That's not really relevant; I don't think it's our job, or anyone else's, to police the internet for 'vote brigading.' In this case, it was never against the stated rules.
I can't reply to dan's reply to this, for some reason, but regarding "I don't see a distinction there. It refers to submissions, and Apply HN posts were submissions, a.k.a. stories in HN's sense (posts that aren't comments).", well, it also says that users should vote for "a story" because it's "intellectually interesting", which is not a rationale (or in the case of "story" a referring term) that seems to make much sense in the present case. So it makes a lot of sense, I think, to construe it as referring to submissions in the narrower sense.
Regardless, the tweets in question were around a long time before Pinboard was disqualified without expectation. The first one certainly predates kevin's phone call, for instance.
(And of course one of the tweets in question was contained a link to the general poll, which was not a submission of Maciej's, and the other, technically, was a link to all the Apply HN posts, not to his.)
I don't see a distinction there. It refers to submissions, and Apply HN posts were submissions, a.k.a. stories in HN's sense (posts that aren't comments).
Certainly it never crossed my mind that the rules about voting rings would be any different than with regular posts. HN users are passionately opposed to the voting system getting gamed; we'd have been skinned alive if we allowed it. But tptacek makes a good point about that not being obvious to everybody.
Do you think I would have consciously sabotaged my chances by breaking this rule had I been aware of it? Especially knowing that YC would be looking for any pretext to disqualify me?
Your rules about voting rings are not public. I think that you're so used to modding the site that you forget this, but take a look at the letter of what it actually says in the FAQ.
I'm confused by your second paragraph—I just don't get it—but if there's a way to make the FAQ clearer I'd like to. There's no question that I have trouble seeing this stuff from an outside viewpoint. I'm too immersed in it.
By the way, I didn't reply to the bit about the voting rules because I think it's the only important point in your post; it isn't. It's just something that I knew how to respond to. I'm trying to write something in response to the larger substance, but am having trouble because my feelings (bad, and sad) have the better of me right now. I'll get there.
You've managed to personally lose an astonishing amount of credibility, and this has managed to do a shocking amount of damage to the YC brand. I literally just came from three different bars (hey, it was a good night) in SF and overheard no less than five different conversations about this clusterfuck. Obviously YC/HN doesn't give a shit (because sama could easily drop 20k like a rock and not care), but it looks super bad.
Right - I agree with you, in general. I just think that this particular situation is a bit different, and Apply HN implies that there are folks outside HN applying /to/ HN. Those folks outside HN may have no idea about the voting rules, and it also isn't clear, even to long-time HN users, that this wasn't a different situation entirely.
But that says nothing about the Apply HN situation. That's new, had a different set of rules (hell, you wrote a polling solution), and the regular guidelines didn't necessarily apply. That they did should have been made clear.
Again, nothing against it this time, since it's all up to you guys - just feedback for the next time.
