I'm pretty sure they weren't because of the redundant conditionals which simply defy logic. If there was only one check for every if statement, honestly I could give this a pass since it's at the very least simple, but by adding one extra redundant check for every statement you just created 9 new places where a bug could appear.

Furthermore, using Unicode characters to represent progress is the true smell here. There simply are better ways to do this.

In the grand scheme of things, does it matter? No. But this is Hacker News LOL, someone has to discuss it.