Hardened political rhetoric and seasoned talking points aren't on topic here (regardless of which way the political vector is pointing). If you check out the site guidelines, it should be clear why: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
You don't have to agree with anyone's views but this style of argument is deathly to the curious conversation we want here. Curious conversation requires, among other things, respect across differences—wanting to learn more about how someone thinks, and why they think that way, and trusting that they have good reasons for all that even if, in the end, they're wrong. And, of course, you and your views deserve the same consideration.
If you want to argue against someone's views here (Garry's or anyone else's), you'll get much further by making your substantive points thoughtfully. We're trying to avoid the online callout/shaming culture here, at least to the extent possible on the open internet.
The culture of political attack goes very much the other way, of course—people save screenshots of the worst things they can find, bring them up at every opportunity, and so on. Guilt by association is another common tactic. None of this helps us really understand each other—anyone can be made to look bad that way, so it really doesn't have much persuasive power. It does get one's own side riled up (in a yay way) and the opposing side riled up (in a boo way), but riler-uppers are what we're trying to avoid on HN, because they destroy the curious conversation I was just talking about.
(I hope it's clear that all of the above should and does apply equally to opposing political sides.)
What is the difference between "shaming" and "referencing facts", exactly? I genuinely don't understand the distinction. Also, I'm commenting on YC's choice, not Garry's views. I understand if YC doesn't want to host criticism of its decisions, but you should be upfront about it.
I explicit reject this idea that it's unfair to point to things people have said, even if they're screenshots. Sorry, that's just deciding that you can pick and choose data to ignore.
Callout/shaming culture is a stock phrase I use to describe the sort of internet culture we don't want here [1]. Maybe the word 'shaming' isn't so applicable in this case, though I do think shaming is part of why online warriors like to preserve the worst internet traces left by those they dislike, and copy them into each fresh discussion.
Re 'facts': this is a red herring. There are infinitely many facts. They don't select themselves; humans do that, and they do so for non-factual reasons [2]. As a matter of fact, "but it's a fact" is the most beloved defense of trolls—not that you mean it that way. (Edit: incidentally, I have no idea whether your claims about Garry, including the ones you deleted, were facts or not - but I'm assuming they are for present purposes because it makes the moderation point stronger.)
The problem with your post is that it was obvious online agitprop—in fact one couldn't find a more classic case (edit: before you edited it—it's less that way now). That's off topic on HN, but not because of trying to protect YC from criticism (we don't moderate HN that way [3] – plenty of people criticize YC here), nor because of political disagreement (there's room for a wide range of views, as long as people are using the site as intended)—but rather because it makes threads more predictable and nastier, and therefore more boring. We're trying to optimize for something else on HN [4].
Edit: I just noticed that you edited your GP comment to take out a couple of extreme guilt-by-association references and to add a relevant tweet by sama. Those are two steps towards an on-topic sort of political argument (good), but if you're going to edit comments after they've gotten replies, it's only fair to do so in a way that doesn't deprive other posts of their original meaning. My description ("hardened political rhetoric and seasoned talking points") was accurate about your original post and is less so now. In other words, you subtly changed the thread to make the moderation look less neutral and fair than it originally was. I hope that was just an accidental side effect, and that your motive for making those edits was a sincere desire to use HN as intended.
I always learn from your posts dang - really appreciate this substantive explanation, informs my own thinking as we seek to build our own communities for curiosity.
Out of curiosity, why don't you make "YC churn" announcements read-only, like job ads are?
There's not really much curious conversation when they happen, and not really a huge chance of it, either. As an example, the announcement of sama taking over was a hundred and fifty comments of almost exclusively "Congratulations!"
They're posts that are almost exclusively doomed, either to incurious compliments, insults, or needless pessimism; what questions that are asked usually don't get answered, so there wouldn't really be a loss in it anyway.
I wouldn't call this a "churn announcement" - it's the biggest YC news in years. I guess I can think of a few different answers to your question. One is that since it's significant new information, it's on topic (job ads are the opposite of that). Another is that there's a special relationship between YC and the HN community, and it's good for the community to have space to discuss that. A third is that there is definitely no way that the community would support us trying to close such a topic to comments.
Also, job ads get placed on the front page by software. This submission got on the front page by upvotes like any other.
It's definitely newsworthy and relevant to the community. I support the status quo of non interference (laissez-faire) by the mods into publishing status of this news story and your reasoning stated in this comment.
Hardened political rhetoric and seasoned talking points aren't on topic here (regardless of which way the political vector is pointing). If you check out the site guidelines, it should be clear why: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
You don't have to agree with anyone's views but this style of argument is deathly to the curious conversation we want here. Curious conversation requires, among other things, respect across differences—wanting to learn more about how someone thinks, and why they think that way, and trusting that they have good reasons for all that even if, in the end, they're wrong. And, of course, you and your views deserve the same consideration.
If you want to argue against someone's views here (Garry's or anyone else's), you'll get much further by making your substantive points thoughtfully. We're trying to avoid the online callout/shaming culture here, at least to the extent possible on the open internet.
The culture of political attack goes very much the other way, of course—people save screenshots of the worst things they can find, bring them up at every opportunity, and so on. Guilt by association is another common tactic. None of this helps us really understand each other—anyone can be made to look bad that way, so it really doesn't have much persuasive power. It does get one's own side riled up (in a yay way) and the opposing side riled up (in a boo way), but riler-uppers are what we're trying to avoid on HN, because they destroy the curious conversation I was just talking about.
(I hope it's clear that all of the above should and does apply equally to opposing political sides.)