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I've said it before, but it's notoriously hard to determine which comments will be downvoted and which will be upvoted. I have seen almost the exact same sentim
by ue_ 9y ago
I've said it before, but it's notoriously hard to determine which comments will be downvoted and which will be upvoted. I have seen almost the exact same sentiment on HN before (edit: upvoted, floating near the top of the thread), and it is very irritating when you try to contribute only to have someone out of an elite group of 500+ point people click that little button to grey out your comment.
Downvoting isn't helpful, it's a dirty little feature implemented to police certain opinions, usually via chilling effect. I upvoted GP.
- wolco 9y agoThe greyed out comments stand out because they look different. They are usually the comments that get my attention.
- fapjacks 9y agoI use a homegrown browser extension I call "Anti-HN B.S." -- which ostensibly stands for "behavior shaping" -- which completely removes my point score and all comment greying from all posts. This has helped me to express opinions here which I know are controversial and suspect will be downvoted. I also find that I am much more thoughtful when approaching comments generally when there is no downvote association.
- Mz 9y agoIs there a link available to this extension where it can be downloaded? (Not that I am in a position to use it personally at the moment, but I would be happy to post it on my blog on the theory that someday I might use it, and, in the mean time, others might find it of interest.)
- fapjacks 9y agoHello! I've gone ahead and uploaded the source to Github [0]. For anybody that needs instructions: Just clone it somewhere, visit chrome://extensions in your Chrome-based browser, click the "Enable developer mode" checkbox, then "Load unpacked extension" and select the "antihnbs" directory where you cloned it. [0] https://github.com/fapjacks/antihnbs https://github.com/fapjacks/antihnbs
- Mz 9y agohttp://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/p/hn-tools.html http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/p/hn-tools.html It is now listed down below "Useful HN-related tools."
- ben_jones 9y agoWould you care to open source it? I'd be happy to clean it up a bit in my free time. I often find myself obsessing over small things in communities I view highly, such as HN, and would benefit a lot from it.
- fapjacks 9y agoHello, please see the sibling comment for a link. No cleaning necessary! It's so small I can't even realistically call it a pile of ugly hacks. It's just a three-line... Non-hack? :)