There's another aspect too: I try to avoid being a bloodless ghoul in communicating with this community. People here don't want stiff corporate pantomimes, and that suits me fine, because I would hate to do that; or rather I can't because my body would reject it. That's an old Willie Brown line btw.
As a moderator of YC’s forum, you have a conflict of interest. That’s an objective fact.
Saying there is a conflict of interest is not saying that you actually feel conflicting motives. I’m not casting any doubt on that. The mere appearance of a conflict is sufficient, in typical circumstances where legal definitions are required.
Recognizing that the (appearance of) a conflict of interest exists and respecting it would go a heck of a lot further in garnering trust, IMHO.
I think we may have crossed signals somehow because I'm certainly not denying any of that—it's obvious and the community is well aware of it. Respect for the delicate conditions under which the HN community, the HN moderators, and YC interface with each other informs everything about how we moderate HN, as anyone who reads my comment history will find. You can look at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... and https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... for examples if you (or anyone) cares.
What I don't respect so much is Twitter drama and misleading rhetoric. To the extent that readers care about this at all, they should get to hear both sides of the story so they could make up their minds for themselves. But it's not my call, so I don't get to go there this time.
More interestingly perhaps, I think it would be a big mistake, for community relations, to hide behind bureaucratic language about this stuff (e.g. "as there is a conflict of interest, I will not comment"). HN readers aren't used to that. They're used to getting the inside story and to feeling personally connected to the people who run HN and to some extent YC. To flip a switch and suddenly turn that off when something like this happens would send all the wrong signals. My commitment to people here is to tell them as much as I can about whatever they're curious to know, and to interact with them as a human, not as a corporate role. That's what I meant by "bloodless ghoul" - I apologize if that wasn't clear - my language maybe gets more colorful late at night.
No not at all. I'm saying that it's not the reason why I couldn't comment further.
The conflict of interest (I'm not sure that's the most precise term here, but I'll go with it) is obvious, everyone's aware of it, and it doesn't normally (nor should it) stop me from sharing information with the community. HN readers are curious, generally like more information rather than less, and are smart enough to make up their own minds. And although you can call it a conflict, actually just sharing what's happening is a way to build trust with readers.
The difference in this case was not any of that—it's just that it's not my call what YC does or doesn't publish about its internal affairs, so I don't get to share information like I normally would. I don't like that; my comfort zone is, like I said, to tell HN readers whatever relevant information I can and let them decide for themselves. That has worked well over the years and continues to. But other people have different jobs and need to make decisions from different perspectives.
The actual difference between the bloodless "conflict of interest" and the line you did use to explain the title change is of course that the latter implies that this was not why Biggar was expelled, i.e. that there was some other reason -- "he had it coming anyway, it's just that I can't say precisely why."
Since you're not stupid we have to assume you knew very well that this was what you were saying, so we have to conclude you said exactly that because exactly that was what you wanted to say.
There's another aspect too: I try to avoid being a bloodless ghoul in communicating with this community. People here don't want stiff corporate pantomimes, and that suits me fine, because I would hate to do that; or rather I can't because my body would reject it. That's an old Willie Brown line btw.