A bunch of legit users upvoted it—perfectly normally, as far as I can tell from the data. A lot of users simply find this product interesting. That only seems impossible to you because of your pre-existing hostility to it, which I'm sure is sincere but which is causing you to derail these threads. You posted 17 comments derailing the earlier thread and 20+ comments doing the same here. This is way over the top and we need you to stop it.

We moderate HN less, not more, when YC or YC startups are the story*, but 'less' does not mean 'not at all'. When users turn threads into shitshows with false accusations and off-topic drama, we have to do something about that, YC or no.

* https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

How does one even disprove your statement? If indeed it organically got upvoted how does one even prove that to you? Your argument against them is posited in way that is impossible to counter.

I for one upvoted because this genuinely seemed like an interesting feature. It's clearly hitting a pain point for me as a developer, whether or not it actually ends up solving it satisfactorily.

And I would have downvoted, except there is no downvote button, and I'm too honest to flag.

I wonder what's the karma requirement to downvote posts, not just comments, but clearly it's over 2000.

You can’t downvotes submissions at any karma level[1].

> There are no down arrows on stories. They appear on comments after users reach a certain karma threshold, but never on direct replies.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

Hm, interesting. I suppose it does prevent mass bot downvotes, but it also stops the community from pre-emptively removing posts such as this one that just stir up rage. Reddit would probably be unreadable without post downvotes.

Users can flag posts, which is kind of like a super-downvote. HN also penalizes posts that generate too many comments too fast, which it interprets as controversial.

Flagging would be an abuse of another feature. I don't think the original post is quite wrong as in illegal or harmful or off topic.

The commenter here's upvote counted, my downvote did not count.

And I won't just use any other available form of attack like falsely accusing the post of some wrongdoing just because I want to criticise something and that's the only way to do it.

I did leave a critical comment but that is a seperate issue because you can leave a positive comment and upvote. So the ability to comment nulls out.

Now that’s just crossing the line.

> otherwise how is it possible that a niche product of a YC company right now has the first spot with 400 upvotes?

It's not a secret that YC startups get promoted and placed on the hackernews frontpage. If I remember correctly it looks different than this, so what exactly are you accusing them off? Using a hidden promotion mechanism instead of the known and accepted one? That makes no sense to me! If they have the ability to promote YC startups on the frontpage and it's generally known and not done in secret, why should they do it in secret here?

I think it legitimately got upvoted here. Maybe with some friends&family help. But not by some hidden moderator action.

I certainly found it interesting, but I would also never use a tool that privacy-violating.

i’m not accusing them of anything and i think it’s alright to use some help, but just look how big the number of upvotes is compared to the amount of positive comments? why does a niche product take such a high spot?

why are so many people upvoting but only so little commenting? how is it that only a minority commented positively the product?

this isn’t like a typical #1 post

makes you suspicious doesn’t it?

Not really. It isn't uncommon. The target audience for this is bigger than you think, and those it appeals to are happy to see their niche discussed regardless if the actual link is a good or bad fit for the niche itself.