[HN Gopher] Remove YC "[company] is hiring" ads on HN
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       Remove YC "[company] is hiring" ads on HN
        
       Author : esrh
       Score  : 55 points
       Date   : 2022-06-02 16:59 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | yamrzou wrote:
       | Look, you can make and use whatever extension you like. But,
       | posting something like this here, is a lack of respect for this
       | website and its community. Because the visibility that these
       | posts get are the least we can offer to this forum for what it
       | gives us. And you can simply hide them.
        
         | threatofrain wrote:
         | I'm not sure how meaningful it is to ask an author who
         | proclaims to not use HN to comport their attitude or behavior
         | to your understanding of respecting HN. But I see this as well
         | within the bounds of HN community spirit -- IMO the heart of
         | hacking was originally more about defying authority or
         | boundaries than entrepreneurial or industry interest.
        
         | schmookeeg wrote:
         | This resonates with me. I appreciate HN enough to at least
         | consider the YC offerings when they appear.
         | 
         | ...And one of my worst/most insulting interview experiences was
         | with a YC company.
         | 
         | Tis the reason for the season and all that. :)
        
           | 0des wrote:
           | I am curious if none of you use an ad blocker, ever.
        
       | bobobob420 wrote:
       | Thank you for making this. One of the worst parts about hacker
       | news
        
       | dmead wrote:
       | How about a firefox version?
        
       | 0des wrote:
       | On a sidenote: why can't we comment on these? I have a feeling I
       | know why, but I need to hear someone with a YC shirt on say it.
        
         | version_five wrote:
         | I'm not the person you're looking for, but I don't think the
         | reason is anything nefarious. It's just that the posts have a
         | single point, which is to tell you the company is hiring. If
         | you let people comment, it inevitable devolves into some
         | nitpicking or criticism of the company (or more rarely some
         | kind of shilling) which frustrates the purpose of the post.
         | 
         | If there is a news story, a "my experience at company X"
         | blogpost, any kind of relevant point to be made about that
         | company, someone could submit that as a story.
         | 
         | Letting people comment on job ads would just turn them into
         | lightning rods for whatever bad things people want to say, and
         | then what would be the point?
         | 
         | I'm sure I have seen a moderator reply in one of the who is
         | hiring threads saying something similar that allowing comments
         | just attracts criticism and derails the threads
        
       | oh_sigh wrote:
       | I think at the very least comments should be allowed on those
       | posts, even if only by high karma accounts to lessen the number
       | of trolls.
        
         | 0des wrote:
         | That's not a great idea, some of the folks here with the most
         | karma are just familiar names who talk the most like myself,
         | they don't always have great opinions.
        
           | oh_sigh wrote:
           | I agree, I'm probably in the same boat with 5000+ karma but
           | for the most part worthless comments and oftentimes getting
           | yelled at by dang, but some filtering would be better than
           | none at all. My guess is that companies don't want people to
           | comment on their posts because of fear of the conversation
           | turning extremely negative, since probably most people to
           | comment would be people who have a bone to pick for some
           | reason. I notice that reddit also doesn't allow commenting on
           | their ads, even though the ads present themselves for the
           | most part as just another post(just like hn)
        
       | wheybags wrote:
       | I'm honestly fine with them. These posts are the reason this site
       | gets to exist without needing some other more nefarious
       | monetisation. Ads can be a lot worse...
        
         | AustinDev wrote:
         | Can we get comments enabled on them? I'd be interested to see
         | what other people have to say about the companies. I think it'd
         | be an interesting compromise. They don't really bother me
         | either way.
        
         | threatofrain wrote:
         | Does anyone have a knowledgeable story for what YC sees HN as?
         | Without knowing that, it's difficult to say why this site gets
         | to exist.
        
           | dang wrote:
           | I wrote about it here (ignore the first half of the post):
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23285793
           | 
           | Similar other past comments: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRang
           | e=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
        
           | tmp_anon_22 wrote:
           | It makes sense to me that most YC Big Wigs would be
           | indifferent towards HN, but will quickly come down on it if
           | their preferred companies are getting lambasted by comments
           | on their own website.
           | 
           | Probably best to not shake the pot.
        
