[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Why can't we comment on "X is Hiring" posts?
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Ask HN: Why can't we comment on "X is Hiring" posts?
I think it would be a good opportunity for people to ask questions
about the company and what it's like to work there. Has this been
considered?
Author : dgs_sgd
Score : 51 points
Date : 2022-08-24 21:10 UTC (1 hours ago)
| moritonal wrote:
| They can't. Comments would mostly be negative and likely open the
| whole place to libel claims.
|
| Moreover, it couldn't even be offered as an optional thing given
| how bad it would look on any company that didn't.
|
| What I would love is the ability for an Ad to be associated with
| a user account.
| abeppu wrote:
| > Comments would mostly be negative and likely open the whole
| place to libel claims.
|
| Why is the libel issue more a problem with job ads than with
| any other kind of post that people comment on?
| waynesonfire wrote:
| wish there was like a decentralized, pub-sub website overlay.
| leg100 wrote:
| "...likely open the whole place to libel claims"
|
| What rot. Any HN story comment is subject to "libel claims" in
| jurisdictions with poor free speech protections (e.g. Britain),
| not only "X is hiring stories".
|
| Commentary is the night torch of liberty, shining a critical
| light on propaganda. YC libertarianism should be eating its own
| dog food
| nvahalik wrote:
| I have wanted to upvote ads a few times! Love a couple of the
| companies I see
| ehlesmes wrote:
| Maybe it could be optional.
|
| Companies might decide it's worth to take a risk, and hope that
| engaging will differentiate them from others, and generate
| engagement/good will/hype...
|
| Like a sponsored Show HN
| teddyh wrote:
| There was such a post recently with the title " _OlaClick (YC
| W21) first LaTam startup to raise from Facebook, Google; now
| hiring_ "1, which I thought was particularly sneaky, adding extra
| ad copy in the title of an impossible-to-criticize post.
|
| 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31523852
| justinlloyd wrote:
| The other question is "why can we comment on 'X wants to be
| hired' posts?"
|
| Nothing quite like hanging out your shingle, putting your
| professional foot forward, so you promote yourself in the best
| light possible to potential employers, only for someone to make a
| snarky comment about your skill set or name. There's at least a
| few of those each month under various comments from people
| looking for a new job.
| brudgers wrote:
| Curious what an intellectually interesting comment on one of the
| "is hiring" posts look like?
|
| The interview process aeems like the appropriate context for
| asking questions.
|
| And the context in which it is productive for the company to
| answer them.
|
| In this regard it is just like other job postings everywhere on
| the internet.
| aryamaan wrote:
| It's rarely a good idea mixing an anonymous party(us) with non-
| anonymous party (the company).
|
| Reddit AMAs-- which I suppose are heavily moderated by the mods
| and up/down votes-- would be an outlier of this rule.
| nhumrich wrote:
| I often see problems with these postings. The link doesn't work,
| an error in the wording, etc, and a comment would be a nice way
| to tell them their post needs to be fixed somehow.
| altairprime wrote:
| We as a community have trouble remaining courteous in normal
| posts. Allowing us to comment on hiring posts would be a
| nightmare for the moderators, as well as force them into a rock-
| and-hard-place scenario where moderating ill-behaved commenters
| leads to claims of bias and conspiracy.
| jstx1 wrote:
| To prevent every one of those posts from becoming a general
| discussion about the company that's hiring.
| willio58 wrote:
| I get this, but it's also antithetical to hackernews to post
| something and not be able to comment. It's as if job postings
| should stay in https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs and never show
| on the front page.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Hacker news exists as a way to advertise for y combinator.
| Advertising for y combinator companies seems like the
| opposite of antithetical to hacker news.
| boredemployee wrote:
| when money is at play, there's always an execption my friend
| analog31 wrote:
| I've followed other forums where company representatives can
| post, and I think it takes a person with an exceptional skill set
| to handle the comments and discussions that result. It's not a
| "normal" skill that I'd expect of any normal job duty, even HR or
| PR. So I think the proscription of comments is necessary to avoid
| frightening those people away. I've seen otherwise competent and
| articulate people get baited into losing their composure or
| taking the low road. Forum interaction is, for better or worse, a
| performance art.
