[keanzu]

If you mean that you don't signal boost YC posts then why not say that? Moderating less means to me reads as if they are less likely to be downgraded in ranking.

  if YC disable_moderation;
  Age all posts, push them down the ranking

No moderators touched this submission means nothing if they touched every other submission.

[dang]

But that would be utterly deceitful. If you're going to imagine that sort of interpretation, why believe anything I say in the first place?

When I say we moderate HN less, not more, when YC or YC startups are involved, the word "moderate" means all of the above: boosting submissions, downweighting submissions, intervening in comments, and so on. When I said we didn't touch this post, I meant we did nothing to affect its rank.

There's an important thing to add, though. "Less" does not mean zero. We still moderate—we just do it less. Mainly we try to be consistent with how we moderate other submissions, in order to be fair. In this case, for example, I just reduced the effect that flags are having in driving this post down the front page. But I reduced it by less than I would have if the post were non-YC-related. If that sounds scandalous, please re-read the previous sentence.

[keanzu]

> When I said we didn't touch this post, I meant we did nothing to affect its rank.

Ok, that's clear and unambiguous.

> If that sounds scandalous

It sounds like you are following through on exactly what you said you were doing on the search you linked elsewhere. I read some of those and it clearly stated "less intervention". So for you to apply "less intervention" here is you being consistent.

> flags

For the record I didn't flag the submission. It didn't appear, to me, to violate any guidelines.

> If you're going to imagine that sort of interpretation

Sounds like I have violated the guidelines: Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. I appear to have escaped censure at this juncture, perhaps due to the lesser moderation applied in this thread.

[dang]

Ha! Thank you.

[detaro]

> Moderating less

it means they are less likely to intervene in the discussions on them.

[keanzu]

The accusation was the #1 ranking. Nobody mentioned any intervention in the discussion.

[wolco]

It's gamed but not by the mods. Not even sure in a bad way.

User posts story to blog and includes hn link in an email blast. Followers upvote quickly then the article slowly losses interest.

But catchy title gives more attention. Podcast during a workday means more bookmarking for the ride home.

[keanzu]

I think that everything you've described here is "fair game" and mechanisms available to all of us.

[detaro]

Right. And from my interpretation dang wanted to clarify that not only they didn't touch that, they also keep away from such submissions in other ways.