4 ms·

Trust signals as sparklines for Hacker News

82 points by solaire_oa 7mo ago

nickphx 7mo ago
No, thank you.
cpa 7mo ago
Interesting, but how is the trust signal measured? I couldn’t find this information
- cobertos 7mo ago
  I'm pretty sure it's based off of the configuration in the green gear in the top right of the iframe. You can inspect the ways it's calculated from karma, comments, etc etc
  - CalRobert 7mo ago
    If you look at the config it's based on karma, comments, submission rate, comment rate (optional), and account age (that is, if you trust it actually uses the config how it says)
    - angry_octet 7mo ago
      There are some high karma accounts which make a great contribution, and others which ... don't. I'm doubtful whether karma or account age has a significant signal beyond anti-spam. But it would be useful to know if I had up/down voted them significantly in the past.
      - krapp 7mo ago
        The only thing karma reliably indicates is participation over time, the signal is too noisy for anything else. If anything high karma should be a red flag. The very best contributors here rarely comment because they have better things to do. It shows an 8/8 score for me and I doubt anyone would consider me a top tier high quality contributor. A plugin like HN Comments Owl would be more useful IMHO.
      - angry_octet 7mo ago
        As if to demonstrate my point, two high karma accounts have down voted my suggestion that karma is meaningful. Naturally they are too craven to enter the field.
- annie511266728 7mo ago
  If it’s not transparent, it kind of defeats the whole idea of a “trust” signal — at that point it’s just a number you either believe or ignore.
  - xnx 7mo ago
    "trust me bro" signal
adrianwaj 7mo ago
Great idea. I think friend/foe and trust signals should come from a user's voting. So I think it should operate transparently to the user and there should be a default shade-out option of bad actors, but with the option to view. So it's set-and-forget. On the backend - could you make it so if you've never visited HN before, and you install the plugin, the experience changes accordingly? I had the idea to setup a forum somewhere else - this sort of functionality would come in handy as part of normal operation.
alex7o 7mo ago
Where can I see mine?
- CalRobert 7mo ago
  Install the plugin and then load up your profile page, or any page with ac omment from you (like this one) You have an overall 7 out of 8.
  - no_shadowban_3 7mo ago
    [dead]
aaron695 7mo ago
[dead]
vivid242 7mo ago
After attention, are we now in the trust economy… a brilliant idea for a plugin - thank you!
- amelius 7mo ago
  The problem is that I don't trust plugins. Is there a way to do this from a bookmarklet?
  - solaire_oa 7mo ago
    Author here. I tried a bookmarklet, that was my preference, but the security headers in HN were too strict. As far as I could tell anyway.
gyanchawdhary 7mo ago
this UX is basically the (not so clever) equivalent of that blue tick status signal nonsense they have on insta ..
onli 7mo ago
Suggestion: instead of just popping in the computed graphic add a placeholder immediately - four low grey bars should work well, in the same width as the final sparkline graphics. That way the text on the page will not jump later when the final sparklines are ready.
Izmaki 7mo ago
Great way to gatekeep new contributors trying to be helpful with news. Run the link through URL Scan if you’re paranoid…
- hluska 7mo ago
  I wish I wouldn’t have read this comment from you, so you may be onto a feature.
no_shadowban_3 7mo ago
[dead]
mentalgear 7mo ago
It's a nice idea, but I have mostly stopped using/installing any software that is not open-source a long time ago. So, please open-source it, especially if you want users to truly trust it. Even then, I would recommend anyone to install (small to mid) browser extensions by cloning and inspecting the source and just then loading it yourself - if you don't know: any browser extension can read input/password fields across all site(s) you gave it access to (yeah, it's crazy but unfortunately true).
- smusamashah 7mo ago
  This could become/converted to a userscript making it easy to inspect and more cross compatible. It's very easy these days.
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - imiric 7mo ago
    To be fair, the .xpi is just a .zip file, and the JS isn't minimized. I vibe-converted it to a userscript[1], but it doesn't work for me in qutebrowser because it depends on profile data fetched from `https://hn-trustspark.com/alltrust.json https://hn-trustspark.com/alltrust.json`, which seems to be periodically updated by the author, and qutebrowser has limited userscript support. :( It could probably be worked around by fetching the data externally, but I don't want to depend on hn-trustspark.com. It would be great if the profile updating tool could be published as well. Anyway, hope it helps someone else :) FWIW, after a quick review of the script, it looks safe to me. As long as you trust that the served profile data is correct, and don't mind leaking your IP to it. Great idea and kudos to the author! We need more tools like this to help us deal with spam, and not just on HN, but everywhere. [1]: https://gist.github.com/imiric/a5d1cd187e91eb0b725c4661250e5af5 https://gist.github.com/imiric/a5d1cd187e91eb0b725c4661250e5...
    - defrost 7mo ago
      It's a good idea, provided nothing sketchy goes on either now or in a future update ... I'm playing about with it but will likely unload it soon enough. One issue: New accounts with Zero submissions get a full green stack for "Submission Trust" (0 submissions in 0 days). That comes across as three flat red lines and a singl tall green stack - not sure if that's the right message. Submissions is an odd one ... those people that submit a story seen on the tech blogs once a day get bucketed together with habitual spammers of poor quality posts.
neom 7mo ago
Great idea! I've been running my own chrome plugin I made that is similar, but recently discovered this: https://oj-hn.com/ https://oj-hn.com/ and intend to start to contribute to it as it's very good and hope it grows. Something like Sparklines would be great in oj also for us chrome users, I really like the Sparklines implementation.
arjie 7mo ago
I considered something like this but I find the UX of information too noisy. In practice, I much prefer simply performing a ternary block/leave alone/highlight functionality. And it's comments that bother me more than links.
bryanhogan 7mo ago
Interesting idea, wondering if the 4 bars are a good way to evaluate accounts. Some more thoughts: 1. The website needs a description of what this project even is. 2. Open-source the code, especially since it's just for the community, I'd be vary of installing "some random" extension from the store. 3. The modal element in the iFrame on the website is cutoff on mobile widths using Firefox.
adammarples 7mo ago
I don't know what trust signals or sparklines are
- layer8 7mo ago
  Luckily, we have dictionaries and encyclopedias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_signals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_signals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkline
Kkoala 7mo ago
This should have at least a basic description of how the trust signal works and is calculated
croemer 7mo ago
Does anyone have an archive.is? Page hasn't been loading the 4 times I tried over the course of an hour. Found one: https://web.archive.org/web/20260328080015/https://hn-trustspark.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260328080015/https://hn-trusts...
Lapra 7mo ago
The problem with having a public trust score is that it'll be gamed by bad actors A/B testing their bots surely.
layer8 7mo ago
I wouldn’t call four bars a sparkline.
commers148 7mo ago
[flagged]
mooreds 7mo ago
Site breaks for my account? Maybe I'm not trusted? But I see no sparklines next to my username when I visit https://hn-trustspark.com/ https://hn-trustspark.com/ and have posts on the newest page.
- mooreds 7mo ago
  Actually, it did just blur out one of my submissions so maybe it does work and my other submissions are, as the kids say, mid.
  - solaire_oa 7mo ago
    Oh wow, You're a human with a high submission rate! I assumed accounts like these were bots. I've seen a large number of accounts like yours in `/newest`, indeed, it's the reason I made the default demo penalize high submission rates. If you don't mind me asking, what are you submission habits? Do you just submit links you find interesting often? And does the karma rewards factor into your routine submissions? (I'm not being facetious or accusatory, I'm genuinely interested learning how some of these high submission rates operate, since a lot look automated).
    - mooreds 7mo ago
      haha, no worries. > what are you submission habits? Do you just submit links you find interesting often? Pretty much. I will often email myself links I think might be interesting, then batch up submissions. I also like to highlight friends' posts. > And does the karma rewards factor into your routine submissions? It's always fun to get karma, but I like the fact I can call attention to someone or something that deserves it more. I also wrote and talked about my thoughts on HN and how to be a good community member a bit more: - in this blog post: https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3530 https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3530 - in this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrObxK-J_3I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrObxK-J_3I
      - solaire_oa 7mo ago

