skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Almost a perfect response. Only a week after. But being this their first "defcon 1". It's pretty great.

The AirBNB guarantee is spot on. Buen trabajo
Stock prices may change dramatically whether or not Google remains a going concern. Any share investment involves risk.
I agree that these are no small feat, and while I honestly think that these things were huge gaps in the service previously, I do applaud the quick implementation of them.

However, even if they could not be implemented immediately, coming out early, before the story really blew up, talking about it openly and frankly, and announcing these changes would have done wonders. Instead, they've been beaten up in the press for the last week or two for their relative silence.
I was going to suggest Snow Crash but I'm really unsure after all. Cyberpunk almost always requires you to adopt some kind of esoteric thinking, which is not a bad thing per se but makes it harder to immerse yourself in the story if you are looking for real science. Also Neuromancer.
Will this submission have it's title changed to the original post ("Our Commitment to Trust & Safety")

Yes, let's stick with the original title. Using original article titles is preferred according to HN guidelines.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2823020

(Report of an exception to this principle)

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

(The actual text of the guidelines)

After edit: The submission title has been changed to match the original article title in this thread. I wonder if that will happen in the thread from last week I linked to in the link shown just above this P.S.
weak sauce. who let this guy on yc?
I'm also the actual maintainer of hg-git at this point, FWIW.
is he freeballing it? what about the underwear???
> Could I then sue the insurance company as well, for helping my tenant break the conditions of their lease?

The decision to break the conditions of the lease was solely your tenant's decision. Any sane insurance company will either verify the tenant's ability to rent out their place, or will void the contract if they discover later that the tenant did not have the legal right to rent out their place. Most likely, if the insurance is an online-type thing, the tenant will be certifying when they buy the policy that they have the legal ability to rent out their place.
Twitter admits editing offensive Trending Topics, plans more
The Secrets of Youtube Success
Thanks! I'll share some of my iPad UI designs on Forrst to see if I get any feedback - is that what it's for?
"Just because someplace costs $200k doesn't mean it costs $200k to rebuild from the ground up "

In Dallas (where I live), a structure usually costs much more to tear down and rebuild new than it is currently worth. For example, you might get a mortgage on a $250,000 10yo house here yet your insurance will be for $375,000 for that reason.
Either that – or Bing itself is getting blocked from spidering Google on these queries ;)
I needed new tires for my car, got a google ad for a new set of tires from a local place with a $100 rebate, got the tires, got my rebate the other day in the mail. Advertising just saved me $100, it's not ALL evil.
Extrapolating but I bet that language "$50,000 Airbnb Guarantee" allows them (airbnb) to buy "claims" insurance thus subverting the inherent issues around offering renters insurance to their market.

Brilliant move!
Surely the same way any insurance company does? This is well trodden ground.
I'm impressed. This goes beyond what was reasonable to expect, and goes a long way toward resolving the issue.

It's interesting that 1-15 August is now the only uncovered period. They should also let everyone cancel all reservations during that window without penalty, if they'd like.
I refreshed after reading your comment and the title had changed. Maybe the gremlins heard you, or maybe the automated system runs on a schedule.
They started putting in lots of continuous flow intersections in Utah:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous-flow_intersection
Maybe that's what's keeping me from immediately jumping in, too. But I can't imagine such a high profile startup with serious funding and such public statements would really be straight-up lying about this. And in light of the blog post, it seems likely to me that while their initial reaction was poor and, well, reactionary, they've scrambled not just to address the specific incident but to put systems into place that address the underlying causes.
No, we are not all like that. Fortunately. The author states:

"A bunch of new people started at work and we use a lot of Perl in our department. So I put together some information about Perl and I thought it might be worth sharing so here it is."

For that purpose, it is fine.
Http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&pubid=ra-4d673da14a1d2775
Really like the look and feel of the site, but as someone who dislikes gift cards in the first place, it seems like GiftRocket just makes the idea more cumbersome.
It looks like it's the report that has to be by August 1, i.e. they'll only cover past damage that has already been reported, before this announcement. Probably to cap their otherwise potentially unlimited liability for people "discovering" past damage after this policy was announced, while still expeditiously resolving any currently-open complaints. Then, starting August 15, they'll have a normal, forward-looking insurance program in place.
Add me / Follow me: http://forrst.com/people/bunsen

Looking for forrst friends!
I am currently using FreeMind [1]. I love the idea of exporting the mind maps to HTML. Here are some of my mind maps [2]
--

