Copy&#x2F;Pasting my response from Reddit:<p>&gt; They did polarize opinion but overall I think people liked them<p>I was one of the people who called you out for your &quot;growth hacking,&quot; and this assessment is blatantly wrong.<p>For one thing, your original Apply HN submission had a linkbait title, which you admitted to (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11535928" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11535928</a>).<p>What you did later to polarize opinion was to <i>include an unnecessary link to your Apply HN submission</i> to each comment you made, which is Spam in HN&#x27;s rulebook. On the first comment you made (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11536407" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11536407</a>) (flagkilled), 3&#x2F;3 of the comments called you out as spamming.<p>On the second comment you made (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11537017" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11537017</a>), half the comments <i>still</i> told you to cut it out with the advertisements.<p>On the third comment you made (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11537818" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11537818</a>) which made it obvious you were ignoring the comments on the first two comments, I stepped in and told you were breaking HN rules, but you still did not edit out the advertising URL. A HN moderator eventually killed your comment.<p>These shenanigans most likely disqualified you from winning the YC fellowship, which counteracts your &quot;growth hacking is good&quot; sentiment. The results do not justify disregarding community sentiment.<p>---<p>OP replied on Reddit:<p>&gt; Hey man you can&#x27;t see the upvotes but I can, combined the 3 comments received more than 100 upvotes. People complaining = 10.<p>&gt; If it was against the rules I would have been banned, it was not. Anyway if you are suggesting I took advantage of a grey area to come up with a way to showcase my product, yes I did. When it was no longer gray I stopped. Community sentiment is subjective, even you admit half the people loved it but I have data to know it was way more than half. So sorry about your sentiments. I get your point but don&#x27;t know why you care so much about it.