

Show HN: HNBlocker – Chrome extension that lets you block other HN users - Finbarr
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hnblocker/plcjaaiijmcnamnhgbpfonkjicmnplni

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guelo
User blocking doesn't appeal to me, I just ignore and move on. But maybe I'm
just not that sensitive.

The only HN extension that has withstood the test of time for me is a thread
folding one, <https://userscripts.org/scripts/show/130027>. I imagine there
are other variants. It let's you quickly ignore those giant flame-war or off-
topic threads.

~~~
ihuman
To add to that, I recommend this extension:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-
mark-a...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-mark-all-
read/ogfbcfkihdkplelnaenpgkhnkpoaggjc).

Not only does it give you collapsable comments, but it also ads the ability to
mark comments and submissions as "read," so you can easily see what's new.

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protomyth
Interesting, Fark has this built-in and it is sometimes really useful, but it
does cause problems in some threads.

I've been thinking about something that would allow you take notes about other
users and have those notes pop up when you hover over their name[1]. It is
sometimes hard to remember who is who. It would probably be helpful to have a
way to save comments that you thought were pretty cool.

1) I also thought this would be a great Google Glass app for older users (note
about person or place appears when seen / there), but without facial
recognition it wouldn't work.

[edit: with -> without]

~~~
jaredsohn
>something that would allow you take notes about other users and have those
notes pop up when you hover over their name

On Reddit, you can do this via the Reddit Enhancement Suite.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reddit-
enhancement...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reddit-enhancement-
suite/kbmfpngjjgdllneeigpgjifpgocmfgmb?hl=en-US)

------
incision
I don't really pay attention to names and have never felt a desire to block or
even ignore anyone.

Now that I think about HN extensions, I could really use something that
correlates articles and HN discussions in both directions.

More than once I've read something sourced elsewhere and ended up doing a
site:news.ycombinator.com search to look find discussion for the same.

~~~
knowtheory
You mean like <http://see-reaction.appspot.com/index.html> ?

~~~
hollerith
ISTR once reading about a HN-specific tool like that. (The URL above points to
a tool that returns results for Reddit and Twitter as well as HN.) Anyone know
of anything like that?

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D9u
I hereby christen this extension, "Weenie Ware."

Why?

Only a true weenie would feel the need to block someone on a global scale.

More reasonable users simply ignore what they don't wish to read.

~~~
petsos
So the more reasonable thing is to block mentally instead of letting the
computer do it?

~~~
serf
Yep, until a strong enough AI exists to discern the useful information out of
the flaming.

The problem with people who you'd want to block is that a good amount of the
time they say something that gets you to think things through in a different
light. It sucks to get flamed, but boy is it a good tool to force a
reassessment of what you've said. Sometimes you realize you were dead right,
and sometimes you realize the guy you want to block has a good point.

~~~
petsos
There are too many assholes to introspect with each one of them. I'd rather
lose some insight.

~~~
D9u
Sometimes, even _assholes_ such as myself have something worthy to say.

------
krapp
I've been working on the same thing for firefox as a userscript. It's
certainly more equitable then hellbanning, and inane threads about how subject
x is turning hn into reddit.

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Macsenour
Pardon me, but is blocking people on HN a big issue?

~~~
Finbarr
I wouldn't say it's a big issue, per se. Rather, I'm tired of seeing comments
denigrating other comments. If you don't like what people have to say, better
to ignore them silently than respond antagonistically.

~~~
Goranek
people would block without having a really good reason..

an example, i would block you just because you're using "per se" :)

~~~
petsos
And what's wrong with that?

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andrewcooke
awesome. so how about the ability to add regexps(?) so that we filter people
based on content? mentioning no names, but some users are great when they're
talking about technical issues, but not so great on the social / political
side...

also, have you consider trying to unify user ids across websites?
<http://www.acooke.org/cute/Automatemy0.html>

oh - and another feature (now i open the site on my laptop) - sharing across
computers!

------
jjuliano
Reminds me of the a scene from the '50 first dates' movie where Adam Sandler
asked Alexa a question, and replied, "Then again, there are always ways around
such things, for example, if I promised a woman's father I would not see her,
I would simply shut my eyes while she serviced my manhood.".

Those people are real people not bots and spammers, blocking them are simply
an absurd way to do it, or 'shutting your eyes to get around with it'. A quick
solution, but you are not solving the root of the problem.

------
orik
Finally, I don't have to see this "pg" guy everywhere ;-)

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clicks
I fear now we'll be having a lot more inflammatory, useless, space-filling
remarks like "I can't see what he just said I have him on ignore".

My philosophy is to simply ignore trolls without any extension (since
fortunately there aren't many on this site, it's not hard), so I'm not really
sure if this extension is so necessary.

~~~
krapp
That's why you don't tell people when you block them, and if you want to see
what someone said, you just unblock them for a second.

~~~
Torgo
I fully support this addon, I think it's the best way to do blocking, on the
client. That said, I am not looking forward to comments that consist of
nothing more than "blocked" "added to killfile" "plonk" etc. These are nothing
more than implied calls for others to block someone. It encourages groupthink
imo.

~~~
krapp
I kind of think hellbanning and the karma system encourage groupthink as well.
That would be annoying though.

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dannowatts
it would've been unfortunate if i had missed this post by Finbarr, because i
was already using a chrome extension to block other HN users ...

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steveklabnik
For those of you wondering why someone might use something like this, I had
someone who made a fake account to follow me around on HN and insult me for a
while. They got shadowbanned, but I like to keep showdead on, because it's
interesting, so I still had to read it.

Woulda been nice to be able to just block them, but luckily with no responses
they moved on to twitter (!) to harass me instead.

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aoroz
I'm glad you spent your time making an extension so I can block people on this
superficial website. Are you going to pitch it to investors? If it doesn't
work are you going to publish an article name: "Here's how not to start a
startup."

~~~
drivebyacct2
I can't tell if no one got your sarcasm or if they're admonishing you for it.
I think it's spot on and great though.

~~~
Dylan16807
Can you explain it to me? All I see is a really whiny post attempting to mock
the extension for not being useful enough. What is 'spot on and great'?

~~~
drivebyacct2
Mostly the stuff after that. I appreciate:

\- mocking the stupid shit that is sold to VCs here (and the stupid shit VCs
invest in)

\- mocking the "holier than thou" attitude that people often have about
HN/community/content

\- mocking the need to have an extension to prevent yourself from reading
something from someone you don't like

\- mocking how worked up people get over this "superficial website"

I wouldn't want to knock the dev, I think that's tacky. I find the usefulness
of the extension to be something of a reflection on the person who needs to
use it. Anyway, I liked the bits of the comment that are self-mocking of HN,
not the extension.

