[throwit99]

Maybe you don't personally, maybe you don't as a group anymore.

As I suggested in my original post though, I have more useful things to do than look back at comments I posted years ago and compile evidence. I've moved on.

I'm sure it happens a lot more often than you realise, because in general when people get hellbanned, they come to the same realisations as me.

[dang]

> anymore

Not only did we never ban people for criticizing YC companies, the very first thing PG told me when I started moderating HN, and the thing that he emphasized most strongly after that, was never to do things that could be construed (or misconstrued) as censorship of anti-YC stories.

(I've edited out some irritation that leaked through in my original version of this comment.)

[selmnoo]

dang, I think HN has improved for the better, especially since some effort has been made to make things more transparent.

But it would be despicably dishonest for you guys to deny that routinely you guys do things here to protect YC companies (including manipulating voting points on comments/ submissions).

One example (on the top of my mind) is the drchrono post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7178004

Even though Skeletor made that comment like ... 20 days after the HN submission, it somehow found its way to the top. Obviously, this was through manual action. Obviously, a non-YC company is not afforded such a privilege.

Idling in #startups of freenode (unofficial HN channel), I've heard too many of these stories. The stories of rankban upon some critical comment on a YC-funded company, a slowban because of a critical comment on some YC personality, etc. etc. There are countless examples.

When these things happen one after the other, you lose trust, we cannot believe you anymore. Please stop doing this. I think the only way to win trust back at this point is if you again expose voting points at all times.