82 points by solaire_oa 7mo ago

nickphx 7mo ago

No, thank you.

cpa 7mo ago

Interesting, but how is the trust signal measured? I couldn’t find this information

cobertos 7mo ago
I'm pretty sure it's based off of the configuration in the green gear in the top right of the iframe. You can inspect the ways it's calculated from karma, comments, etc etc
- CalRobert 7mo ago
  If you look at the config it's based on karma, comments, submission rate, comment rate (optional), and account age (that is, if you trust it actually uses the config how it says)
  - angry_octet 7mo ago
    There are some high karma accounts which make a great contribution, and others which ... don't. I'm doubtful whether karma or account age has a significant signal beyond anti-spam. But it would be useful to know if I had up/down voted them significantly in the past.
    - krapp 7mo ago
      The only thing karma reliably indicates is participation over time, the signal is too noisy for anything else. If anything high karma should be a red flag. The very best contributors here rarely comment because they have better things to do. It shows an 8/8 score for me and I doubt anyone would consider me a top tier high quality contributor. A plugin like HN Comments Owl would be more useful IMHO.
    - angry_octet 7mo ago
      As if to demonstrate my point, two high karma accounts have down voted my suggestion that karma is meaningful. Naturally they are too craven to enter the field.
annie511266728 7mo ago
If it’s not transparent, it kind of defeats the whole idea of a “trust” signal — at that point it’s just a number you either believe or ignore.
- xnx 7mo ago
  "trust me bro" signal

adrianwaj 7mo ago

Great idea. I think friend/foe and trust signals should come from a user's voting. So I think it should operate transparently to the user and there should be a default shade-out option of bad actors, but with the option to view. So it's set-and-forget. On the backend - could you make it so if you've never visited HN before, and you install the plugin, the experience changes accordingly? I had the idea to setup a forum somewhere else - this sort of functionality would come in handy as part of normal operation.

alex7o 7mo ago

Where can I see mine?

CalRobert 7mo ago
Install the plugin and then load up your profile page, or any page with ac omment from you (like this one) You have an overall 7 out of 8.
- no_shadowban_3 7mo ago
  [dead]

aaron695 7mo ago

[dead]

vivid242 7mo ago

After attention, are we now in the trust economy… a brilliant idea for a plugin - thank you!

amelius 7mo ago
The problem is that I don't trust plugins. Is there a way to do this from a bookmarklet?
- solaire_oa 7mo ago
  Author here. I tried a bookmarklet, that was my preference, but the security headers in HN were too strict. As far as I could tell anyway.

gyanchawdhary 7mo ago

this UX is basically the (not so clever) equivalent of that blue tick status signal nonsense they have on insta ..

onli 7mo ago

Suggestion: instead of just popping in the computed graphic add a placeholder immediately - four low grey bars should work well, in the same width as the final sparkline graphics. That way the text on the page will not jump later when the final sparklines are ready.

Izmaki 7mo ago

Great way to gatekeep new contributors trying to be helpful with news. Run the link through URL Scan if you’re paranoid…

hluska 7mo ago
I wish I wouldn’t have read this comment from you, so you may be onto a feature.

no_shadowban_3 7mo ago

[dead]

mentalgear 7mo ago

It's a nice idea, but I have mostly stopped using/installing any software that is not open-source a long time ago. So, please open-source it, especially if you want users to truly trust it. Even then, I would recommend anyone to install (small to mid) browser extensions by cloning and inspecting the source and just then loading it yourself - if you don't know: any browser extension can read input/password fields across all site(s) you gave it access to (yeah, it's crazy but unfortunately true).

