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Comment by thebiglebrewski | Hacker News Reader

Aw man. This is totally gonna get taken down by YC management/altman...

It's so much easier to casually fling things like this out there than it is to answer them, but FWIW, what you're insinuating is false. We penalize stories less, not more, when they're anti-YC, and every moderator is strictly instructed about it.

Thank you for being very explicit about that.

And also, technically the YC entity has no investment in reddit anymore, only individual partners. :)

Now this is a good rebuttal[1]. Factual, straight to the point while not being excessive.

[1] Or response, or whatever the best term for it is.

If the discussion is about the general topic of publicly airing private employee information, it could stay as it could be something founders could learn from. If this topic goes into drama mode about specific people or this specific instance, it should probably end up getting moderated.

obviously not going to take it down, but it has 6 flags in 36 minutes (a very high number), and with a few more it will fall off the front page.

This is an interesting phenomenon. Given that the story is arguably fairly relevant to the recent investment by Sam, what safeguards are in place to ensure that content like this can't be taken out of the public light by a "reporting brigade?"

> what safeguards are in place to ensure that content like this can't be taken out of the public light by a "reporting brigade?"

There are no safeguards against reporting, which is why certain types of threads (gender, diversity) rarely hit the front page, unfortunately.

Many users associate Reddit content with low-quality content, so flagging would not be surprising. Almost every HN submission I've seen linking to reddit.com has been flagged down.

Gender and diversity threads don't hit the front-page because the decorum in those threads is so bad that they both trigger automated self-defense mechanisms in the HN code (the "flame war detector") and inspire flags. I try not to flag those stories, because I agree with the people who have qualms about HN effectively brushing those stories under the rug, but I've flagged some of the more hopeless-seeming variants.

What's a "reporting brigade"? I've never met Sam and am not a Reddit fan, and I flagged this story, because it's just drama.

Assuming you're not trolling; "brigading" is you talk to all your similarly, minded peers on IRC with long-standing, legitimate HN accounts to flag the story because it annoys you. (Different from a voting ring, which may include non-legitimate accounts and lacks the 'tit-for-tat')

I haven't flagged it because it's more than stupid high school drama, it's an object lesson - is the person who would become CEO on the startup team you're joining/funding likely to behave in a similar fashion?

Because CEO Yishan just opened up Reddit to a potentially expensive, but more importantly, distracting lawsuit. It may have saved face in the all important young-male demographic that Reddit caters to, and probably felt good as the CEO to be able to perform to such a public 'smackdown' of a former employee 'running his mouth off', but as as developer it says quite a bit about the the companies culture if the CEO bullies people like that. "Taking the high road" is how professionals act towards other professionals, and while the former employee was far from professional, that might have been the better option for the Reddit CEO to take.

Even waiting a few days to make sure the 'i's were dotted, and 't's were crossed by the legal team, followed by a (short) public blog post refuting the most disparaging remarks made would have been less childish and more responsible would have been better.

Unfamiliar with IRC slang, because don't hang out on IRC.

Wasn't looking for an opportunity to relitigate the whole pointless thread on this subthread.

Brigading is not IRC slang. It is web forum slang, perhaps reddit specific. I've only heard it in the reddit/HN context, never in IRC. IRC is nevertheless a popular way to 'organize' such 'brigades'.

Ok, that's good to know; I'm just saying, no, not trolling, really had no idea what that meant.

Assuming sufficient admin intervention, I personally believe controversial stories should have a place on HN. Sure, some of them will result in flame wars in the comments but for the most part it allows us to discover content that is worth discussing in the first place.

Since the flag button seems to operate as a super downvote (and its UI is ostensibly "get the mods' attention" unless you know this) do you feel like the current system is useful? Should flag be a super downvote, or should it just get your attention? Is "both" useful?

I resist clicking flag because I know how hard it hits a story, and based on what you're saying, it seems like people are pretty free with flagging (which might be affecting controversial stories inordinately). Not that you'd compare your UI to Reddit's, but: Reddit's "report" function gets the mods' attention but does not impact the submission, to my knowledge. Recently, to cull people reporting things they just don't like, there's now a modal that pops up when you click it to demand a reason.

Why would it? Seems like a perfectly reasonable and professional response by yishan, shows investors that he isn't going to take crap from ex-employees trying to bad mouth the company.

Entrepreneurship in the making?

CA is an "at will" state. A company does not have to give a reason for letting anyone go. It is best practice NEVER to give a reason. If you provide a reason then you better be sure it is documented in detail and there is zero discrepancy between the documented reasons and anything that anyone could ever say in a court. If there is even the smallest issue with your documentation you could end up losing in court if you are sued. While posting this response might have felt good it is clearly not a smart thing to do. Reddit would have been better to delete the AMA and then sent a letter to the poster explaining the non-disparagement agreement and how it protects both parties. I would hope that a CEO would know better.

The person posting the AMA seems to lack the experience needed in dealing this this sort of thing and could of used a bit of help understanding the realities of work life. It is very reasonable to believe that he was angry on being let go but this is a life lesson and I hope in the future he is able to handle things better.

Heh, perfectly reasonable and professional right until the boldened "fired" in the second sentence? Care to give an example what would constitute a less-than professional response?

He emphasized the word to clearly mark the difference -- why is that unprofessional?

A reasonable and professional response by Yishan would've been to stay out of it and either ignore it or release an official statement, not comment on a reddit thread started by a disgruntled former employee...

That was an official statement, as indicated by the little [A] after Yishan's username. (If you hover, it says: "reddit admin; speaking officially".)

And placing it as a reply in the relevant thread is exactly what you'd do if you believe Reddit threads are a serious, important, and often-canonical source of information. That genuine belief is essentially a requirement to lead Reddit.

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