       | ignoramous wrote:
       | I won't block 'em, but tbh, some of the titles are real cringe,
       | which is a good indicator for who to avoid, I guess.
        
         | bombcar wrote:
         | I like the ones who continue to appear for ages - I wonder if
         | BuildZoom will ever get that engineer!
        
           | Risse wrote:
           | Or Flexport
        
             | cvhashim wrote:
             | Been actually thinking about joining Flexport.
        
             | jupp0r wrote:
             | Flexport looks super interesting, I almost reached out to
             | them at some point.
        
           | throwaway1777 wrote:
           | Maybe they are hiring multiple engineers
        
             | DoctorOW wrote:
             | I don't think so
        
           | andrew_ wrote:
           | hah. put OneSignal in that batch as well.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | It's on my list to do more about the bad titles. We do fix them
         | when we see them. We also tell the startups not to do that:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/jobguide.html.
         | 
         | If an irritating one shows up, you (or anyone) are welcome to
         | give us a heads-up at hn@ycombinator.com.
        
       | n42 wrote:
       | I am thoroughly entertained by how this elicited an emotional
       | reaction from me. I guess I feel loyal to the site.
       | 
       | Posting this here embodies the spirit of Hacker News in a weirdly
       | layered meta commentary.
       | 
       | I'm probably thinking too hard about it but I enjoyed this
        
       | seydor wrote:
       | That s quite the overreaction
        
         | d23 wrote:
         | Seriously. I feel like I've seen... three of these. They're
         | about as unintrusive as it gets.
        
           | version_five wrote:
           | The hiring posts don't bother me at all.
           | 
           | But I certainly have personal hangups about silly things that
           | bother me to the point of distraction, even in small
           | quantities. For example if an article has an animated gif in
           | it, I literally can't read it once I've seen it. So I can
           | understand why some people might get put off by something
           | seemingly minor. And making a blocker is a good solution,
           | even if very niche.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Users flagged this.
       | 
       | I've removed the flags now, in keeping with the principle that we
       | moderate HN less, not more, when YC is the story:
       | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
        
         | 0des wrote:
         | A helpful middleground is to allow us to comment on these
         | threads.
         | 
         | Some of these companies are undesirable for various reasons and
         | for the community to be precluded from discussing their
         | experiences, but only when its a YC company, is disingenuous,
         | and renders the parent comment questionable. We talk about all
         | manner of companies here. Why is a YC company immune from
         | discourse?
         | 
         | Fairness is when every post is treated the same.
        
           | pvg wrote:
           | You can write stuff about these companies anywhere on HN, you
           | can post stuff about these companies to HN, etc.
        
             | 0des wrote:
             | > You can write stuff about these companies anywhere on HN
             | 
             | False, you cannot comment on a YC hiring post.
             | 
             | Either all posts are treated the same, or they're not. All
             | we are discussing here is the ability to comment, I'm not
             | saying I need a filter toggle, though I'd happily use one.
        
               | pvg wrote:
               | These are job ads, you can't go off on tangents in
               | people's job ads on Who's Hiring threads either. All
               | posts are not treated the same and this is one of the
               | biggest not-same type of post on HN. Topicality is pretty
               | important to HN threads. There's really no shortage of
               | ways to be both on topic and say things about more or
               | less any company, YC or not, on HN.
        
               | 0des wrote:
        
               | pvg wrote:
               | You reply doesn't really engage with my argument at all,
               | you pick a single word and head right for bombast and
               | innuendo. If that's the sort of thing you want to write
               | on job ads, it's a solid point against the idea.
        
       | CedarMills wrote:
       | I almost wish they were in italics or something.
        
         | 0des wrote:
         | Or a different color
        
       | pvg wrote:
       | You can also just hit 'hide' on any post which has the benefit of
       | also give you a new front page story.
        
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       (page generated 2022-06-02 23:01 UTC)