smusamashah 7mo ago
This could become/converted to a userscript making it easy to inspect and more cross compatible. It's very easy these days.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- imiric 7mo ago
  To be fair, the .xpi is just a .zip file, and the JS isn't minimized. I vibe-converted it to a userscript[1], but it doesn't work for me in qutebrowser because it depends on profile data fetched from `https://hn-trustspark.com/alltrust.json https://hn-trustspark.com/alltrust.json`, which seems to be periodically updated by the author, and qutebrowser has limited userscript support. :( It could probably be worked around by fetching the data externally, but I don't want to depend on hn-trustspark.com. It would be great if the profile updating tool could be published as well. Anyway, hope it helps someone else :) FWIW, after a quick review of the script, it looks safe to me. As long as you trust that the served profile data is correct, and don't mind leaking your IP to it. Great idea and kudos to the author! We need more tools like this to help us deal with spam, and not just on HN, but everywhere. [1]: https://gist.github.com/imiric/a5d1cd187e91eb0b725c4661250e5af5 https://gist.github.com/imiric/a5d1cd187e91eb0b725c4661250e5...
  - defrost 7mo ago
    It's a good idea, provided nothing sketchy goes on either now or in a future update ... I'm playing about with it but will likely unload it soon enough. One issue: New accounts with Zero submissions get a full green stack for "Submission Trust" (0 submissions in 0 days). That comes across as three flat red lines and a singl tall green stack - not sure if that's the right message. Submissions is an odd one ... those people that submit a story seen on the tech blogs once a day get bucketed together with habitual spammers of poor quality posts.

neom 7mo ago

Great idea! I've been running my own chrome plugin I made that is similar, but recently discovered this: https://oj-hn.com/ https://oj-hn.com/ and intend to start to contribute to it as it's very good and hope it grows. Something like Sparklines would be great in oj also for us chrome users, I really like the Sparklines implementation.

arjie 7mo ago

I considered something like this but I find the UX of information too noisy. In practice, I much prefer simply performing a ternary block/leave alone/highlight functionality. And it's comments that bother me more than links.

bryanhogan 7mo ago

Interesting idea, wondering if the 4 bars are a good way to evaluate accounts. Some more thoughts: 1. The website needs a description of what this project even is. 2. Open-source the code, especially since it's just for the community, I'd be vary of installing "some random" extension from the store. 3. The modal element in the iFrame on the website is cutoff on mobile widths using Firefox.

adammarples 7mo ago

I don't know what trust signals or sparklines are

layer8 7mo ago
Luckily, we have dictionaries and encyclopedias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_signals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_signals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkline

Kkoala 7mo ago

This should have at least a basic description of how the trust signal works and is calculated

croemer 7mo ago

Does anyone have an archive.is? Page hasn't been loading the 4 times I tried over the course of an hour. Found one: https://web.archive.org/web/20260328080015/https://hn-trustspark.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260328080015/https://hn-trusts...

Lapra 7mo ago

The problem with having a public trust score is that it'll be gamed by bad actors A/B testing their bots surely.

layer8 7mo ago

I wouldn’t call four bars a sparkline.

commers148 7mo ago

[flagged]

mooreds 7mo ago

Site breaks for my account? Maybe I'm not trusted? But I see no sparklines next to my username when I visit https://hn-trustspark.com/ https://hn-trustspark.com/ and have posts on the newest page.

mooreds 7mo ago
Actually, it did just blur out one of my submissions so maybe it does work and my other submissions are, as the kids say, mid.
- solaire_oa 7mo ago
  Oh wow, You're a human with a high submission rate! I assumed accounts like these were bots. I've seen a large number of accounts like yours in `/newest`, indeed, it's the reason I made the default demo penalize high submission rates. If you don't mind me asking, what are you submission habits? Do you just submit links you find interesting often? And does the karma rewards factor into your routine submissions? (I'm not being facetious or accusatory, I'm genuinely interested learning how some of these high submission rates operate, since a lot look automated).
  - mooreds 7mo ago
    haha, no worries. > what are you submission habits? Do you just submit links you find interesting often? Pretty much. I will often email myself links I think might be interesting, then batch up submissions. I also like to highlight friends' posts. > And does the karma rewards factor into your routine submissions? It's always fun to get karma, but I like the fact I can call attention to someone or something that deserves it more. I also wrote and talked about my thoughts on HN and how to be a good community member a bit more: - in this blog post: https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3530 https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3530 - in this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrObxK-J_3I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrObxK-J_3I
    - solaire_oa 7mo ago