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]
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?
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
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"
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.
'Ad' doesn't require persuasion to purchase anything. Ads for political candidates (urging you to vote) & many causes (urging you to change other behaviors) are still ads. Often such ads are donated, with no payment for placement.
That said, I think the implicit disclosure via the declaration of affiliation with the site operators – YC – & unique behavior of these posts is sufficient for readers to understand the situation. Even without any label, most people would classify such posts as "job ads".
Whatever harm might accrue to the absolutely densest readers who don't get that seems rather small. Probably less than the harm that other readers might suffer 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 for cash via some ad department, or that HN is generally open to paid advertising.
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.
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.
> 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Special posts given special statuses are by definition not normal HN submissions, so representing them as nearly identical to normal HN submissions is misleading.
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?
The top comment in this thread is the claim that it is a dark pattern, and many of the children comments are supporting that, so maybe consider that your perspective is not the majority one, or it's at least not as clear as you suggest.
I'm sure there are a whole bunch of us that _don't_ find it to be an issue and don't feel the need to prolong its discussion. This type of topic draws in the type of individual that finds it to be an issue: those that don't, move on.
A lack of public support for an idea is not evidence for support for the idea, so I'm not sure why you would even bring up the hypothetical "whole bunch of us" that secretly feel the other way.
If I didn’t reply to you here, what would you assume from that? That I didn’t have a response? That I didn’t see your response? That I agreed with you? That I disagreed but didn’t think it was worth the effort to continue the discussion because there really no way to change your mind given you dismissed me out of hand?
For what it’s worth, I debated initially commenting at all because I thought it was unlikely to be productive. I’m sure I’m not the only person who considered this (sheer numbers in this case make that unlikely) and they made the choice not to.
I understand your point, but it's not evidence for the opposing belief. And it cuts both ways, not just one way...people who think that it's a dark pattern but also don't care to engage.
Upvotes are a signal of support for an idea in the community. Whether strong or weak is debatable, but implying that they mean the opposite because of all the people who didn't care to vote is silly.
Thanks, I read it. I don't mind the no-commenting rule tbh, if the submission was tagged as "YC Hiring Announcement" To me, the submissions currently feel like they're trying to present themselves as organic content. I understand you think differently. It would cost YC nothing to explicitly tag them though and put the whole "dark pattern" criticism to rest.
A 'dark pattern' presumes intent to deceive. Here it is pretty much the opposite:
Hackernews started out as a way for YC to talk to their would-be founders (it was called 'start-up news' originally) and the rest of the postings are the noise and those are the signal. If you are unaware of the relationship between YC and HN you could be forgiven but after more than a decade here I don't think that excuse holds.
Marking job ads more explicitly won't change anything, it is just a way to pressure YC into making some change to satisfy nit pickers and there is far more important stuff to do, and is as far as I'm concerned off-topic given that the question was 'why can't we comment on these postings' and that question has been answered afaic.
Furthermore: the who is hiring threads are there as well for everybody else as well, which given the audience and the fact that these compete directly with YC funded companies should be proof positive that no malicious intent was ever present. If it were then those threads would have never happened.
I understand they can do whatever they want, and I also know the relationship between YC and HN. They could make job posts blend in even more, artificially boost YC-positive content, and weigh down YC-negative content, and they would be totally within their rights, and if we don't like it we can leave.
I think I understand why you are defending HN. You see how a small community grew to what it is now, and all of the unpaid work that went into that. I don't think that is in conflict with the idea of being super transparent (to the point where it's obvious to everyone) about things like sponsored posts. It's clearly not obvious to everyone.
You make a good point about the hiring threads. I agree those are evidence that YC is making an effort to support non YC startups.
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?
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.
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.
You can't vote on it, you can't comment, and the title fits the pattern I mentioned earlier - it's absurd to describe this as "nearly identical" to the normal submission. Having occasional, untargetted, marked, on topic advertising on a free site is about as far from "dark pattern" as it is possible to be.
A dark pattern has nothing to do with whether they're justified in doing it (for instance, because this is a free site). The submissions could be marked with "YC Sponsored Post" they're still totally justified in doing it, but it would be less of a dark pattern than it is now.
>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.
Eh, I don't even think I looked at the bottom, to be honest. Pretty sure I was posting in bad faith without realizing it[1]. Gonna give myself a break from here for a bit.
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.
And: it already does that for the open-access posts on the Who's Hiring threads, where the mods donate a bunch of time every month scrubbing tendentious comments off of posts from non-YC companies.
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.
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.
They shouldn't have done that, though it was almost certainly an innocent mistake*. If I'd seen it, I would have edited it.
You can see the guidelines for YC startups posting job ads here: https://news.ycombinator.com/jobguide.html. As you can see there are 6 paragraphs dedicated to neutral titles.
* Founders don't post like that for nefarious reasons. It's just that many of them don't spend much time on HN and have no idea of the finicky conventions of this community.
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.
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.
HN is a community of people. A community always exists to serve the community. Even if YC created the community, YC does not own it, and if YC were to become egregious, the community would move elsewhere to better serve itself.
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.
Yes, those are much harder to deal with because we can't simply switch them off—other than disabling replies, which I don't want to do because most replies are good faith questions.
I've even written code to specifically monitor all the replies that get posted in those threads, but it still requires moderator review energy—a scarce commodity if ever there was one.
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.
You can't really comment on job posts on the (open-access) "Who's Hiring" threads, either. Every month, the mods have to waste a bunch of time zapping people who want to debate the merits of different companies that post there. If there was an easy way, without changing the UX of the site (something that happens very rarely here) to eliminate comments on those threads, so all you could do is post job ads, HN would probably do that too.
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.
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.
I've not seen any evidence of that. Have you? If that's really happening, we'd take away job posting privileges, but it's important not to be cavalier with accusations of abuse.
You could have your companies report hiring results every month. My accusation is based on years of evidence (reading job post) and anecdote (applying, never hired). A lot of the time companies don't even respond.
I'm perfectly willing to suspect the HR cabal, but if I'm a CEO missing 20+ engineering roles month after month, I'd get a new HR and process. Are your CEOs complaining they can't fill all these open jobs?
I really have no idea. (I don't mean that dismissively, just literally.)
Things like this, btw:
> You could have your companies report hiring results every month
... come from a mismatch between perception (of how things are over here) and reality (of how things are over here). We'd never do that, not because it would be valueless, but because there are so many other things that need doing which would benefit the community more.
(Again, I don't mean that as a criticism - it's not as if these things are directly perceivable.)
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
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.
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?
> Most of them aren't really hiring, but instead using the thread as covert advertisement for brand.
Do you have any evidence of that? If that's actually true, we would stop those companies from posting job ads. As I said elsewhere, though (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32587596), you really shouldn't be cavalier with allegations of abuse.
> HN largely exists in general to promote YC companies
That's definitely not true, or at least a huge overstatement. I've written a lot about this in the past if anyone wants explanations of how we think about this:
It would be closer to the truth to say that HN exists to help new YC companies come into existence, since the biggest benefit is more startups getting started, applying to YC, and getting funded by YC. Even one large such success would pay for hundreds of years of HN.
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.
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?