If we edit our application now and re-submit, doesn't that create a problem where different people at YC have read different versions of the application?
One solution would be to only add to our answers, not subtract, by adding "EDIT: I wanted to clarify this point by saying x,y,z" at the bottom of a question.
Of course, the problem is that adds to the verbosity, making your lives more difficult with more to read, not less.
Your system is a bit of a black box, so I'm just going by my best guess here. I'm imagining that after the obviously great applications have been added to the interview list, and the bad applications have been tossed, that there will be ones in the middle that require discussion and debate between reviewers.
If I was a reviewer, I'd be annoyed if I spent a bunch of time debating the merits of an application with another reviewer and discovered we'd been looking at completely different versions, submitted a month apart. "This application is awesome, they clearly have what it takes as founders and have a cool idea with a prototype." "What are you talking about? That application was one of the most confusing I read. And it was just an idea, no prototype." "Oh, we were looking at different versions. Damn."
It sounds like it isn't a problem though, so maybe this situation is rare, or for the first cut you don't discuss at all and just go by pure score averages, or there's something else I'm missing. Thanks for the feedback.
I have to imagine that the system is something like this:
1. Each partner has a queue of pending applications that have changes or have yet to be seen.
2. Each application shows a simple diff between the last time this partner saw it and now, if changes have been made.
3. Each field on the application has a space for the partner to write his or her own notes.
4. Each application has a space for the partner to write his or her own notes.
And then it's just a matter of having changes put your application back into the queue for each partner. Come the submission deadline, everyone is up to date once all of their queues are empty and then discussions about who to interview can commence, etc.
One solution would be to only add to our answers, not subtract, by adding "EDIT: I wanted to clarify this point by saying x,y,z" at the bottom of a question.
Of course, the problem is that adds to the verbosity, making your lives more difficult with more to read, not less.