> This looks like a flimsy story from a couple of months ago about something from many years ago.
"Here's me obediently following the rule (Oh, the world is so full of silly rules!), but let me editorialise a bit on why any story about how Sam Altman isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread should be disregarded..."
And you don't see how that undermines any "trust we have with the bulk of the community"?
I don't, because it doesn't. If the bulk of the community distrusted us, that would be by far the dominant issue on HN. That's how internet dynamics work.
The reason I post such long explanations when a case like this comes up is not because I think it will satisfy the disgruntled, chronically distrustful fraction of users (though that would be nice!) but because I know that explaining everything that happened, and why, is enough to reassure the bulk of the community.
It rather obviously does, AFAICS -- would we be having this discussion if it didn't? ;-)
> The reason I post such long
The issue for me certainly isn't the length, but the tone (or "whiff" :-) of your comments.
> explanations when a case like this comes up is not because I think it will satisfy the disgruntled, chronically distrustful fraction of users (though that would be nice!)
Hope I don't count among those. I've been a bit vocally critical recently, but that's just (at least intended as) pointing out where you slip up in your stated goals and policies, which on the whole I'm fairly certain you (all) are doing a pretty good job at.
> but because I know that explaining everything that happened, and why, is enough to reassure the bulk of the community.
OK, so I'm apparently not in that bulk. Hope there's some "moderately sceptical" group between that bulk and your "disgruntled, chronically distrustful fraction" above for me to be counted in.
Yes, I just mean that the way we moderate HN (including how we handle negative YC-related stories), while it doesn't satisfy everyone, does satisfy the majority of users here. That's no accident—it's why we moderate HN this way in the first place. Keeping the community happy (er, as happy as possible under the circumstances) is the important job. Without that, HN would disintegrate.
Of course I'd rather satisfy even more users, but it's hard to figure out how to do that at scale. For one thing, i's not monotonic: making changes to satisfy class X can easily dissatisfy class Y, and then it's unclear if we're worse off or better; probably worse.
That applies in cases like the current thread, btw. I believe the majority of HN readers would find HN less satisfying if flamebait were more prominent on the site. People come here to get away from all that, to find new and (above all) interesting things they haven't seen before. Doing our best to clear away the less intellectually-curious stuff (riler-uppers, mountain-from-molehill clickbait, tawdry drama and so on) helps keep a large part, and actually the more valuable part, of the audience here. It would be foolish to trade that away in the hope of winning over the bitter contingent who, though vocal and prolific, are a tiny sliver of the community. Especially since attempting to win them over would likely be futile. I know, because I've tried—hard and for years.
The conflict-of-interest concern is a real one, of course, and the solution to that is the rule I've been explaining elsewhere in the thread (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). It does the job fine and has held up well. It doesn't satisfy everyone, but the users it doesn't are probably unsatisfiable anyhow; and it reduces the risk of alienating the ones who are here for the right reason (to read interesting things).
> Hope I don't count among those.
Don't worry, we're good! But I appreciate you adding those bits because it's not always easy to tell where people are coming from.
I should say one other thing: criticism is fine, I'm happy to do my best to answer it, and critical users have their place. Even the users (not talking about you here!) who are mad about something we did or didn't do 10 years ago and show up at every opportunity with garish accusations—even they have their place...though they're not necessarily the easiest to relate to.
"Here's me obediently following the rule (Oh, the world is so full of silly rules!), but let me editorialise a bit on why any story about how Sam Altman isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread should be disregarded..."
And you don't see how that undermines any "trust we have with the bulk of the community"?