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0 pointsferal10y ago0 comments

I think, in the spirit of the community, you should provide some argument for why you think that, rather than just state your judgement.

From a fairly outsider perspective, Maciej/idlewords seems to dislike SV & VC culture (for lots of reasonable reasons) and YC by extension, and is trying to joke/troll here as a form of protest or publicity; OK.

On the other side, the YC/HN guys are actually trying to do something innovative, with YC fellows which is more accessible than vanilla YC (can do remotely), and now with a community choice, which is a step in a more innovative/accessible direction again.

Surely this is a step in the right direction? If not, could someone explain why? If they are trying to make good faith steps in the right direction, and someone is trolling them (by which I mean for humor/protest, not bad intentions), isn't it fair enough to exclude that application?

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6 comments · 1 top-level

tptacek10y ago· 5 in thread

Did Kevin Hale have special phone conversations with the other three founders to ensure that they would be able to work together with YC?

Meanwhile, look at the the post Kevin Hale just wrote. It says, "We ran a poll for the top applications and the voting was so close that we decided to fund one extra startup. Here are the winners." But that's not true at all. The fact that Pinboard took more than 3x the number of votes as the 2nd place vote-getter is mentioned nowhere in Hale's message.

kevin10y ago

Yes, I called all the other winners too. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633517

davidw10y ago

It was pretty clearly an experiment, and it looked pretty obvious to me that they were reserving the rights to tweak and nudge and basically run it as they saw fit. It's not like it was a cereal box competition or the lottery or something where you just win some money and that's that.

jjwiseman10y ago

It wasn't a tweak or a nudge, it entirely invalidated the stated intention of the experiment, and completely disenfranchised the HN community.

But that's not the worst, dumbest thing about this. The dumbest thing is that YC would have gotten the most benefit out of giving Maciej the money, and they let their fear and discomfort keep them from doing that.

davidw10y ago

> completely disenfranchised the HN community

Their money on the line, their call. I have never felt "out of the loop" because I didn't influence their investment decisions. The value I get from HN is the conversations and things I read about and learn.

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webbore10y ago

don't call it a tweak or nudge when the experiment's parameters were deliberately altered to avoid the outcome the data was indicating.

"We had an idea for figuring out where we'd spend our money. We didn't like what happened so we spent it based on other criteria."

So the experiment was maybe the voting / HN selection, but they don't get to paint it as the experiment was "let's see who HN selects, then compare their outcome with traditional participants" like we were led to believe...

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6 comments · 1 top-level

tptacek10y ago· 5 in thread

Did Kevin Hale have special phone conversations with the other three founders to ensure that they would be able to work together with YC?

kevin10y ago

Yes, I called all the other winners too. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633517

davidw10y ago

jjwiseman10y ago

It wasn't a tweak or a nudge, it entirely invalidated the stated intention of the experiment, and completely disenfranchised the HN community.

davidw10y ago

> completely disenfranchised the HN community

1 more reply

webbore10y ago

don't call it a tweak or nudge when the experiment's parameters were deliberately altered to avoid the outcome the data was indicating.

"We had an idea for figuring out where we'd spend our money. We didn't like what happened so we spent it based on other criteria."

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse