6 ms·

Show HN: A Chrome extension to block users on Hacker News

37 points by morgante 11y ago

forgotmypassw 11y ago
Pretty neat, just yesterday I was wishing something like that existed, any chance for a Firefox port?
- morgante 11y ago
  I don't have any experience with writing Firefox plugins, but a port should be pretty easy to implement. All the logic is included in a simple JS file: https://github.com/morgante/hn_blocklist/blob/master/src/inject.js https://github.com/morgante/hn_blocklist/blob/master/src/inj...
scurvy 11y ago
Get this dissent away from me! I don't like seeing other's viewpoints. I've been told I can succeed at anything and that I'm a unique snowflake! Block all the "haters" preventing me from achieving ultimate upvotes. eyeroll
- xnxn 11y ago
  Thanks for the test comment. :-)
- airza 11y ago
  I am not sure why you believe that universally enduring the public's contribution to discourse is morally superior to not doing so, especially on a moderated message board.
  - Nadya 11y ago
    The act of self control and simply not responding is too much for some people I suppose... While there is a user I often wish I could block - and this addon gives me the opportunity to - they do occasionally offer good arguments and counterpoints. Just because I don't agree with their political views and am amazed with how frequently they display their cognitive dissonance does not mean I have nothing to learn from them, on the rare occasions. If I blocked them and silenced them entirely - I do myself a disservice. There are also many people who will try to respond to someone who may have blocked them long ago for some other comment, in which both may be at a disservice. Or perhaps a user's views have since changed but the blocker will never know, for they have blocked the user. These features do more harm than good - and merely increase the number of people living in their little bubbles, unwilling to interact with anyone who does not hold the same beliefs as them. We can debate the pros and cons of "living life in a bubble", but I find that people who think living in a bubble is perfectly acceptable are impossible to convince otherwise, because the thought that bubbles can be harmful itself is not part of their bubble so does not merit any further thought.
    - morgante 11y ago
      These are definitely good points and I considered them in the development of the extension. The biggest choice I made was not to hide blocked comments completely. They're still on the page, just collapsed, so if you see that a user has a comment with a lot of upvotes or interesting replies you can unblock them easily. The primary reason I made the plugin is because occasionally users will repeat the same point over and over throughout the comments of an article (in multiple subthreads). In such cases, I find it much less distracting to simply block them.
      - talmand 11y ago
        If that's how it works then I would say it doesn't fit the usual definition of a blocklist. I can't say what you would call it but it might go a long way to nullify some of the negativity of it being called a "blocklist". Anyway, congrats on getting your work out there.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Sometimes people are just outright jerks, and it's nothing to do with trying to ignore dissent. I don't really see it here, though.
- forgotmypassw 11y ago
  Well obviously you can ignore people completely and downvote as necessary but sometimes it's just better to not have to deal with their comments at all. I mean sure, some people aren't pro-censoring and that's fine, they don't have to - but some people prefer self-moderation to annoyances.
te_platt 11y ago
Well, I guess that's one way. Wouldn't it be easier to just not get too worked up about other people's comments?
- morgante 11y ago
  It's mostly to avoid getting dragged into pointless arguments: https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/
  - cheald 11y ago
    Rather than an approach like this, which can only serve to produce an echo-chamber effect, can I recommend the Hacker News Enhancement Suite for Chrome (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhancement-s/bappiabcodbpphnojdiaddhnilfnjmpm https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhanc...)? It remembers the upvotes and downvotes you cast per-user, which provides a very quick at-a-glance reminder of your past opinions of a given member's contributions, and allows you to make a more informed decision about whether or not to engage with them. This is coming from someone with showdead on, FWIW. I rather like seeing the things that others have deemed "not worth seeing".
    - morgante 11y ago
      > This is coming from someone with showdead on, FWIW. I rather like seeing the things that others have deemed "not worth seeing". FYI I also have "showdead" on and like the approach taken with Enhancement Suite. The biggest reason I had for writing this extension is when certain users spam a thread with their repetitive points. At that point, it's easiest to just block them. (Though blocking doesn't hide their comment completely, so it's easy to toggle people back on.)
      - cheald 11y ago
        I guess I haven't really encounted that. Blocking is something that I've always really reserved for spammers and the really blatant trolls, and those tend to be killed really quickly on HN as is. There are certainly commenters who don't contribute to a given discussion, but I personally think that the reaction of "block them so I never have to see them again!" is extreme and probably not really conducive to the spirit of community.
gravypod 11y ago
It's a funny trend in recent years that people are so offended by the opinions and ideas of others that they cannot bare to expose themselves to anything that person has to say. Discourse and logical thinking are the basis of modern society and all of it's afforded comforts. If the inventors of the past had coddled themselves in a hugbox for their entire lives we would still be saying things along the lines of "A train can never go more than 10 miles an hour", "there wont be a market for more than 10 computers in the world", and "you wont ever need more than 64k of ram" because there would have been no one who would have heard--or even said for that matter--"No!" If someone disagrees with you, just explain your points rationally and calmly. If it something you are passionate about, like the OP has pointed out in https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/, then isn't it worth the 15 minutes it will take to explain your viewpoint as I am doing here?
- rorykoehler 11y ago
  In the context of hacker news you're spot on however blocking rude ego-maniacs and bigots on facebook and other such platforms has improved the overall ux there for me.
- CJefferson 11y ago
  The problem is not those who say "A train can never go more than 10 miles an hour". The problem is (for example) the users who, on any story ever which mentioned women, trot out multiple posts on how women are actually the source of all problems in tech, and are oppressing men. There is also (in my experience) no point trying to have a discussion with such people. It gets tiring to read such posts, and after the first couple they provide no value. Why not skip them?
  - cheald 11y ago
    Well, for starters, they may have useful and valuable contributions on stories which aren't about the hotbutton issues on which you find their opinions disagreeable.
    - gravypod 11y ago
VLM 11y ago
Could be (mis)used for political censorship, the friend of my enemy is my enemy etc. Looking at recent events WRT OSCON blocking on twitter etc.
notNow 11y ago
Well that escalated quickly but I guess his extension might appeal to some of the infantile elements of this community.
pmelendez 11y ago
I would prefer an extension to follow users rather than block them.
NeutronBoy 11y ago
Nice extension, and I use something similar on Reddit. However, I feel on HN (given the tighter moderation standards), if a user comments and contributes to the discussion there shouldn't be a need to block them. If a comment is not contributing to the discussion, then flag it!
PopeOfNope 11y ago
It's an interesting approach at controlling the signal to noise ratio. Unfortunately, my experiments with that sort of thing over at reddit show me that blocking some people and "following" others isn't all that effective. People are dynamic. They have hot days and cold days, interesting days and not so interesting days. I've started looking into machine learning to see if I can train it to recognize what I consider a "good" post based on the word content of the post. I haven't gotten it to work yet. :P

37 points by morgante 11y ago

forgotmypassw 11y ago

Pretty neat, just yesterday I was wishing something like that existed, any chance for a Firefox port?

morgante 11y ago
I don't have any experience with writing Firefox plugins, but a port should be pretty easy to implement. All the logic is included in a simple JS file: https://github.com/morgante/hn_blocklist/blob/master/src/inject.js https://github.com/morgante/hn_blocklist/blob/master/src/inj...

scurvy 11y ago

Get this dissent away from me! I don't like seeing other's viewpoints. I've been told I can succeed at anything and that I'm a unique snowflake! Block all the "haters" preventing me from achieving ultimate upvotes. eyeroll

xnxn 11y ago
Thanks for the test comment. :-)
airza 11y ago
I am not sure why you believe that universally enduring the public's contribution to discourse is morally superior to not doing so, especially on a moderated message board.
- Nadya 11y ago
  The act of self control and simply not responding is too much for some people I suppose... While there is a user I often wish I could block - and this addon gives me the opportunity to - they do occasionally offer good arguments and counterpoints. Just because I don't agree with their political views and am amazed with how frequently they display their cognitive dissonance does not mean I have nothing to learn from them, on the rare occasions. If I blocked them and silenced them entirely - I do myself a disservice. There are also many people who will try to respond to someone who may have blocked them long ago for some other comment, in which both may be at a disservice. Or perhaps a user's views have since changed but the blocker will never know, for they have blocked the user. These features do more harm than good - and merely increase the number of people living in their little bubbles, unwilling to interact with anyone who does not hold the same beliefs as them. We can debate the pros and cons of "living life in a bubble", but I find that people who think living in a bubble is perfectly acceptable are impossible to convince otherwise, because the thought that bubbles can be harmful itself is not part of their bubble so does not merit any further thought.
  - morgante 11y ago
    These are definitely good points and I considered them in the development of the extension. The biggest choice I made was not to hide blocked comments completely. They're still on the page, just collapsed, so if you see that a user has a comment with a lot of upvotes or interesting replies you can unblock them easily. The primary reason I made the plugin is because occasionally users will repeat the same point over and over throughout the comments of an article (in multiple subthreads). In such cases, I find it much less distracting to simply block them.
    - talmand 11y ago
      If that's how it works then I would say it doesn't fit the usual definition of a blocklist. I can't say what you would call it but it might go a long way to nullify some of the negativity of it being called a "blocklist". Anyway, congrats on getting your work out there.
mikeash 11y ago
Sometimes people are just outright jerks, and it's nothing to do with trying to ignore dissent. I don't really see it here, though.
forgotmypassw 11y ago
Well obviously you can ignore people completely and downvote as necessary but sometimes it's just better to not have to deal with their comments at all. I mean sure, some people aren't pro-censoring and that's fine, they don't have to - but some people prefer self-moderation to annoyances.

te_platt 11y ago

Well, I guess that's one way. Wouldn't it be easier to just not get too worked up about other people's comments?

morgante 11y ago
It's mostly to avoid getting dragged into pointless arguments: https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/
- cheald 11y ago
  Rather than an approach like this, which can only serve to produce an echo-chamber effect, can I recommend the Hacker News Enhancement Suite for Chrome (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhancement-s/bappiabcodbpphnojdiaddhnilfnjmpm https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhanc...)? It remembers the upvotes and downvotes you cast per-user, which provides a very quick at-a-glance reminder of your past opinions of a given member's contributions, and allows you to make a more informed decision about whether or not to engage with them. This is coming from someone with showdead on, FWIW. I rather like seeing the things that others have deemed "not worth seeing".
  - morgante 11y ago
    > This is coming from someone with showdead on, FWIW. I rather like seeing the things that others have deemed "not worth seeing". FYI I also have "showdead" on and like the approach taken with Enhancement Suite. The biggest reason I had for writing this extension is when certain users spam a thread with their repetitive points. At that point, it's easiest to just block them. (Though blocking doesn't hide their comment completely, so it's easy to toggle people back on.)
    - cheald 11y ago
      I guess I haven't really encounted that. Blocking is something that I've always really reserved for spammers and the really blatant trolls, and those tend to be killed really quickly on HN as is. There are certainly commenters who don't contribute to a given discussion, but I personally think that the reaction of "block them so I never have to see them again!" is extreme and probably not really conducive to the spirit of community.

gravypod 11y ago

It's a funny trend in recent years that people are so offended by the opinions and ideas of others that they cannot bare to expose themselves to anything that person has to say. Discourse and logical thinking are the basis of modern society and all of it's afforded comforts. If the inventors of the past had coddled themselves in a hugbox for their entire lives we would still be saying things along the lines of "A train can never go more than 10 miles an hour", "there wont be a market for more than 10 computers in the world", and "you wont ever need more than 64k of ram" because there would have been no one who would have heard--or even said for that matter--"No!" If someone disagrees with you, just explain your points rationally and calmly. If it something you are passionate about, like the OP has pointed out in https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/, then isn't it worth the 15 minutes it will take to explain your viewpoint as I am doing here?

rorykoehler 11y ago
In the context of hacker news you're spot on however blocking rude ego-maniacs and bigots on facebook and other such platforms has improved the overall ux there for me.
CJefferson 11y ago
The problem is not those who say "A train can never go more than 10 miles an hour". The problem is (for example) the users who, on any story ever which mentioned women, trot out multiple posts on how women are actually the source of all problems in tech, and are oppressing men. There is also (in my experience) no point trying to have a discussion with such people. It gets tiring to read such posts, and after the first couple they provide no value. Why not skip them?
- cheald 11y ago
  Well, for starters, they may have useful and valuable contributions on stories which aren't about the hotbutton issues on which you find their opinions disagreeable.
  - gravypod 11y ago

VLM 11y ago

Could be (mis)used for political censorship, the friend of my enemy is my enemy etc. Looking at recent events WRT OSCON blocking on twitter etc.

notNow 11y ago

Well that escalated quickly but I guess his extension might appeal to some of the infantile elements of this community.

pmelendez 11y ago

I would prefer an extension to follow users rather than block them.

NeutronBoy 11y ago

Nice extension, and I use something similar on Reddit. However, I feel on HN (given the tighter moderation standards), if a user comments and contributes to the discussion there shouldn't be a need to block them. If a comment is not contributing to the discussion, then flag it!

PopeOfNope 11y ago

It's an interesting approach at controlling the signal to noise ratio. Unfortunately, my experiments with that sort of thing over at reddit show me that blocking some people and "following" others isn't all that effective. People are dynamic. They have hot days and cold days, interesting days and not so interesting days. I've started looking into machine learning to see if I can train it to recognize what I consider a "good" post based on the word content of the post. I haven't gotten it to work yet. :P