
Show HN: HN reader that filters out COV**-19 and Coronavir** articles - gabrielsroka
https://gabrielsroka.github.io/hn.html
======
samvher
I actually got the impression that HN has already been under-weighting those
posts. I noticed that often virus submissions are sorted below other
submissions with lower scores submitted longer ago.

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
one of my submissions about the restaurants and service industry yesterday[1]
got flagged several times and it puzzled me tbh.

Covid19 is being aggressively framed by the political parties and media
(across the world not just US) to divide the public into camps of "believers"
and "non-believers". How sensitive people get about the topic (of COVID19) is
almost frightening because this isn't any more about a pandemic but whether
what somebody who has an opinion signals about it. People who believe in the
danger are quickly labeled liberals/democrat, or conservative if they don't
believe in the danger. This. Is. Nuts!

There is a real problem at our door. And it's not chickenshit such as a few
people "believing in chemtrails" or that "evolution is a hoax", but whether
this virus and the news around it are actually real.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22519125](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22519125)

~~~
smt88
> _Covid19 is being aggressively framed by the political parties and media
> (across the world not just US) to divide the public into camps of
> "believers" and "non-believers"_

This is absolutely untrue anywhere that I visit. There's literally one entity
trying to downplay the risks, and it's the Trump Administration -- and it's
not even all of it! Members of the administration are "believers" as you put
it.

No serious person thinks this is a hoax.

~~~
sokoloff
There’s a wide gulf between “this is a hoax” and “you know, this isn’t totally
unprecedented and I think some of these measures are ill-considered over-
reactions”.

Specifically, I think the idea that this can be “contained” by political
boundaries drawn on maps is utterly ridiculous. (I’m in favor of social
distancing and trying to make the inevitable pandemic _take longer_ , but
somehow that gets spun into fantasies of containment.)

~~~
_-___________-_
100% agree. But voicing the idea that some of the actions being taken might be
overreactions gets very strong reactions about "burying your head in the sand"
or "being in denial".

The worst part is that after it's blown over, the same people will be saying
how we dodged a bullet and it would have been a lot worse if the extreme
measures hadn't been taken, with no self-reflection over which measures worked
and which made no difference (and were actively harmful in other ways, like
economic damage - which can have a direct and significant impact on people's
lives).

------
antirez
This, and how cov19 was represented among HN top posts, shows that the
original HN user base composition is now a minority.

------
natalyarostova
Awesome! I love reading the covid news (I live in Seattle), and this is a cool
way to make both parties happy.

------
nonamesleft

      news.ycombinator.com##tr.athing:has(td.title):has(a:has-text(/(\bcovid\b|covid-2019|corona.virus|coronavirus|sars-cov|\bncov\b)/i))
      news.ycombinator.com##tr.athing:has(td.title):has(a:has-text(/(\bcovid\b|covid-2019|corona.virus|coronavirus|sars-cov|\bncov\b)/i)) + tr
      news.ycombinator.com##tr.athing:has(td.title):has(a:has-text(/(\bcovid\b|covid-2019|corona.virus|coronavirus|sars-cov|\bncov\b)/i)) + tr + tr.spacer
    

In ublock origin is how i have been doing it myself, naturally it isn't
perfect.

------
fwn
I did the same thing (hiding outbreak related content) on reddit with a few
uBlock Origin filters:

    
    
        www.reddit.com##div[data-type="link"]:if(a:has-text(Covid-19))
        www.reddit.com##article:if(span:has-text(Covid-19))
        www.reddit.com##div[data-type="link"]:if(a:has-text(corona))
        www.reddit.com##article:if(span:has-text(corona))
        www.reddit.com##div[data-type="link"]:if(a:has-text(virus))
        www.reddit.com##article:if(span:has-text(virus))
        www.reddit.com##div[data-type="link"]:if(a:has-text(Corona))
        www.reddit.com##article:if(span:has-text(Corona))
        www.reddit.com##div[data-type="link"]:if(a:has-text(Corvid-19))
        www.reddit.com##article:if(span:has-text(Corvid-19))
        www.reddit.com##div[data-type="link"]:if(a:has-text(COVID-19))
        www.reddit.com##article:if(span:has-text(COVID-19))
    

It's not very elegant but it was very fast to create and it's quite effective.

It works on mobile and old reddit; I didn't test it on new reddit yet.

~~~
hawski
It's great, there is no case around it so you can see the gears inside, but
now I will be able to add several filters easily for different sites.

Thanks. A useful snippet and idea.

------
gabrielsroka
I got tired of all the bad news, so I added a filter.

It's about 100 lines of JavaScript (a SPA?) that uses the official HN API.
It's designed mostly for mobile use.

Since I read HN a lot, it keeps track (using localStorage) of which articles
I've already seen, so I won't see them again.

Source is on GitHub. Feel free to fork, open a PR, etc.

~~~
new_realist
Bad news serves a purpose. Ignore it at your peril.

~~~
Tepix
Most bad news can be ignored. COVID-19 is a rare exception.

News organizations are optimized at bringing you the worst things that
happened all over the world every day.

~~~
_-___________-_
Are you sure it's an exception?

------
markovbot
Both the "Prev" and "Next" buttons seem to show the next page

~~~
gabrielsroka
Yes, you're right. It's an artifact from an old version (it used to work).

I left the "Prev" button in because it helps to line up the "Next" button with
my thumb (on mobile). Lazy, but ergonomic.

------
aaron695
Given SARS-CoV-2 is changing the entire world and directly affecting our lives
now and in the future, and we can directly make simple -> complex changes to
improve our personal lives with the correct information I think it's ironic HN
can't coherently work towards the truth.

But it does beg the question, since it can't with SARS-CoV-2, can HN work
towards the truth with anything?

~~~
_-___________-_
The reactions to SARS-CoV-2 are changing the entire world, for sure. So far
the virus itself has had little impact.

~~~
hef19898
There was one epideiologist back during the SARS crisis who compared the
spread of panic with the spread of the virus itself. But most people don't get
the fine difference between critizicing the reactions, especially the public
and media ones, and critizicing the _measures_ taken. The panic itself can do
a lot of harm in itself already.

As I suck in managing sources, I don't have link to that interview,
unfortunately...

------
buboard
Alternatively, you can bury your head in the sand

~~~
philshem
I wonder what ever happened with "The Man Who Knew Too Little" (2018)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/style/the-man-who-knew-
to...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/style/the-man-who-knew-too-
little.html)

------
cafebabbe
Alas, people in the US will soon learn that denial isn't a good vaccine.

~~~
easytiger
It takes about 20 seconds a day to learn all you need to know about the not-
yet-a-pandemic. Do you suggest the entire planet spends much of their day
reading pointless or speculative articles?

------
qwerty456127
Just how awesome would it be if one could hide all the news about the COV-2019
on ALL the web sites. And the most popular news at any given time. I don't
want to be shown any news about what everybody is talking about already.

That's such a pity Atom/RSS feeds are not everywhere any more. It would only
take a humble regex to filter a feed.