[1] http://freemind.sourceforge.net/

[2] http://www.vaibhavbajpai.com/mindmaps.html
Giving credit where credit is due, I think Mr. Chesky and Airbnb have done a good job here. Corporations aren't intrinsically ethical (by law) but start-ups are small enough that they can (a) afford to act human and (b) be held accountable by their customers in meaningful ways. This is why people like Airbnb and why they (myself included) were disappointed in the way the situation was handled. I loved reading Mr. Chesky's response and although this clearly changes things for Airbnb as a business, they are now a company I care to see succeed.
I'm just saying that somebody that immature is probably happy with himself that he caused such a big mess.
It's not a HN meetup group but there is the SB Hackerspace: http://sbhackerspace.posterous.com/
They have $112m. They can self-insure for as long as it takes to set it up.

I think they did a great job on this response, except that it took too long. Individual incidents should have been handled as exceptions and handled well, and then this policy developed and announced once they noticed a trend of such exceptions in their CRM (or in weekly support team meetings with the founders)
I know that the rules state the rule of thumb that one should not post explaining down-votes but I am curious about these, if an exception might be carved out. Looking at airbnb over the past week, and winding up with this recent move, I feel like I'm watching a slow-motion train wreck that is so predictable I can't imagine how they got to this state.

I'm also quite sincere, wearing my "engineering hat", at least as I understand it, that there are serious life-critical mistakes getting papered over here.
Ever hear the parable about the man in the arena?

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points
out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds
could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who
is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and
sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes
up short again and again, because there is no effort
without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great
enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a
worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the
triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he
fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his
place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who
knew neither victory nor defeat.

-- Teddy Roosevelt

Great to know that the potential for fraud "doesn't concern you that much". You'll post your comment and they'll still be here with the responsibility of running the company, without the ability to airily handwave away the issue.

Great to know also that you're interested in the legalities of the insurance. I guess they should have included citations to case law in a blog post.

> it turns out that when someone tries to verify it with
SFPD, the suspect isn't in custody (because they've been
extradited to another community)?

And how exactly is that under their control?

Some people are never satisfied. You appear to be one of them.
I've wondered this myself - what happens when ad blocking technology becomes integrated into mobile devices, or the general public starts to use it because the newest, shiniest browser now bundles it by default?
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It's not very hard to "invent" things if your sole reason for being is to copy entrepreneurs' work before they can afford to file, before they can afford to hire a lawyer, pay the USPTO an $8800 fee to ask for a review, and you've got only a short window (which you probably won't know about) to do so.

Look, we need real patent reform and this (even if you think it's only marginal) tilts things yet again in the wrong direction.
All true. I was just trying to brush all this stuff about conception, reduction to practice, diligence, etc. under the rug.
A story can't be killed if it has ten comments on it. You were one away. I asked a question that died with 61 points. But knowing that it only takes 10 flags to kill a story, I wouldn't be surprise to know that AirBnB has ten diehard supporters.
Nice touch on the footer: "Click here to sue, please." http://cl.ly/0L0p1l0J3j370m0o0N1w
Any chance of doing an internship? I'm doing my master's in maths in Berlin and have experience with development in Python and Clojure.
Not to make a "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" type argument, but I don't think it's Adwords being disrupted that you should worry about. As long as people use Google to search for things, particularly goods and services, Adwords will be an effective way for businesses of all sizes to reach their target audience at a perfect time (when they're actively searching for what you're selling) and the auction system adwords uses automatically helps maximize profits across different keywords/categories.

That being said, not sure what your investment goals are, but if you're looking for the long term I'd suggest something more along the lines of a few broad ETFs that cover a few different markets, rather than trying to place a bet on only a handful of high flying companies... basically, are you looking to invest or gamble? Either is ok, but they are different...

edit: seeing a couple other comments, I'll admit that adblocking being included automatically in a browser that gains dominant marketshare is something that would be terribly disruptive to a lot of businesses, google included. What's interesting there, is it would essentially destroy a tremendous amount of revenue for large and small companies across many industries without offsetting it with a new profit center. It wouldn't be like cars replacing carriages, it would be like teleporters you can assemble at home with $5 of drugstore components replacing the auto industry. I guess consumers would win, but they'd probably have to start paying for gmail and google maps access...
Granted, but this is a PR statement. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is "in the process of beginning to implement" stages, not "We were waiting to have everything fully functional before making a statement about it".

