> A note to HN users: The intention behind Apply HN was to do something new to excite and interest the community and engage it with YC in an interesting way. That did happen, but it pains me that it also partly turned into the opposite. If any of you have suggestions for how to do better, I'd like to hear them.
How about publishing rules for a contest and sticking to them, or canceling the contest entirely if it's not going the way you expected or desired? If there was a risk that some founder you didn't like would be picked the rules should have been clear about how to prevent that (through interview, etc.). And if you realize the rules didn't cover this contingency then scrap it entirely and start over with new rules.
Frankly I'm surprised that this is being pushed back as some failing of the HN community. This is clearly a failing of the contest creators.