[bhouston]

> Y Combinator as a brand is likely hurt by HN comments anyways

Comments are the price some websites pay to encourage higher levels of engagement, and the high level of engagement here on HackerNews makes it a more valuable resource to its readers (more submissions, more voting, and sometimes informed comments from the community) and thus it has a halo effect on YCombinator. Thus the comments in the grand scheme of things are surely a net positive.

Reddit and YouTube are built in part on comment driven engagement even if a large majority of the comments are poor.

[atmosx]

I dislike not being able to leave a comment. Yes, I'm outspoken, strong-opinionated and I want to express myself. I liked the HN community before realizing that YCombinator is an incubator, etc. I am/were/came here for the community.