[jacquesm]

HN is hard to game on purpose. So stop looking for the levers and participate, that's all there is to it. I've made friends here, have been helped by people on projects that I was busy with, did the reverse, found friends and business partners and spend way too much time. HN is a very interesting slice of the online world, a place that is unlike the rest, sometimes a bit dry but always interesting and extremely useful. If you're looking at it to try to understand it then you might as well try to understand a rat or a mouse. You won't understand it because it isn't there to be understood, it just is, like any other organism.

The root of HN is a thing called 'startup news', that was changed very quickly and since then HN has been a focal point for techies of all sorts but also lots of other people from all walks of life and from a large variety of countries. It isn't 'one thing' to everybody that participates, just like a hammer is a different thing for a carpenter than it is for a masoner or a farmer.

The fact that after being a member for a couple of years you have this question indicates a lack of participation, not a lack of understanding.

[noosphr]

Hacker news is there to promote ycombinator companies. So long as you know and avoid this it's surprisingly high quality. But that's there to lend more ligitimacy to ycombinator.

Its also the currently last man standing in the continual growth and death of tech sites - Slashdot, digg, reddit - and the most surprising one to make it big.

You know a tech site is useful when you write about a bug and the maintainer comes out of the woodwork to fix it, something that I've seen happen in the last week on nh for the first time.

[dang]

> Hacker news is there to promote ycombinator companies

I should probably clarify this a bit.

It's true that HN sponsors Launch HNs (and Show HNs) by YC startups. This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. However, YC would not be funding HN if that were the only reason for it. It's a secondary factor.

Far more important than promoting existing startups is attracting founders who might start new startups. This requires an entirely different strategy than promotion: it requires being interesting enough to attract the right kind of users. That's why the site is organized around curiosity, as I explained elsewhere in the current thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46309399).

For more on this, here are past explanations:

optimizing for curiosity - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

relationship between HN and YC's business interests - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

[lovich]

I interpreted their comment more along the lines of

“Don’t critique ycombinator companies or go against their interests, otherwise you’re fine”

YC companies and their founders have special privileges on here and there is an opaque moderation system. There is no data you could provide beyond full transparency into your entire organization(obviously not happening) that would convince anyone that there isn’t influence that they have over communication here

[tomhow]

Apart from job postings and Launch HNs, YC-funded startups don't have access to any information or influence that isn't available to anyone else.

We literally give exactly the same information and help to YC-funded startups as we do to non-YC-funded startups who ask for assistance with their Show HNs. That's because giving “extra help” to YC-funded startups is far less valuable (to everyone including the startup themselves [1]) than just making HN interesting to readers and showcasing cool projects, no matter who has built them.

[1] More than almost anything else, what I've learned from moderating HN is that “extra help” to get onto the front page of HN is of barely any help at all. That is, if the post isn't interesting enough to earn significant numbers of upvotes and good comments very quickly, it will disappear off the front page very quickly. Also, any time a story is on the front page that the community doesn’t think belongs there, it feels off and attracts flags and complaints.

[jacquesm]

> There is no data you could provide beyond full transparency into your entire organization(obviously not happening) that would convince anyone that there isn’t influence that they have over communication here

Since you're in a subthread of my comment: I've been here for many years and have not seen any evidence that would convince me that you are right.

And I trust both Dan and Tom to speak truthfully on this matter, they are truthful in their interaction with the community and I see no reason why this would be any different. And if it were different and if you did find proof that it is different then I don't know of HN would be for me anymore.

It is always important to realize that when you write words like 'anyone' that you are speaking for yourself.

[lovich]

You are correct. I will walk back the term “anyone” and amend it to “anyone who doesn’t personally trust the employees/mods of the organization and doesn’t assume that an organization involved in investments and VC firms will act with the same level of self interest as everyone else in that industry”

I am obviously very skeptical of any group like this, but not to the point where I would claim a stance like yours is definitionally incorrect. I’m just personally never going to have trust without the transparency given past history

[jacquesm]

I have some evidence that might sway you: there have been many threads on here that are critical of YC backed companies, sometimes pretty pointy ones.