|
| Anyway, somebody can always start a thread about the same
| company.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, and that's exactly why you can't comment on them. They're
| one of the payoffs for YC of running Hacker News and those posts
| historically sometimes became mudslinging contests instead of the
| recruitment post they were intended to be.
| UmYeahNo wrote:
| I always took those posts to be a form of (dark pattern)
| undisclosed advertisement masquerading as content offered as a
| perk to YC companies. The last thing those advertisers (and YC)
| want is comments that are similar to what you might read on
| glassdoor, criticizing the company, management or work culture.
|
| And, it's also possible that they are used as plain-old "brand
| recognition advertisements", and no one really gets hired. Unless
| of course Smarking is hiring dozens of "head of engineering"
| positions (or turnover is that ridiculously high) [0]
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27294446
|
| Edited to add: I see it as a dark pattern because it is not
| explicitly stated as an "Ad" or "Sponsored", and relies on us
| navigating somewhere else to determine if this is some kind of
| special post, or for us to have the experience to recognize it as
| something different than an organic post.
|
| I.E. If today were your first visit to this site, would you
| recognize them specifically as promoted / sponsored content?
| ss108 wrote:
| Smarking, Skio, a couple other ones.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| How is it a dark pattern or undisclosed advertising? I thought
| it was one of the perks of being a YC company. There is very
| little advertising on this site, and what is here, e.g. jobs
| for YC companies, is labeled and on topic.
| batter wrote:
| Hm... i was leaning as well to dark pattern/ad. Would be
| interesting to have a poll to understand how many users find
| this acceptable and click.
| gitgud wrote:
| > _How is it a dark pattern or undisclosed advertising?_
|
| Ads here are displayed exactly like a post with extremely
| subtle differences. Anyone new to the site would think it's a
| post and click it... To me that's a dark pattern
| [deleted]
| daenz wrote:
| If we're going by formal definitions, here are a few[0]:
| More broadly, dark patterns supplant "user value...in favor
| of shareholder value". a user interface that has
| been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such
| as buying overpriced insurance with their purchase or signing
| up for recurring bills
|
| The hiring posts are deliberately made to look like every
| other submission, with the exception of not being able to
| comment on them. So in that way, they're misleading about
| what they are. They don't really trick users into doing
| anything, unless you count clicks from users who think
| they're about to engage with actual community content.
|
| 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern
| ALittleLight wrote:
| The posts are explicitly differentiated from normal
| submissions - you can't comment and they usually say
| something like "X (YC year) is hiring". That's not a dark
| pattern. I agree that some people may not understand what
| or why these posts are and not look into it (answers are
| easily available) - but that doesn't make this a dark
| pattern.
|
| Hackernews has minimal ads, lax account requirements,
| professional moderation, minimal intrusion from owners -
| and you are hyperventilating about 1 post in a 100 being a
| marked ad?
| boredemployee wrote:
| really arbitrary moderation imho
| nopehnnope wrote:
| daenz wrote:
| I'm not "hyperventilating", I am attempting to answer
| your question...no need to be rude. Clearly it's a matter
| of opinion about where the line of "dark pattern" starts.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| If you expect people to be completely nice to you,
| perhaps you should not falsely accuse others of
| manipulating users for profit.
| daenz wrote:
| I disagree that it's a false accusation. YCombinator
| benefits financially from putting their job postings on
| the front page, I think we can all agree on that. You
| seem to disagree that it's "manipulation" to make their
| job posting look nearly identical to a normal, organic
| user submission. I think it is a subtle dark pattern and
| explained my reasoning.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They are not 'deliberately made to look like every other
| submission', they simply look like every other submission
| because that's what HN submissions look like. If they were
| made to stand out you'd likely be complaining that they get
| even more preferential treatment because they stand out.
|
| If you don't like them just ignore them.
|
| There is nothing misleading about them and they don't trick
| users because the vast bulk of the visitors to HN knows
| what these are and if you didn't it's explained in the
| docs.
|
| They don't trick you into buying anything and they don't
| serve to market the product of the start-up that is posting
| the position. The only difference is that they don't have
| to wait until the 1st of the month and that they get to
| post an item all by themselves, which seems like a pretty
| small price to pay compared to say having a site full of
| advertising or some massive commercial drive.
|
| HN is rather _more_ than less restricted whenever the
| companies that YC invests in come up, this is the one
| exception.
| daenz wrote:
| >they simply look like every other submission because
| that's what HN submissions look like.