But that said, yes, good on them.

>>It would take most companies several months to even get close to this.

I think that if a company's ability to remain in business was dependent on getting this sort of infrastructure change in place, most would be able to pull it off. Pulling it off well is another question entirely, and I'm going to be interested to see what kind of service they provide in the next couple of months.
Do States Need Separate Schools for the Deaf?
I... I love you.
Not as useful as 'a'..'z', but the '..' operator works on strings, also. For example, 'aa'..'zz'.
Its seems that, based on the positive media reaction to this, AirBnB has done everything right from the start:

Everyone is piling on them for screwing up the initial reaction to EJ, by not going far enough in offering to help her. But AirBnB didn't do much to help Troy (from the TechCrunch post) 2 months ago, and that story didn't blow up in to a PR disaster. They simply gave him a few free nights and he was happy.

So, it is impossible to tell if any given customer support issue is a potential "PR-nightmare". If AirBnB had over-reacted and offered Troy thousands of dollars (as was being suggested for EJ), they would have lost out - because Troy was happy with just a few free nights in AirBnB credit. How were they supposed to know that EJ (1) wouldn't be happy with what Troy received (2) Would make a scathing blog post and (3) That blog post would go viral. They couldn't have.

So, if you are a wagering person, it seems like the best course of action is to do exactly what AirBnB did: offering minimal support and grow until something really bad happens. Then come out swinging with a big apology and a big offer of support and restitution.

Since it seems like the media and public are willing to forgive AirBnB (judging by the reaction to today's announcement), this course seems like it may have been optimal compared to over-helping people like Troy.

Put another way: PR distasters are recoverable if you say you are sorry and ask forgiveness. Being too careful upfront and limiting your growth curve is not forgivable.
Well done. The 50k guarantee and the 24 hour customer service are great features that needed to be there before, but at least they have them now. I wonder though if there's a bigger problem with how Airbnb views customers. EJ and the other guy shouldn't have faced such coldness from Airbnb. It just shows something is wrong. I hope that this "crisis" will help awake Airbnb to take customer service more seriously. Rather than hiring someone from Ebay, they should hire someone from Zappos to head their customer service. Actually, the whole leadership team from Airbnb should take a trip to Zappos and get some training.
How does one opt-out of the patent system? Isn't that like saying I opt-out of the US legal system, now I am free do do any drug I like because I don't recognize the US legal system as an authority? That doesn't seem to work.
Google power: 900,000 servers, uses 0.01% of world’s electricity
For once TechCrunch was able to facilitate a good cause.

There's a hefty chance that AirBnB wouldn't had responded like this if Arrington hadn't been on their back. It's only once TC started to report them rigorously, they started to _understand_ how lame their previous communication been.

Now all Arrington has to bin CatherinaFake-like posts and we have our old TC back on track.
And there it is. That thing that Airbnb could do to not only fix the problem, but turn it into a spectacular value add for relatively little cost to themselves, and something which absolutely cannot be matched by their competitors.

Well done.
I wasn't 100% clear with "cannot be enforced". I meant that the law enforcement has no tools to ensure the law won't be broken on a mass scale. Certainly not as long as we can exchange information in private and perhaps even not if this becomes illegal.
>>>It’s never too late to fix bad press with a straightforward, unconditional apology.

I'd debate that.

That said, given that the snail-news services like CNN have picked up on this fiasco, it'll be interesting to see if they also pick up on this follow-up, or if it's already outside of the news cycle and, as such, too late for an apology to anyone who follows CNN but not HN or Techcrunch.
Not sure you're going for type-in traffic, but that is a lot of i's and l's.
Mountain View, CA (Intern, Fulltime, H1B): Engineers, QA, PMs, Executive Assistants, Recruiters.

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Our CEO, Joe Lonsdale, is a founder of Palantir Technologies, which is known for revolutionizing technology deployed in intelligence, defense, and finance communities. In his early twenties, Joe helped to build a multi-billion dollar hedge fund, where he was one of the top traders. Our technical team is led by CTO Jason Mirra, and is composed of computer scientists from Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, and Carnegie Mellon. Addepar is supported and advised by a group of international billionaires, and some of the most respected Silicon Valley venture capitalists.