For those threads flagging is turned off not on. So YC companies actually have it harder on HN than non-YC companies very specifically to avoid the accusation of bias.

I've also seen people associated with YC backed companies here downvoted into the toilet for spouting unpopular opinions. The only thing that possibly could happen (and that would be fairly hard to detect) is brigading on a company level, but I would accuse the likes of Google and Apple of that long before I would do so with the YC mods. Think about the opportunity cost of moderating this site. If you take that into account and then combine what you know of Dan and Tom with them selling out their integrity for a pittance if it would come to light that they did so it would wreck their reputation, which is pretty much the only compensation they really get here.

So I'm not buying it and I'm more skeptical of YC than most on here.

[quietbritishjim]

> Hacker news is there to promote ycombinator companies. So long as you know and avoid this it's surprisingly high quality. But that's there to lend more ligitimacy to ycombinator.

Everything has a cost. For the web, that's typically monetary or your data and attention to advertisers. I think you're right that the cost of Hacker News is that my participation is lending some (tiny incremental) legitimacy to Y Combinator. It's also costing some tiny amount of my attention, in the sense that I may not have heard of Y Combinator if it weren't for Hacker News. For me personally, that is absolutely fine – but I'm glad you made it explicit so that it's a conscious choice.

[Edit: Of course it costs an absolutely vast amount of my attention :-) but I mean only a teeny tiny fraction of that is "payment" in the sense of noticing that Y Combinator exists.]

[A4ET8a8uTh0_v2]

This. That level of reach is part of what makes it amazing. I have a chance to 'talk' with people, who are levels above me in technical realm.

[jacquesm]

> Hacker news is there to promote ycombinator companies.

That's up to you, really, you can just ignore them. I know I do.

> So long as you know and avoid this it's surprisingly high quality. But that's there to lend more ligitimacy to ycombinator.

Probably, or maybe that is just an overly cynical take. If it were as bad as that I can think of a couple of very easy things they could do to improve on that and they aren't so for now I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Note that I'm not particularly impressed by anybody associated with YC except the mods here.

> Its also the last man standing in the continual growth and death of tech sites - Slashdot, digg, reddit - and the most surprising one to make it big.

So you're saying there is hope for Haskell?

> You know a tech site is useful when you write about a bug and the maintainer comes out of the woodwork to fix it, something that I've seen happen in the last week on nh for the first time.

There are some pretty funny instances of such interaction here, the best of which still has me in stitches after more than a decade.

[Gud]

What do you think is the purpose of news.YCOMBINATOR.com, if it’s not to promote(and make $$$$$) ycombinator?

I am not asking how you use it. I am asking what you believe is the reason the site operator is running it.

[saaaaaam]

Not everything has to have an explicit purpose beyond “this is a good and valuable thing”.

Why do I take in parcels for my neighbour if a courier knocks on my door? She doesn’t pay me. It wouldn’t cause me any harm if I didn’t. But it makes the place nicer to live, and I’ve become friends with her as a result.

She invited me to dinner recently and fed me delicious food, and we drank very good champagne. That was an unexpected bonus.

“To promote ycombinator” only works if there’s an audience worth promoting to. Building something great that brings people back day after day maybe has the result that it can also serve as a promotional tool - but that’s a bonus, not necessarily a purpose.

I’m not the person you asked the question of - but I think the purpose of ycombinator is to give relevant people a place to discuss things aligned with the ecosystem in which ycombinator operates, to help strengthen and champion that ecosystem. Does it have a payoff for ycombinator? Almost certainly. Was it created with that explicit purpose in mind? I doubt it. There are easier ways to make money.

[bombcar]

They started it for particular reasons, which can be examined. It's not bad that they did so, but your purpose and what the GP said are basically the same thing.

They're not promoting startups to investors via HN, it's a different kind of promotion. But 'pool of eligible hires' is quite worth a few salaries to maintain, even if others get value from it.

[saaaaaam]

There’s a piece here, written by Paul Graham, which talks about why he started hacker news, written two years after it was launched.

