A whirlwind of activity started up, within which a cofounder responded, as well as the president of YC. They both were actively looking for the CEO so that he could resolve the issue, and when he eventually popped up into the thread, a clusterfuck of absolutely biblical proportions ensued.
What people saw was the obvious mudslinging between parties, but what they didn't necessarily see was all of the cold, numeric computation going on behind the scenes whenever posts were being up- and down-voted, and karma points were being won and lost.
Say whatever you want about the validity of these kinds of emotionally/psychologically derived numbers, but the point is that they are realtime data points concerning large numbers of highly speculative investments, and they could not reasonably be ascertained in any other way.
When I was watching that whole thing play out just like a live sporting event, I was refreshing the profile page of the CEO in question, and his karma points seemed to be dropping like some kind of flash crash in the NASDAQ.
Some may say that it isn't in the best interest of YC to have so much publicity when these kinds of things happen, but I think the point is that it is always ultimately in everyone's best interest for the truth, no matter what it is, to be uncovered as quickly as possible, and framed within a language that is as objective as possible.
I can only imagine what kind of machine learning might be going on behind the scenes at YC, involving all of these data points that are so intimately connected to known human beings, many of whom are so intimately involved with the insanely dynamic economic activity that is starting up a tech company in Silicon Valley.