4 ms·

This is something I've been meaning to do for like 20 years. Install the plugin and you can comment on any DOM element on the Internet. YouTube comments disab

This is something I've been meaning to do for like 20 years. Install the plugin and you can comment on any DOM element on the Internet. YouTube comments disabled? Comment anyway. Dislike an ad? Comment on it. Banned from Reddit? Reply anyway!

EA-3167 3y ago
Unless millions of people install the plugin, that sort of thing would more or less have the same impact as making those comments out loud in an empty room.
- meepmorp 3y ago
  Plus, ranting to yourself doesn't increase the attack surface of your browser.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    Now that's a very good point, at least unless you have some fancy AI system that turns ranting into terrible cod- oh that's ChatGPT.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- jabroni_salad 3y ago
  I think you'd be surprised how much reach a small niche community can have. Homestucks used to basically own an extension that let you doodle on pages. Even other webcomics ended up with homestuck doodles instead of their own. could not have been more than a couple hundred users but I ran across those things everywhere I went.
- roywiggins 3y ago
  This idea has been done a few times I think and it always has the "empty room" problem. I'd also submit that it doesn't solve the moderation problem either, just pushes it to another entity, which can either 1) choose not to moderate, which will drive anyone off who doesn't enjoy having the worst comments being littered everywhere they browse, or 2) choose to moderate, except now they're trying to moderate something the size of the entire web.
- xnx 3y ago
  Could bootstrap the process by aggregating/summarizing existing comments/sentiment from around the web. This is much more feasible in the era of LLMs.
tuukkah 3y ago
Hypothesis might come closest: https://web.hypothes.is/ https://web.hypothes.is/
thinkling 3y ago
To make it work, for each page I visit the plug-in will make a request to your server to load comments. That means you're getting a full record of where I go on the web. Huge privacy issue. Chances of me installing such a plug-in: 0.000. Maybe it's possible to come up with some architecture that anonymizes the requests using a hash of the URL+XPATH and some proxies; not obvious to me offhand.
- jrockway 3y ago
  Maybe we could store the comments in IPFS or something. You don't want to be tracked, and I don't want to host the ASCII art CSAM that some jackass will probably upload.
- xnx 3y ago
  Definitely not for everyone, but you might be surprised what extensions people install just for the chance of getting a coupon (often expired or invalid) for random ecommerce sites.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  Don't send every url, click a button to check for comments in urls you are interested in and aren't worried about anonymity on. If you are leaving "likes" or a comment anyway you are revealing you are at least aware of that url in the first place.
- paradox460 3y ago
  Could do it similar to how sponsorblock works, where it sends a hash that returns a pool of videos, and the extension then filters down to the one that you're actually looking at, locally
roywiggins 3y ago
Collaborative web annotation extensions have been done, they've never taken off. Now that mobile has eaten the web it seems even less likely that the idea could work.
- moritzwarhier 3y ago
  I'd love for one to take off. You might be right that they wouldn't take off even if they would work really well. But I'd like to think they could :) With a good UI, a frictionless login, clear personal data separation and a sufficiently widespread browser extension platform available on mobile, this would be awesome... Maybe Safari would be a good first target with their WebExtension support. There is of course also the technical problem of dynamic rendering and unpredictable DOM structure. And the whole problem of reaching a social media user base and providing valuable interaction tools to them. Especially when considering ads, the main question is how to locate these DOM elements — for example, the filter lists shipped with uBlock origin do a great job here. I'm wondering if maybe having more flexible locators available could help identify DOM subtrees by their content instead of a CSS selector. Similar to the ones available in e2e testing frameworks, but maybe even more powerful things could be conceived, or matching snapshots etc... Could certainly imagine this taking off, but imagination is not reality :)
  - roywiggins 3y ago
    I will posit that the main problem with the idea is that when I'm browsing some page I probably don't want to see comments from all the people that have been banned from that page, or who couldn't be bothered to make an account. If I like a page I probably agree with their moderation decisions more than not, and being able to browse a big pile of rejected comments doesn't interest me at all. And even if there are people there commenting just because it's easier than making an account, that's going to facilitate very low-effort drive-by comments from people who are coming from somewhere else on the web. And if people want to talk about some page that doesn't have comments, that's what Twitter and Reddit, historically, are for. The hard parts are not technical, they're social.
- handsclean 3y ago
emporas 3y ago
You need a way to track the sequence of comments. Not the comments, but the sequence of them, in a sha form. Some kind of ledger is the first thing that comes to mind.
- WithinReason 3y ago
  Just don't say the bad word
- edgyquant 3y ago
  Some kind of square shaped rope data structure
blarg1 3y ago
I remember gab did this for web pages but google/mozilla banned the browser extension for some reason. I always thought it was a cool idea to be able to see comments left by other people though.
archagon 3y ago
Without moderation, it would quickly become a shit show once some user threshold is reached. (Prerequisite: company offering moderation-as-a-service?)

