I'm a Coinbase customer, and as an additional data point, their customer service has been wonderful. Now granted, this was about a month ago. I did send them an email on Thursday and haven't heard back from them, but my request wasn't urgent, so I haven't thought much of it.
Overall, I'm rooting for them, and being YC backed, I'm confident that they'll figure out their issues. I do hope sooner rather than later, as I can't wait to use their API.
It's a very relevant fact (after all, this is a YC site and Coinbase is a YC company) that was explicitly removed by a moderator, and the action feels like dissociation. Can you present a better explanation?
That convention is for company names that appear in headlines of stories.
HN is a news site, not a customer support forum for companies funded by YC, and in fact the site guidelines explicitly ask that it not be used that way:
I'm happy the post achieved it's intended effect, which was to get someone at Coinbase to respond. So yeah, I'll be the first to admit that I abused the HN post by turning it into a defacto customer service request instead of something newsworthy.
But, on the other hand, this is somewhat newsworthy. You have a company trying to start up in a very tough space where you need to be super-reliable and super-transparent. Coinbase's actions this entire week were neither. Let me repeat that important middle part. An entire week. This is not an "OMG my transaction took a day instead of an hour!" for one or two people.
It's not like I was posting a customer service request for myself. Look at twitter and you'll see a lot of people with troubles greater than mine.
Perhaps I should have prompted some Bitcoin-related blogger to write a nasty post and then link to it? Would that have turned the post into a "news" one and passed the gate?
"Perhaps I should have prompted some Bitcoin-related blogger to write a nasty post and then link to it? Would that have turned the post into a "news" one and passed the gate?"
As per PG's guidelines, that is the only compliant way. If I were him I'd much rather have the conversation on HN than to have the blogosphere or financial media light up over a controversy.
"That convention is for company names that appear in headlines of stories."
The guidelines state: "In titles, please don't describe things by their relation to YC unless they're actually associated with YC."
AFAICT Coinbase is associated with YC, so the appearance makes perfect sense.
"Strictly speaking I should have killed the post entirely"
The real question is why it took an HN post that reached the frontpage to see any sort of response from coinbase. If you read the comments and the original assertion "because nobody trying to trade with Coinbase can get a public answer", it seems like people have tried other means and couldn't reach anyone at Coinbase.
This is a lesson in how intellectual dishonesty works. You quote the HN guidelines, and you quote PG's reference to them ("strictly speaking...") but you omit the guideline to which he was obviously referring:
please don't use HN posts to ask YC-funded companies questions that you could ask by emailing them.
Instead you change the subject with "The real question is..." when, in fact, that wasn't the question. The question was about title changes. No doubt a dozen more "real questions" are waiting in the wings.
There's no way PG can win this game of whack-a-troll. I'm surprised both that he even tries and that he doesn't snap more often.
Frankly, I think a firehose of ridicule is the last thing this site needs, and I'm sad when I see it upvoted.
I'm inclined to engage in that kind of interaction myself, having learned somewhere along the way that it's what a certain kind of intelligent person does. So I thought it was something to emulate. But I've been re-examining that assumption, largely in reaction to conversations I've seen on HN. I try not to engage in rapid back-and-forth threads that go more than a couple of posts deep. And I try to keep snark at a minimum. Sometimes I fail, but when I do I feel guilty about it, like I'm dragging the site down. I do not feel like I'm accomplishing something with it.
On the other hand, I feel free to be snarky on Reddit since that site is hopeless anyway. :-)
We often see laments about the declining quality of conversation on this site, and I believe such rapid-fire exchanges from leaders in the community are a contributing factor there. It sets a bad tone.
You're right, and I'm wrong. I'm going to edit that.
I know what you mean about trying and failing. 95% of the time I resist the impulse to make comments like this. Most of the other 5% I go back and delete it.
"Instead you sneakily change the subject with "The real question is..." when, actually, that wasn't the question."
You didn't read the parent posts, did you? You should review the conversation. The entire issue at hand is the fact that the title was changed. To summarize:
niggler: It's a very relevant fact (after all, this is a YC site and Coinbase is a YC company) that was explicitly removed by a moderator. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5428449
In that context, what's being discussed is the renaming, for which PG replies by saying "That convention is for company names that appear in headlines of stories." and pointing to the news guidelines. The rest of the post is a non-sequitur.
I replied by pointing to the only part of the guidelines that discuss titles.
Now you tell me who is being intellectually dishonest :)
Yes, the subject was title changes. That's why your comment, "The real question is why it took an HN post that reached the frontpage to see any sort of response from coinbase" was a change of subject. My point is that such an ammunition-refill reveals underlying intent.
You are accusing me of intellectual dishonesty which started from PG not addressing the question of title changes.
The only statement he made on that point is:
"That convention is for company names that appear in headlines of stories."
And in pointing to the guidelines, there is something that is relevant to the titles: "In titles, please don't describe things by their relation to YC unless they're actually associated with YC."
So he didn't give a response that explained why the title was changed. He thinks the issue is between "killing the story" and "renaming the title". But if he thinks that killing the story is a way to respond, that suggests he doesn't appreciate the severity of the situation.
I've seen a similar situation before with much more money (15M) so I know how frustrating it is to wonder if you will ever get your money back and to plan for lawsuits. In my case, it took complaints to SEC to get them to finally return the money. You may think this is a trivial issue, but it's very hard to re-establish trust once it is lost.
Back on point, I don't think PG appreciates the severity of the issue at hand.
On reflection, I don't have enough information to know that you were being intellectually dishonest. Other explanations are possible. So I'm sorry I said that.
Hm. That is compelling logic. But, since you're right, that means YC is also distancing itself from Dropbox. And Airbnb. Holy, the whole thing is unraveling!
Please point to an example of a criticism of AirBnB or of Dropbox in which the submission title originally had (YC '*) in it and was edited to remove the YC association. I and many other would like to see it.
No, actually removing context from headlines, reverting them to original titles, or even completely changing the link target is a long-standing tradition on HN. It's not reserved for YC-related news. And it has been happening more often lately. Is that a policy now?
It's not a big hurdle or anything but does take away a bit from the convenience of scanning new content. Those editorialized titles often contain the reason why a submission is relevant, or, like here, what is the "claim to fame" of participants... that's one of the benefits of having humans post those links.
Oh, definitely. Those are all positive news about a YC company. That's why it's totally kosher and no moderator would ever dream of stripping off the association.
This article, in contrast, is about a company potentially looting users' bitcoins due a mysteriously long response time and users being unable to withdraw. Obviously mentioning the YC connection is completely inappropriate. We need to remember here, that this site is solely for the celebration of YC companies, not to point out that YC potentially funded a bad apple that's screwing it's customers.
Overall, I'm rooting for them, and being YC backed, I'm confident that they'll figure out their issues. I do hope sooner rather than later, as I can't wait to use their API.