7 ms·

I've always wished there was a "block comments from this user" feature that didn't rely on vibe-coding my own Chrome extension (and thus not work on Safari wher

by rd 9mo ago

I've always wished there was a "block comments from this user" feature that didn't rely on vibe-coding my own Chrome extension (and thus not work on Safari where I spent at least 50% of my HN time). I imagine it could even work like Sponsorblock does, and we could crowdsource people who's comments are inflammatory. I've also noticed that very obviously LLM-generated comments are called out, and the community tends to agree, but those that have any plausible deniability are given far too much leniency, and people will over-index on the guidelines to give them the benefit of the doubt. I don't think a captcha is the solution, as it'll degrade conversation by an OOM though.

ada0000 9mo ago
+1. even blocking keywords could be nice, e.g. i don’t use AI for coding and don’t care much for news about claude code. captcha would make it more of a hassle to post comments.
elashri 9mo ago
I have a userscript that takes a list of keywords, domains and user names on HN. I host the json file containing the list on git instance and I use userscript plugin on iOS safari which would support this userscript. This is the lowest friction solution I found that would work on different devices. I find HN much more tolerable this way.
SockThief 9mo ago
That kind of feature would be welcome. Blocking domains would be nice too. Like substack or medium. I'm happy to just ignore them, but it sure would be nice to filter them out if possible. I get that it's complicating the system and keeping it simple is perhaps for the best.
- ghssds 9mo ago
  Try Glider on F-Droid.
  - SockThief 9mo ago
    Great app! Thank you. Anything you know that could help me on PC?
- Baljhin 8mo ago
  There's a userscript called 'HN Blacklist' that's existed for quite a few years, does what OP and others are asking for-- can hide/filter content from users, titles and domain sources {this was actually a request I submitted to the developer}: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43282379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43282379
tptacek 9mo ago
This is an anti-goal for HN. There are forums that silo themselves in various ways. HN is an experiment in how far you can get without any of those kinds of features, with a single global pool of conversations and participants. That's not to say there's no value in siloing, just that it's specifically not what HN is exploring.
- lagniappe 9mo ago
  >There are forums that silo themselves in various ways. HN is an experiment in how far you can get without any of those kinds of features, Normally I'd agree, but we have shadowbans, which really irks me.
  - tptacek 9mo ago
    Only for actual bad actors --- spammers, overt griefers, and people evading bans. A lot of HN's shadowban rep comes from Paul Graham's stewardship of the site (this whole site was a side-hustle of a side-hustle for him) and ignores over a decade of Dan's work professionalizing it. Almost everyone banned on HN is banned publicly, with a public message explaining why.
    - lagniappe 9mo ago
      >Almost everyone banned on HN is banned publicly, with a public message explaining why. I would love for this to be the case, however I quite extensively investigate this phenomenon and this does not match what I've seen. I'd like for us to be better than shadowbans. In some cases, I don't even get to vouch, it's just a comment that is banned-banned. It feels the worst when they're saying something substantive to the conversation and we have no means to surface the comment. Some type of annual amnesty consideration or something of that nature is in order, or soon we'll recreate other echo chambers that are slowly fading out.
      - tptacek 9mo ago
        Every time I've looked into it, when you see suddenly and without reason ban-banned after a string of real comments, the backstory has been that it's someone with a track record under other usernames. At some point, no matter what HN does, being comfortable with its moderation requires you to take Dan's word for things. I take his word for it on shadowbans. Ironically, I'm irritated with moderation in the other direction: ten years of "if you keep breaking the guidelines under alternate accounts, we'll ban your real account" sort of makes my blood boil (people having long-running alts does that too), but I roll with it, because I couldn't do the job better than Dan and Tom do.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
ktallett 9mo ago
Do we have any users here that have such controversial or meme esque opnions that require blocking every single one?
- pamcake 9mo ago
  Spammers plastering /new with self-promotion posts is a thing and filtering those out would be useful. I don't see how more CAPTCHAs would improve the over-all situation, on the other hand. On the more benign side, maybe some people enjoy the musings of amichail on Ask but I could honestly do without.
- krapp 9mo ago
  There are a few users who, when you see their name in certain contexts (usually politics) you just know that comment chain going to turn into a train wreck. I'm not going to name names but anyone who's been here long enough could probably guess a few repeat offenders. But mostly in my experience it's otherwise perfectly normal users who at some point just decide to post something racist or bigoted, advocate violence (again, usually in political threads) or antisemitism or espouse some insane conspiracy theory nonsense. At that point I no longer care about anything else they might have to say.
ibejoeb 9mo ago
I don't see a many habitual problem accounts. Do you? I guess there was the arguably special case of a certain OS enthusiast...
- pepperball 9mo ago
  > I don't see a many habitual problem accounts. It’s usually old/high karma accounts, as they can get away with it easier
- pepperball 9mo ago
  > I don't see a many habitual problem accounts. It’s usually old/high karma accounts, as they can get away with it easier. Throwaways that establish themselves for a time too, but those are usually dealt with eventually