EA-3167 3y ago

Unless millions of people install the plugin, that sort of thing would more or less have the same impact as making those comments out loud in an empty room.

meepmorp 3y ago
Plus, ranting to yourself doesn't increase the attack surface of your browser.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  Now that's a very good point, at least unless you have some fancy AI system that turns ranting into terrible cod- oh that's ChatGPT.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
jabroni_salad 3y ago
I think you'd be surprised how much reach a small niche community can have. Homestucks used to basically own an extension that let you doodle on pages. Even other webcomics ended up with homestuck doodles instead of their own. could not have been more than a couple hundred users but I ran across those things everywhere I went.
roywiggins 3y ago
This idea has been done a few times I think and it always has the "empty room" problem. I'd also submit that it doesn't solve the moderation problem either, just pushes it to another entity, which can either 1) choose not to moderate, which will drive anyone off who doesn't enjoy having the worst comments being littered everywhere they browse, or 2) choose to moderate, except now they're trying to moderate something the size of the entire web.
xnx 3y ago
Could bootstrap the process by aggregating/summarizing existing comments/sentiment from around the web. This is much more feasible in the era of LLMs.

tuukkah 3y ago

Hypothesis might come closest: https://web.hypothes.is/ https://web.hypothes.is/

thinkling 3y ago

To make it work, for each page I visit the plug-in will make a request to your server to load comments. That means you're getting a full record of where I go on the web. Huge privacy issue. Chances of me installing such a plug-in: 0.000. Maybe it's possible to come up with some architecture that anonymizes the requests using a hash of the URL+XPATH and some proxies; not obvious to me offhand.

jrockway 3y ago
Maybe we could store the comments in IPFS or something. You don't want to be tracked, and I don't want to host the ASCII art CSAM that some jackass will probably upload.
xnx 3y ago
Definitely not for everyone, but you might be surprised what extensions people install just for the chance of getting a coupon (often expired or invalid) for random ecommerce sites.
willcipriano 3y ago
Don't send every url, click a button to check for comments in urls you are interested in and aren't worried about anonymity on. If you are leaving "likes" or a comment anyway you are revealing you are at least aware of that url in the first place.
paradox460 3y ago
Could do it similar to how sponsorblock works, where it sends a hash that returns a pool of videos, and the extension then filters down to the one that you're actually looking at, locally

roywiggins 3y ago

Collaborative web annotation extensions have been done, they've never taken off. Now that mobile has eaten the web it seems even less likely that the idea could work.

moritzwarhier 3y ago
I'd love for one to take off. You might be right that they wouldn't take off even if they would work really well. But I'd like to think they could :) With a good UI, a frictionless login, clear personal data separation and a sufficiently widespread browser extension platform available on mobile, this would be awesome... Maybe Safari would be a good first target with their WebExtension support. There is of course also the technical problem of dynamic rendering and unpredictable DOM structure. And the whole problem of reaching a social media user base and providing valuable interaction tools to them. Especially when considering ads, the main question is how to locate these DOM elements — for example, the filter lists shipped with uBlock origin do a great job here. I'm wondering if maybe having more flexible locators available could help identify DOM subtrees by their content instead of a CSS selector. Similar to the ones available in e2e testing frameworks, but maybe even more powerful things could be conceived, or matching snapshots etc... Could certainly imagine this taking off, but imagination is not reality :)
- roywiggins 3y ago
  I will posit that the main problem with the idea is that when I'm browsing some page I probably don't want to see comments from all the people that have been banned from that page, or who couldn't be bothered to make an account. If I like a page I probably agree with their moderation decisions more than not, and being able to browse a big pile of rejected comments doesn't interest me at all. And even if there are people there commenting just because it's easier than making an account, that's going to facilitate very low-effort drive-by comments from people who are coming from somewhere else on the web. And if people want to talk about some page that doesn't have comments, that's what Twitter and Reddit, historically, are for. The hard parts are not technical, they're social.
handsclean 3y ago

emporas 3y ago

You need a way to track the sequence of comments. Not the comments, but the sequence of them, in a sha form. Some kind of ledger is the first thing that comes to mind.

WithinReason 3y ago
Just don't say the bad word
edgyquant 3y ago
Some kind of square shaped rope data structure

blarg1 3y ago

I remember gab did this for web pages but google/mozilla banned the browser extension for some reason. I always thought it was a cool idea to be able to see comments left by other people though.

archagon 3y ago

Without moderation, it would quickly become a shit show once some user threshold is reached. (Prerequisite: company offering moderation-as-a-service?)