4 ms·

Ive got a half baked project for a blog search engine that won’t index any pages with ads...

• yifanl 7y ago
  How do you define "ad"? Keep in mind that as soon as you do define it, people are going to look for a workaround.
  • bostik 7y ago
    > How do you define "ad"? Attempt to sell. Whether that's for an agenda, a product, a way of life, service, access, or anything else with a direct (or indirect) transaction of value - it's a dead giveaway.
    • yifanl 7y ago
      Is a recipe for my grandma's minestrone soup (which requires you to buy a specific brand of chicken stock) selling you something? Is a blogpost highlighting a particularly efficient way to write a tight loop selling you something? Is a plain white webpage selling you the benefits of that particular shade of white?
      • sincerely 7y ago
        No, no, no
      • bostik 7y ago
        I'll take your questions at face value. You are likely being downvoted for your use of an aggressive tone, but that's another matter. 1) Recipe for a good minestrone soup, no. Actively endorsing a specific brand of an ingredient, yes. 2) No. (One might argue you're building a brand and advertising yourself. I don't, necessarily. If the efficient loop was possible to create using only a particular compiler, then yes.) 3) Yes. The page is selling a particular idea, and most likely lying by accident. After all, how many screens have been calibrated for colour correction accuracy? Are you, as a reader, getting the correct information?
        • yifanl 7y ago
          Apologies for the brash tone. I take the view that making a value judgment on an idea is essentially selling that idea. i.e. "A is better than B" is clearly advocating for A, as is "A is good" I disagree with ads in general, but my problem is that blocking any form of endorsement as you suggested above would mean we can't transmit really any useful information. Obviously that means there's some acceptable level of endorsement... but that goes back to the problem of having a game-able filter.
          • bostik 7y ago
            Don't worry, I am well aware that my answer came off as snarky and brash so a similarly phrased response should not have been unexpected. And I know that my position is extreme. Even with the overall attitude change over the past 6-8 years about advertising[ß] my views are still outside the mainstream. This is a personal opinion, but I believe you can do endorsements without falling into advertising trap. It takes effort, because you need to quantify your reasons of choosing a particular option (or a set of options) over the remaining ones. You need to specify the reasons, be painfully aware of and outline your own biases, and be willing to acknowledge the tradeoffs in your stated choice. Obviously, if you are externally incentivised to make a particular choice before you broadcast about it, that's an ad. As one may imagine, I absolutely detest the entire influencer phenomenon - to the point of treating any product or service using them as bad actors perpetuating a disgusting system. ß: Back in 2011/2012 HN was, in general, very pro-advertising. A lot of the [vocal] posters made their money on it or dealt with large advertising budgets on a daily basis. Ad block users were derided as parasites or thieves. Anyone questioning the common good was pushed away. Compare to the tone shift over the past couple of years and the difference is stark.
    • PaulHoule 7y ago
      Many of the worst mind-polluting ads aren't trying to sell anything explicitly. For instance ads that talk about what an innovative and young company GE is, or how ADM is Supermarket to the World, etc. PSAs also often fit into the same category.
  • _0ffh 7y ago
    I suppose banning everything that pulls in stuff from any of the big ad-pushing companies would be quite a good start. You could probably even use existing open source ad-blocker blacklists. The only workaround from the top of my head is self-hosting advertisements, and there's a reason why this is not the norm.
    • pcmaffey 7y ago
      Yes, using an ad-blocker list is exactly what I was planning. Would then blacklist from the index any sites that serve ads. Would prolly also at a minimum, heavily penalize affiliate links.
      • _0ffh 7y ago
        Sounds like a worthwhile project to me! Don't forget to show HN in case you go ahead with it! ;-)
  • willismichael 7y ago
    Well, there will only be a major effort to find a workaround if it goes mainstream.