|
| But they're not HN submissions, that's the point.
|
| >If they were made to stand out you'd likely be
| complaining that they get even more preferential
| treatment because they stand out.
|
| No I wouldn't, but thanks for telling me how I would
| feel.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They are HN submissions, but they are restricted in
| functionality because of past experiences with those ads
| when they were treated as ordinary submissions.
|
| If you want to discuss the company or its products you
| are entirely free to post an article or a text
| submission.
|
| The amount of entitlement in this thread is quite
| revolting.
| daenz wrote:
| My definition of "HN submission" is "something that any
| member of the HN community can submit." You seem to be
| using a different definition that excludes the _vast_
| majority of the HN userbase.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I honestly could not care less what your definition is,
| these have passed through the regular submission queue in
| the past and it turned into a shitshow and since then
| they've been given protected status. Clearly that doesn't
| stop people from wanting to revert that change, which is
| probably proof that that was an excellent decision.
| daenz wrote:
| Special posts given special statuses are by definition
| not normal HN submissions, so representing them as nearly
| identical to normal HN submissions is misleading.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They get posted to the top of the page and automatically
| decay, they are clearly marked in the title. To begrudge
| YC this one pay-off for their efforts and funding of HN
| seems a little entitled to me. No vote arrows, points and
| comments is distinction enough for me. I don't think I
| ever clicked on one by mistake, they are pretty obvious.
|
| If you think you can build a better HN then maybe you
| should?
| yaseer wrote:
| It's a pattern, but definitely not dark or undisclosed.
|
| The system and rationale are explained in the HN FAQ and
| repeatedly reiterated by the mods.
|
| i.e This is one of the things HN gives back to YC, for funding
| it.
|
| Compared to online advertising, jobs posts targeted at a
| technical audience seems like a reasonable trade.
| paulcole wrote:
| What do you mean "compared to online advertising"? It _is_
| online advertising lmao.
| jjulius wrote:
| >It's a pattern, but definitely not dark or undisclosed.
|
| Isn't it a dark pattern something that you're not upfront
| about? Because...
|
| >The system and rationale are explained in the HN FAQ and
| repeatedly reiterated by the mods.
|
| ... I have to go to the FAQ (and how do you easily get to the
| FAQ when you're on https://news.ycombinator.com, anyway? it's
| not exactly easy to find, I had to Google it) to learn about
| it, or a mod has to show up in a thread like this to mention
| it. There's _nothing_ at face value when the post is on the
| front page that alludes to what it is, and I 'd hardly say
| that removing the ability to comment on that post does much
| to clarify what it is.
|
| A pattern can be dark even if unintentionally.
| __s wrote:
| dang's response on why job ads don't have comments:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22767319
| version_five wrote:
| > undisclosed advertisement
|
| To be fair, it is disclosed on the FAQ page:
| Another kind of job ad is reserved for YC-funded startups.
| These appear on the front page, but are not stories: they have
| no vote arrows, points, or comments. They begin part-way down
| and fall steadily. Only one is on the front page at a time. The
| rest are listed at jobs.
|
| I don't know where else they would disclose it, the fact that
| you can't vote or comment on it clearly shows you it's
| different. It's way preferable to e.g. astroturfing, and is not
| a dark pattern _a la_ Amazon tricking you into prime
| fabianhjr wrote:
| It should be clearly stated as an ad though, google wouldn't
| get away with not marking the top 2 rows of the result page
| as advertisement because "they disclosed so on the FAQ"
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| IANAL, but isn't there a law about online ads similar to
| what you mention? But then again job postings probably
| aren't typically considered ads...
| version_five wrote:
| Not a lawyer either, but the "ads" (and I think they are
| ads in the dictionary sense, plus HN refers to them as
| such in the FAQ) are literally on the website of the
| company they are advertising for. It's hard to imagine
| that is not allowed.
| jacquesm wrote:
| But it isn't an ad. You are not required or incentivized to
| buy anything.
| jjulius wrote:
| It's a "job _ad_ ". Someone paid money to have it put in
| front of your face.
| caslon wrote:
| No, they didn't, actually. It's a perk for YC companies.
| They paid nothing.
| jjulius wrote:
| OK! They didn't pay for it, but it's still an ad, and I
| still think it should be marked as such.