- tomashubelbauer 9mo ago
  An account doesn't have to be problematic for you to not want to see their comments. I have several handles in mind where I'd add them to such a list if it were a feature. Nothing against the people in particular, but sometimes when I see a handle (like others said, very often old accounts with high karma), I already know what they will go on about merely just based off the title of the submission and having unintentionally gleaned what topics they usually comment on just by being on HN for a while. It's a waste of time to read those comments, at least for me. Wouldn't hurt them if they lost my attention. I am not bothered by it enough to vibe code a browser extension for it, though. That threshold is a bit higher, I did it for blocking certain domains; there is only so many times I can sit through an article or an "essay" which should have been a podcast.
  - tptacek 9mo ago
    I disagree and would be hurt to lose your attention.
xnx 9mo ago
Not sure what extensions work in Safari, but I think I used this one for awhile in Chrome: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10005699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10005699 / https://github.com/morgante/hn_blocklist https://github.com/morgante/hn_blocklist
- al_borland 9mo ago
  The problem with extensions on Safari is that they now need to go through the App Store. So you can’t just code it up and run it. It would require signing up for a developer account, paying $99/year, and all of that stuff. You can run temporary unsigned extensions for development purposes, but they are removed after 24 hours or whenever you quit Safari, which would make using it daily a non-starter.
notherhack 9mo ago
That extension already exists and works well. “Comments Owl for Hacker News”
swat535 9mo ago
I don't think that kind of feature would be useful for HN. The one thing I like about this place is that it's well moderated and you have shared opposing view points engaging (mostly) respectfully. My personal and political views couldn't be further from most HN users (I'm both a Conservative _and_ a practicing Christian), yet I appreciate taking part in various discussion. I enjoy reading about point of views that directly challenge mine. Let's keep HN respectful and accessible.
- subsection1h 9mo ago
  > I'm both a Conservative _and_ a practicing Christian But unlike most HN users who label themselves conservative Christians, you've never suggested that climate change is a hoax: https://hn.algolia.com/?type=all&query=author:swat535+climate https://hn.algolia.com/?type=all&query=author:swat535+climat... I don't ever want to consume information from people who are so illiterate that they believe that scientists all over the world, in fields ranging from geoscience to statistics, are participating in some kind of global conspiracy, regardless of how respectful these commenters are. I block these people immediately after they reveal themselves.
  - Kim_Bruning 9mo ago
    People don't represent groups. They represent themselves. Swat535 gets to define what being a conservative Christian means through their own words and actions, not serve as contrast to stereotypes about others.
- Kim_Bruning 9mo ago
  I don't know. Depending on what kind of conservative (and from where) and what kind of christian (and from where), you might be very much closer to a lot of HN people than you might think. If your view is that we should conserve western values and institutions and walk in the footsteps of Christ, ultimately that's not too far from universal human values that many people do in fact agree with. The devil is in the details, of course.
dpifke 9mo ago
I use uBlock Origin for this, something like: news.ycombinator.com##:matches-path(/^/item\?id=/) tr a.hnuser:has-text(/^dpifke$/):upward(tr) This mostly works, but only kills the user's comments and not replies, so it sometimes can be confusing.
- subsection1h 9mo ago
  Here's another implementation: news.ycombinator.com##.default:has(a[href="user?id=dpifke"]) .comment
Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
> I imagine it could even work like Sponsorblock does, and we could crowdsource people who's comments are inflammatory Let's discuss how to make this reality. Do you want a ranking system where more the people downvote some person, the better? if so how do you prevent spam in that, do you take metrics like karma or what exactly? I don't think that captcha is a solution either but also that I don't know how to feel about removing entire swaths of people, I can think someone writing something bad once and probably get into this "black-list" Another aspect is once again the black list, I don't know but do we really need a system of essentially a communal ban? The only thing I can see it reasonable is if there is a slop bot comment poster but I rarely face this issue but if you do, you can probably create a tampermonkey script and tampermonkey scripts work on chrome,firefox and "Userscripts" which should work on safari as well and that script is most likely gonna be compatible on both tampermonkey and userscripts.
stock_toaster 9mo ago
One problem with this is it often leads to a missing stair[1] syndrome for new users not knowing whom to block and finding the place overall too toxic. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair
Bender 9mo ago
I've always wished there was a "block comments from this user" In uBlock Origin -> My Filters: news.ycombinator.com##tr.athing.comtr:has(a.hnuser):has-text(/\bUsername\b/)
SomeUserName432 9mo ago
A whole extension? Seems like something any custom-css/custom-js plugin can handle. Stylus, or those monkey extensions. .hnuser attr=href=?user?id=rd .parent().parent().hide() Though no idea if such a plugin exists for Safari.
tempodox 9mo ago
Comments Owl for Hacker News has a block-this-user feature. Available for the major browsers. https://github.com/insin/comments-owl-for-hacker-news/releases https://github.com/insin/comments-owl-for-hacker-news/releas...

