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.

[Edit: deleted a dumb and superfluous bit here.]

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.

Thanks for the surprisingly thoughtful comment.

"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:

joezydeco: a mod just deleted the "YC ('12)" off the headline https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5428387

pg: Must mean that we're trying to hide the fact that we funded them, right? It could only mean that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5428426

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.

Remember folks, mentioning the YC association is only relevant in the title if it's positive news.