| solarkraft wrote:
| It _is_ a part of an agreement including a financial
| transaction.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They didn't.
|
| And neither do you if you post in 'who is hiring' on the
| 1st of the month.
| [deleted]
| gojomo wrote:
| 'Ad' doesn't require purchasing anything. Ads for
| political candidates (urging you to vote) & causes
| (urging your to change other behaviors) are still ads.
| Job ads soliciting applicants are commonly called 'ads'.
|
| (That said, I think the implicit disclosure via the
| declaration of affiliation with the site operators - YC -
| & unique behavior of these posts is sufficient. Whatever
| harm might accrue to the absolutely densest readers who
| don't get that seems less than the same harm that other
| readers might get from any crude 'ad' label, which risks
| leading an even larger group of slightly-less-dense
| readers to make unwarranted assumptions that such
| placements are sold via some ad department, or that HN is
| generally open to paid advertising. All communication is
| imperfect, with tradeoffs.)
| ly wrote:
| The FAQ literally calls it a "job ad". Ads don't
| necessarily need to drive sales for them to be ads.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Fine, if you want to split hairs. But you knew what I
| meant and are simply responding to the least charitable
| reading of my comment.
|
| A job ad promotes the existence of a vacancy. The kind of
| ads that you need to disclose are ads are the ones that
| are about the product, not about the vacancies at the
| company producing the product.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > I don't know where else they would disclose it
|
| Inline, I assume; "[Ad] Foo hiring bar"
| jjulius wrote:
| Currently on the front page is:
|
| >Smarking (YC W15) Is Hiring a Product Lead to digitize the
| parking industry (lever.co)
|
| You could disclose it as such
|
| >AD: Smarking (YC W15) Is Hiring a Product Lead to digitize
| the parking industry (lever.co)
| [deleted]
| anm89 wrote:
| My theory:
|
| One of the companies always posting these is repl.it . The
| biggest news they ever received on here is when they aggressively
| screwed over some open source dev
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27424195
|
| I'd post this in every one of those jobs threads to try to make
| sure people don't forget about it. But this way it's easy for
| these scumbag companies to get away with stuff.
| digitaLandscape wrote:
| contingencies wrote:
| At a guess, such threads (which AFAIK are offered to YC companies
| only) would otherwise tend to degrade in to opine regarding
| compensation and the relative merits of various early-stage
| ventures in a sector plus function as a guaranteed time sink and
| PR nightmare for early stage businesses who could better focus
| their attentions elsewhere.
| iso1337 wrote:
| Instagram is one of the few platforms that allows you to comment
| on ads. It's pretty interesting as the comments tend to be
| overwhelmingly negative.
| avrionov wrote:
| Reddit also allows or used to allow commenting on the some ads.
| koverda wrote:
| I noticed the opposite, there's a lot of people leaving
| positive comments on a lot of ads.
| agluszak wrote:
| Facebook also allows that
| nyadesu wrote:
| Facebook/Meta also allows it I think, but comment section on ad
| publications is heavily moderated
| mongol wrote:
| Twitter also
| Retr0id wrote:
| Although, now it is also possible to disable replies on a
| tweet (sponsored or otherwise)
| bergenty wrote:
| It's only going to be negative stuff, why would any company want
| that. No one would post jobs here then.
| amelius wrote:
| There are many alternative interfaces to HN ([1]), so perhaps
| one of them could develop the possibility to _overlay_ comments
| on a hiring post.
|
| [1] https://github.com/cheeaun/awesome-hacker-news
| causality0 wrote:
| Things would get awkward for the more exploitative or otherwise
| "bad" companies. Having the top comment be "Your entire business
| model is a dystopian nightmare" would probably hurt some
| feelings.
| pyrrhotech wrote:
| Most of them aren't really hiring, but instead using the thread
| as covert advertisement for brand. In fact, HN largely exists in
| general to promote YC companies. Why would they allow comments on
| these threads, of which a large majority are likely to be
| negative, given this agenda?
| azemetre wrote:
| Yeah, a company that routinely posts gives a "referral" link
| but it just leads to their normal career page and there's
| nothing I can tell that actually makes your application a
| referral. It's disappointing because this is a company I've
| been trying to interview at for nearly 4 years now.
| timbit42 wrote:
| I read HN via RSS so I put "YC" and "is hiring" posts in my
| delete filter.
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