by rd 9mo ago

ada0000 9mo ago

+1. even blocking keywords could be nice, e.g. i don’t use AI for coding and don’t care much for news about claude code. captcha would make it more of a hassle to post comments.

elashri 9mo ago

I have a userscript that takes a list of keywords, domains and user names on HN. I host the json file containing the list on git instance and I use userscript plugin on iOS safari which would support this userscript. This is the lowest friction solution I found that would work on different devices. I find HN much more tolerable this way.

SockThief 9mo ago

That kind of feature would be welcome. Blocking domains would be nice too. Like substack or medium. I'm happy to just ignore them, but it sure would be nice to filter them out if possible. I get that it's complicating the system and keeping it simple is perhaps for the best.

ghssds 9mo ago
Try Glider on F-Droid.
- SockThief 9mo ago
  Great app! Thank you. Anything you know that could help me on PC?
Baljhin 8mo ago
There's a userscript called 'HN Blacklist' that's existed for quite a few years, does what OP and others are asking for-- can hide/filter content from users, titles and domain sources {this was actually a request I submitted to the developer}: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43282379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43282379

tptacek 9mo ago

This is an anti-goal for HN. There are forums that silo themselves in various ways. HN is an experiment in how far you can get without any of those kinds of features, with a single global pool of conversations and participants. That's not to say there's no value in siloing, just that it's specifically not what HN is exploring.

lagniappe 9mo ago
>There are forums that silo themselves in various ways. HN is an experiment in how far you can get without any of those kinds of features, Normally I'd agree, but we have shadowbans, which really irks me.
- tptacek 9mo ago
  Only for actual bad actors --- spammers, overt griefers, and people evading bans. A lot of HN's shadowban rep comes from Paul Graham's stewardship of the site (this whole site was a side-hustle of a side-hustle for him) and ignores over a decade of Dan's work professionalizing it. Almost everyone banned on HN is banned publicly, with a public message explaining why.
  - lagniappe 9mo ago
    >Almost everyone banned on HN is banned publicly, with a public message explaining why. I would love for this to be the case, however I quite extensively investigate this phenomenon and this does not match what I've seen. I'd like for us to be better than shadowbans. In some cases, I don't even get to vouch, it's just a comment that is banned-banned. It feels the worst when they're saying something substantive to the conversation and we have no means to surface the comment. Some type of annual amnesty consideration or something of that nature is in order, or soon we'll recreate other echo chambers that are slowly fading out.
    - tptacek 9mo ago
      Every time I've looked into it, when you see suddenly and without reason ban-banned after a string of real comments, the backstory has been that it's someone with a track record under other usernames. At some point, no matter what HN does, being comfortable with its moderation requires you to take Dan's word for things. I take his word for it on shadowbans. Ironically, I'm irritated with moderation in the other direction: ten years of "if you keep breaking the guidelines under alternate accounts, we'll ban your real account" sort of makes my blood boil (people having long-running alts does that too), but I roll with it, because I couldn't do the job better than Dan and Tom do.

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

ktallett 9mo ago

Do we have any users here that have such controversial or meme esque opnions that require blocking every single one?

pamcake 9mo ago
Spammers plastering /new with self-promotion posts is a thing and filtering those out would be useful. I don't see how more CAPTCHAs would improve the over-all situation, on the other hand. On the more benign side, maybe some people enjoy the musings of amichail on Ask but I could honestly do without.
krapp 9mo ago
There are a few users who, when you see their name in certain contexts (usually politics) you just know that comment chain going to turn into a train wreck. I'm not going to name names but anyone who's been here long enough could probably guess a few repeat offenders. But mostly in my experience it's otherwise perfectly normal users who at some point just decide to post something racist or bigoted, advocate violence (again, usually in political threads) or antisemitism or espouse some insane conspiracy theory nonsense. At that point I no longer care about anything else they might have to say.

ibejoeb 9mo ago

I don't see a many habitual problem accounts. Do you? I guess there was the arguably special case of a certain OS enthusiast...