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We keep a beautifully stocked fridge, provide laundry service and catered meals. You’ll learn a lot about finance and best in class programming, and have an opportunity to own a significant piece of the company and product.
Doubt the cashmere & silk shirt is what he wears. It would go against his vegan beliefs. But overall it's kinda creepy...
Seeking Work - Remote/Freelance

Python/Django/jQuery, with extensive experience building e-commerce marketplaces. I have a research background, data analysis, playing around with NLP right now.

I run a django dev shop, currently taking gigs. Here's my portfolio:

http://www.sidmitra.com/portfolio.html

http://www.cloudshuffle.com/
Git seems to have moved beyond just the early adaptors: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/codeplex/archive/2011/07/11/survey-r...
From an engineering point of view, Netflix Instant already works on Linux as it is available on Android. So, the issue is not a technical one.

Moonlight (Mono Silverlight) has all the technical chops as well. The lack of DRM is what prevents that from being a solution. Also, I will note that Moonlight lacks a fair bit of polish.

So, the issue here is clearly the business strategy and not the technical know-how. The 12 month estimate is meaningless. If the Netflix CEO wanted a Linux client it would be available very quickly.

I have no doubt they are playing around with the DRM, or creating proof-of-concept builds using the various options, but it is not like we are waiting around for some small technology team to deliver it as a product.
we are covering all incidents retroactively, including EJ's and Troy's.
For me, bing only produces errors if you don't have any bing cookies initialized.

A presumption that bots wouldn't store+return cookies?
This page doesn't answer the posed question. It's actually something about SCM advocacy and adoption curves. The chart on the front page is much more informative.
I thought the post started well with the "we screwed up" tone. It sounded personal and felt sincere. However, along the way it shifted 180 degrees to a very cold business-centric approach.

Nonetheless, I think Airbnb is finally starting to have a clue on how to properly handle this crisis.

But what intrigued me the most in this whole thing was Michael Arrington's position on TechCrunch. He set this thing on fire, giving it a very aggressive kind of coverage. I wonder: will he now invest on Airbnb, as they're now supposedly going through another funding round? And if so, how much less will he have to pay for the same equity compared to 1 month ago? I'd like a little disclosure on that...
New: Hotel speedups, heatmap improvements, and better location searching
so they pivoted to insurance fraud detection?

[you can downvote this to your little gung-ho-yc heart's desire, but the problem won't go away as easily]
SV Angel and Start Fund invest $9 Million In New Y Combinator Startups
I agree - but isn't this then a huge out for Airbnb, in terms of reducing the number of people that will actually be covered under this? NY has its well-known laws that make most Airbnb listing contrary to State law, and in my lease (for example) it specifically says that I can't rent it out to people without the landlord's permission - which I think is similar to most boilerplate leases.

Given that, would all the damage to EJ's stuff even be covered by the policy?
True. I was just thinking of typical airbnb apartment rentals, where the property owner only owns the "walls-in" portion of the unit.
and why you should always uphold your values and trust your instincts

Just out of curiosity, why didn't you?
I'm not particularly a supporter of AirBnB.

I'm just a supporter of a crap-free HN. Thus, I flag stories that don't add anything new to the discussion. I know there are at least ten others like me...
There's a way to encode a protobuf schema in a protobuf message, making it possible to send self-describing messages (i.e. include a serialized schema before each message). I'm not sure if anyone actually does this. See http://code.google.com/apis/protocolbuffers/docs/techniques.... for details.
Note, the list is sorted by "sum paid - sum spent as % of gdp".. in the gross, it seems that NY tops it.
Bing seems to do refer[r]er and/or cookie checking. If I enter the search on www.bing.com or have a cookie from bing, a search for phpbb produces results, if I clear all all bing cookies and enter http://www.bing.com/search?q=phpbb in the location bar, I get the error.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_i...
Just like Yahoo (the established player at the time) bought Google out in the early 2000s, right? http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6071461-7.html

And then how Yahoo failed to compete with AdWords because of corporate politics, worries about existing revenue streams, etc.? http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.02/yahoo.html

Disruption doesn't only happen from a head-on challenge. Effective disruption is often not considered relevant until its way too late, and often couldn't be acquired even if seen. Consider how Craigslist destroyed the newspaper classifieds business, and that buying Craigslist would not have helped a newspaper at all.
The first witness EJ should be paid more than 50K for her lose since this is great learning for airbnb team and penalty for being late to media.

I also would recommend to charge/take little more for insurance to protect any loss like this.