Tangentially related, apparently Sentry's own post mentioned in the article was removed from HN according this tweet https://x.com/bentlegen/status/1716884717394670015?s=20. Does anyone know the circumstances regarding why?
> Does anyone know the circumstances regarding why?
As someone working at Sentry my running theory of this is that we're not a YC funded startup and the posts are removed for marketing. Removal in this sense is that the post is still there, but it's pushed down in rankings artificially to be removed from the first two pages.
> The guidelines define “interesting” as “anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.” Surely a real contribution to the OSS sustainability crisis counts?
Arguing about whether the submission meets the guidelines is pointless when it ignores that users downvote what isn't interesting in their own opinion. The moderators are never going to artificially keep a submission active after users have downvoted it just because it meets a definition in the guidelines.
Uninteresting is off-topic, per the guidelines. “On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.” (emphasis added)
It is curious that users would downvote/flag our post yesterday but not Colin's post today, which begins, "Yesterday I read a great article from Sentry". I agree it's kinda shouting into the wind to complain. Oh well. :)
It's well known that to get to the front page you have to submit then get two dozen friends (with good rep) to upvote you within a short period of time.
Since the moderation log is hidden I can only guess what happened. But last year we got the confirmation of the removal via email and the explanation was that the post wasn't "that interesting". https://twitter.com/chadwhitacre_/status/1716947994338021885
I expected this again and thus kept monitoring the index page actively. The post stayed on there for quite a while and suddenly dropped off to the second page and then a while later completely.
Crazy I missed that. That certainly damages the trust I have in this site - it already benefits YC to have this community, they don't need to play favorites.
It feels like we're being treated as a sales funnel when they pull tricks like that.
Speaking of Sentry's program... I recently received a notification that as an open source developer, I am eligible for a payout from this program. Excited, I logged in to eventually find out that the payout amounted to... $15.
Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the thought and effort that went into this, and I really hope more companies that use open source software follow suit, but I wish they would adjust their formula to not bother with the payout if it's less than a certain amount. It's just more hassle than it's worth, and the nice gesture can easily be mistaken for something else when it gets that low.
It's $15 per month so $180 allocated overall. Would it be more worth it for you if it were paid out in one lump sum for the year vs. doled out monthly?
Thanks for clarifying. I missed the part about this being a recurring monthly payout - $180 does clear the threshold of what I'd consider a significant donation, so I appreciate that.
I don't mind it being spread out monthly. I think it would help if the process made it a bit more clear what to expect (in terms of the total payout and timeline) in the initial message and/or the UI.
Again, I really appreciate the thought and work that goes not only into this program but also into getting other companies on board.
Is there a particular reason for the monthly payment when you already know (and have?) the total for the year? If it were me, I'd rather have money in my hand now instead of later.
Mostly a design choice on Thanks.dev and GitHub Sponsors parts. I would be fine to give it all at once, especially since conceptually for me it's payment for the past year.
Where is the evidence it was removed by a moderator? I know that's the first thought, but HN doesn't have many moderators, and usually the moderators leave a comment on a submission after taking a moderator action.
I regularly come across a submission on the front page that looks interesting, read the article, then come back and notice it's been pushed to the 2nd or 3rd page. My assumption is that it was downvoted by a bunch of people, but it's still annoying. I wonder if there are any sites that track these movements?
As someone working at Sentry my running theory of this is that we're not a YC funded startup and the posts are removed for marketing. Removal in this sense is that the post is still there, but it's pushed down in rankings artificially to be removed from the first two pages.
//EDIT: the explanation given last year was that it "wasn't interesting": https://twitter.com/chadwhitacre_/status/1716947994338021885