pepperball 9mo ago
> I don't see a many habitual problem accounts. It’s usually old/high karma accounts, as they can get away with it easier
pepperball 9mo ago
> I don't see a many habitual problem accounts. It’s usually old/high karma accounts, as they can get away with it easier. Throwaways that establish themselves for a time too, but those are usually dealt with eventually
tomashubelbauer 9mo ago
An account doesn't have to be problematic for you to not want to see their comments. I have several handles in mind where I'd add them to such a list if it were a feature. Nothing against the people in particular, but sometimes when I see a handle (like others said, very often old accounts with high karma), I already know what they will go on about merely just based off the title of the submission and having unintentionally gleaned what topics they usually comment on just by being on HN for a while. It's a waste of time to read those comments, at least for me. Wouldn't hurt them if they lost my attention. I am not bothered by it enough to vibe code a browser extension for it, though. That threshold is a bit higher, I did it for blocking certain domains; there is only so many times I can sit through an article or an "essay" which should have been a podcast.
- tptacek 9mo ago
  I disagree and would be hurt to lose your attention.

xnx 9mo ago

Not sure what extensions work in Safari, but I think I used this one for awhile in Chrome: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10005699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10005699 / https://github.com/morgante/hn_blocklist https://github.com/morgante/hn_blocklist

al_borland 9mo ago
The problem with extensions on Safari is that they now need to go through the App Store. So you can’t just code it up and run it. It would require signing up for a developer account, paying $99/year, and all of that stuff. You can run temporary unsigned extensions for development purposes, but they are removed after 24 hours or whenever you quit Safari, which would make using it daily a non-starter.

notherhack 9mo ago

That extension already exists and works well. “Comments Owl for Hacker News”

swat535 9mo ago

I don't think that kind of feature would be useful for HN. The one thing I like about this place is that it's well moderated and you have shared opposing view points engaging (mostly) respectfully. My personal and political views couldn't be further from most HN users (I'm both a Conservative _and_ a practicing Christian), yet I appreciate taking part in various discussion. I enjoy reading about point of views that directly challenge mine. Let's keep HN respectful and accessible.

subsection1h 9mo ago
> I'm both a Conservative _and_ a practicing Christian But unlike most HN users who label themselves conservative Christians, you've never suggested that climate change is a hoax: https://hn.algolia.com/?type=all&query=author:swat535+climate https://hn.algolia.com/?type=all&query=author:swat535+climat... I don't ever want to consume information from people who are so illiterate that they believe that scientists all over the world, in fields ranging from geoscience to statistics, are participating in some kind of global conspiracy, regardless of how respectful these commenters are. I block these people immediately after they reveal themselves.
- Kim_Bruning 9mo ago
  People don't represent groups. They represent themselves. Swat535 gets to define what being a conservative Christian means through their own words and actions, not serve as contrast to stereotypes about others.
Kim_Bruning 9mo ago
I don't know. Depending on what kind of conservative (and from where) and what kind of christian (and from where), you might be very much closer to a lot of HN people than you might think. If your view is that we should conserve western values and institutions and walk in the footsteps of Christ, ultimately that's not too far from universal human values that many people do in fact agree with. The devil is in the details, of course.

dpifke 9mo ago

I use uBlock Origin for this, something like: news.ycombinator.com##:matches-path(/^/item\?id=/) tr a.hnuser:has-text(/^dpifke$/):upward(tr) This mostly works, but only kills the user's comments and not replies, so it sometimes can be confusing.

subsection1h 9mo ago
Here's another implementation: news.ycombinator.com##.default:has(a[href="user?id=dpifke"]) .comment

Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago

> I imagine it could even work like Sponsorblock does, and we could crowdsource people who's comments are inflammatory Let's discuss how to make this reality. Do you want a ranking system where more the people downvote some person, the better? if so how do you prevent spam in that, do you take metrics like karma or what exactly? I don't think that captcha is a solution either but also that I don't know how to feel about removing entire swaths of people, I can think someone writing something bad once and probably get into this "black-list" Another aspect is once again the black list, I don't know but do we really need a system of essentially a communal ban? The only thing I can see it reasonable is if there is a slop bot comment poster but I rarely face this issue but if you do, you can probably create a tampermonkey script and tampermonkey scripts work on chrome,firefox and "Userscripts" which should work on safari as well and that script is most likely gonna be compatible on both tampermonkey and userscripts.

stock_toaster 9mo ago

One problem with this is it often leads to a missing stair[1] syndrome for new users not knowing whom to block and finding the place overall too toxic. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair

Bender 9mo ago

I've always wished there was a "block comments from this user" In uBlock Origin -> My Filters: news.ycombinator.com##tr.athing.comtr:has(a.hnuser):has-text(/\bUsername\b/)

SomeUserName432 9mo ago

A whole extension? Seems like something any custom-css/custom-js plugin can handle. Stylus, or those monkey extensions. .hnuser attr=href=?user?id=rd .parent().parent().hide() Though no idea if such a plugin exists for Safari.

tempodox 9mo ago

Comments Owl for Hacker News has a block-this-user feature. Available for the major browsers. https://github.com/insin/comments-owl-for-hacker-news/releases https://github.com/insin/comments-owl-for-hacker-news/releas...