism, and so on.

My theory on this (why) dates back to many years ago and in particular and oddly enough when I started (and ended) listening to Howard Stern in the 80's. (Haven't heard the show since then...)

I noticed that there were all sorts of people who appeared regularly. And you didn't know who they were or what role they actually played. And you didn't until you spent enough time listening to Stern that you were able to understand (or maybe triangulate or reverse engineer) who they were. There was no FAQ.

In a sense online communities are like that. If you are not willing to put in the time to make those connections the 'community' is just as glad to not have you there. Then it's their special thing.

The thing is I don't think that is the right way to be if what you want is knowledge and diverse viewpoints. There could easily be another 'grellas' (as only one example that comes to mind) that would add greatly to the content (comments or posted stories) and they very well might be turned off by not knowing the ropes and feeling it wasn't worth the effort to stick around long enough to find out.

What's interesting as a side note is how much money has been made in the computer business exploiting the secret handshake. Understanding of course that there are those that like the satisfaction that comes with figuring that out. (And I think that computer nerds like to have that secret handshake as it gives them power over non-nerds).

[dang]

I agree. I even know another 'grellas', a good friend who is one of the best programmers and writers I've ever spent time with, and author of a well-known book on software design. He finds HN too cryptic and uninviting. He's squarely in the middle of HN's core demographic, so I can only imagine how bad it is for people a little further away. I'd like to do something about this someday, but a core principle here is to move slowly and not break things.