If we take what he wrote at face value, I don’t think the purpose was primarily its promotional value.

https://paulgraham.com/hackernews.html

_ Hacker News was two years old last week. Initially it was supposed to be a side project—an application to sharpen Arc on, and a place for current and future Y Combinator founders to exchange news._

_ Hacker News is an experiment, and an experiment in a very young field. Sites of this type are only a few years old. Internet conversation generally is only a few decades old. So we've probably only discovered a fraction of what we eventually will._

_ Hacker News is definitely useful. I've learned a lot from things I've read on HN. I've written several essays that began as comments there. So I wouldn't want the site to go away. But I would like to be sure it's not a net drag on productivity. What a disaster that would be, to attract thousands of smart people to a site that caused them to waste lots of time._

[intended]

Theres 3 (4?) horse men of online communities.

1 Identity topics, eg: Politics/Religion

2 Insufficient moderation

3 NSFW content

4 Inability to distinguish experienced commenters or valid content from plausible sounding content. I.E. Low Subject Expertise thresholds.

4 is what keeps a community boring, while keeping the SNR high.

[IAmBroom]

I tried in vain to understand what centaur-like men had to do with your point.

"Horsemen", as in the Apocalyptic Tetrad?

[yakbarber]

Reddit is significantly more popular/successful than HN even for tech.

HN is its own little world and that’s fine.

[hostyle]

Popular isn't necessarily good, and success can be measured in many different ways.

[IAmBroom]

But to exclude popularity from the definition of success is highly atypical, at best.

"My son is a successful artist, and like Van Gogh he's only ever sold one piece of art in his life" said no mother ever.

Now post mortem, Van Gogh has certainly "enjoyed" more success, by many peoples' rankings.

[ssl-3]

It is certainly true that one of the ways in which success can be measured is sales.

What is Y Combinator's HN selling? Are they successful in that effort?

[jacquesm]

HN isn't selling anything, but without HN the founder feed would likely dry up (or maybe not, now they have critical mass) and eventually of course they're selling stock.

[TomasBM]

First two sentences are key. The reason why HN is so much better than other fora (IMO) is that the mods don't allow lever-pulling and astroturfing to overtake regular contributions. Yet it's also popular, so you're bound to get some activity on most posts.

Sure, it can be frustrating if you're trying to promote a product or farm karma on posts. But the fact that mostly nobody cares about karma means that you can post something and have it be evaluated on its technical, economic, social merits.

Obviously, there are caveats to this - i.e., anything US- and FAANG-related is bound to get much more activity than otherwise - but the overall atmosphere of HN is refreshing compared to Reddit.

[nobodywillobsrv]

How do you know they don't? How can you show this? It's fine if it's just vibes but just want to know what is known and can be said.

[Spare_account]

The mods are active (and have even commented in this thread) and have a clearly stated set of objectives:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46309399

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

[TomasBM]

I can't know for sure. For me, it's just the "eyeball method" of comparing HN and different subreddits on Reddit.

As to how I (or anyone) could show this, here are a few example questions:

1. How many examples of stealthy but otherwise blatant promotion do you see in the comments? Not every astroturfing campaign will be successful or original, so you'd be able to notice some patterns. Plus, HN is already commercially oriented, and there's the "Show HN" option, so it reduces the incentives for astroturfing.

2. Alternatively, how much controversy is there around the specific type of forum? For some subreddits, for example, you'd be able to see counter-subreddits popping up when participants feel the mods are abusing their power to promote one type of opinion.

3. Is a certain type of political/brand-related opinion or interpretation always at the top of your comment feed? For example, if upvotes determine the order of the comments, do you consistently see fewer critical comments on things that you'd expect the community to react to in different ways.

4. Do you consistently see some contributors having more power in discussions over others? Other than the mods, obviously. If this is the case, karma (i.e., number of upvotes) often has more value.

Still, I could be wrong.

[j2kun]

I'd be shocked if this site was never manipulated by its owners to influence opinion in their benefit.

[jacquesm]

I'd be shocked if it were because the owners now this is a fragile thing and one word from Dan or Tom that this is or was the case and half the participants here would walk. The owners are more than likely well aware of that risk and are not going to destroy the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Check out the treatment PG (and Garry Tan) got in the thread about defending YC's effective investment into Installmonetizer for a good example of news.ycombinator.com's response to such crap.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711