
Echochamber.js - duggan
https://github.com/tessalt/echo-chamber-js
======
unethical_ban
So many one-liner garbage comments, no way to downvote.

Let's start by saying: cool, it's satire, and learning technologies through
novel applications is the heart of hacking. I ain't even mad.

But no, shadowbanning is not cool. It was originally for spammers, not for
real people you don't like. It's inconsiderate, because if effective, it
wastes peoples' time writing comments they think people can read. Comments
they believe contribute to the conversation. And it's not cool.

And to be clear to jMyles: This is trickery.

Disclaimer: I was shadowbanned many moons ago (hence the name now) for one
comment out of hundreds I'd made on this site. That one comment was rude and
terse, but not something unequivocally hateful or harmful. For that, I posted
for weeks without knowing my comments re: the technologies and news I care
about were being blocked. It's not cool.

~~~
pablasso
You need more reputation to be able to downvote.

~~~
pyre
I don't think that @unethical_ban is talking about downvoting the comments,
but downvoting the submission itself. There is no "downvote" option for
submissions, only upvote and flag.

~~~
unethical_ban
oh no, I was talking about comments. And the parent is right, it comes along
once you have enough karma.

~~~
pyre
> And the parent is right, it comes along once you have enough karma.

Yes, but only for comments, not for article submissions.

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STRiDEX
At least send the http request to [https://devnull-as-a-
service.com](https://devnull-as-a-service.com)

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nacs
It doesn't degrade gracefully on my Lynx browser and doesn't use any form of
encryption when submitting comments, making it vulnerable to 3-letter agency
interception.

~~~
phn
I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but you realize it doesn't actually
submit anything, right?

~~~
ekso
He was being sarcastic.

~~~
abrown28
Which 3 letter agency do you work for?

~~~
irishcoffee
Do you not understand how this code works, or are you also being sarcastic?

I'm guessing sarcastic. =))

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itsnotlupus
Is this that PoC I heard about for a highly-scalable distributed successor to
Reddit?

~~~
strangecasts
To be fair, this commenting model _does_ ensure everyone's opinion gets equal
reach.

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krapp
You know what would be cool?

Something like this for a forum that simulates an admin panel, so when someone
hacks in, they think they're causing all sorts of mischief.

It could be called a hellevator.

------
nicolewhite
It'd also be neat to populate it randomly with other "users'" comments for
further trickery.

~~~
jMyles
Part of the ethical construct of the current form is that there is no
trickery. The user sees the real, unadulterated data.

~~~
thirdtruck
What about Markov chain reconstructions of their own comments?

~~~
ihuman
There is something similar to that here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditSimulator/](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditSimulator/)

The only difference is that you cannot comment.

~~~
Cyph0n
My favorite place on Reddit. It's a goldmine of ridiculousness.

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ethana
So this is like Reddit's shadowbanning.

~~~
kennywinker
The idea of a shadow ban predates reddit by quite a bit, but yeah it's a
little bit similar

~~~
Killswitch
Tachy goes to coventry[0] was around before Reddit. Same basic thing.

[0]: [http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum/general/chit-
chat/75468...](http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum/general/chit-
chat/75468-tachy-goes-to-coventry)

------
phn
This is fantastic, I have been pondering about the usefulness of comments in
the age of twitter/facebook/social media in general for a while. Not being
exposed to the ramblings of random individuals would be a blessing.

~~~
piyush_soni
On the other hand, a lot of times, I am only interested in comments, as the
article itself is junk.

~~~
phn
I am referring to comments on the page itself. I feel like that as well, when
on HN or some other community _I choose_ to listen to.

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fuzzywalrus
Quite amusing, but do you really want the trolls to feel engaged?

~~~
ForHackernews
So they send the link to their outraged friends and you get the sweet sweet
outrage click-revenue. Duh.

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neilellis
If you think you're a victim of shadow banning on Hacker News can you leave a
comment here ;-)

Hey downvoters, get a sense of humour - sheesh.

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fineline
Finally, effective decentralisation of the vacuous inane gossip that is the
currency of our golden information age.

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joeblau
Hacker News needs to implement this in the comments for selected users.

~~~
nacs
They do already.

Some users' comments aren't visible to the public unless you have the
"showdead" setting in your HN user preferences enabled.

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helmett
So if you posted would you see other people's comments or only your own? Can
someone setup a demo of this so we can test it out? seems intriguing

~~~
Nadya
Only their own - as they wouldn't have access to any other users' local
storage. That's the point.

They aren't actually commenting - they're saving data into their browser's
localStorage which is getting read and fed onto the page when they view it.

Since they aren't actually commenting - there's no way of showing other
people's comments.

~~~
helmett
Oh, then I would be somewhat suspicious only seeing a single comment,
especially if the site is popular and there should be more comments.

~~~
Nadya
I don't think they intend it to be used. If the title wasn't "echochamber" I
would be more inclined to believe otherwise, but I'm leaning towards this
being satire. It's a joke - just like DICSS [0].

[0]
[https://github.com/letsgetrandy/DICSS](https://github.com/letsgetrandy/DICSS)

------
aass
Test comment

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curiousjorge
Troll level is over nine thousand. This is hilarious yet super effective.
Would love to see this on YouTube comments, especially after it makes it on
Reddit

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AdrianRossouw
perfect social engineering.

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bbcbasic
SEO's are gonna love this.

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bntyhntr
Beautiful

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ForHackernews
This is awesome. I hope it catches on.

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akhilcacharya
I was considering making a comment system, but this is far more brilliant.

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multinglets
ppl who disagree with the national folk religion don't deserve to have
opinions

if they wanted to make comments they should have been good ppl like me lulz

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tomphoolery
Greatest comment plugin ever made. Hands down.

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serve_yay
Yeah, everyone on Hacker News hates the comments...

:|

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neilellis
Can you make a version that works like Disqus but filters out anyone who
disagrees with my opinions.

I'm guessing someone's already implemented this on HN judging by the downvotes
;-)

------
S4M
HN could use that on shadowbanned people. Now they would get replies to their
comments.

