Please don't use hnreputation

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=789469

by pg • 17 years ago

199 82 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

A bunch of people have been emailing me asking to have their IP unblocked after using this script

http://github.com/brainkarma/hnreputation/tree/master

which apparently hits the server so hard that it gets their IP ignored.

jnorthrop• 17 years ago

For those that don't know what this is...

"This Greasemonkey script for news.ycombinator.com will display the reputation of a user in the comment header as well as in the links' title tooltip."

DannoHung• 17 years ago

This does not strike me as conducive to the purpose of HN.

mjgoins• 17 years ago

It's not, and I seem to remember that this exact problem (the technical problem, but also the one you mention) was pointed out when the script was introduced.

henning• 17 years ago

It does one HTTP request for each comment in a thread, it looks like.

Kind of irresponsible coding, I think.

javanix2• 17 years ago

Heh, I think the person who wrote it needs to read more HN.

algorias• 17 years ago

Kind of? sounds almost like a DOS attack to me...

randallsquared• 17 years ago

Well, that's why the IP is blocked -- it looks like a DoS attack to the server software as well. Are there different terms for intentional DoS attacks, as opposed to incidental ones like this? I have the impression that two separate terms might have made your meaning clearer. :)

keyist• 17 years ago

Irresponsible usage as well. Those who used the script should really have at least eyeballed the source first.

[EDIT: This is HN. Surely I don't have to explain the pitfalls of downloading a Greasemonkey script and running it in your browser without checking what it does? It's even worse than uneducated users tricked into running malware since you're knowingly installing a script.]

PieSquared2• 17 years ago

Whoa, what?!

yan• 17 years ago

If this functionality is desired enough for enough people to use this, why not publish a list of users, updated say, hourly so these scripts can cache the reputations? But then again, don't really see the point in using this.

Also, if reputation's that important, you can just cache the 'leaders' list.

icey• 17 years ago

A) Reputation isn't a very good measure of anything as far as I'm concerned.

B) It's trivial to click on someone's name and see what their reputation is if it's important to the person reading / replying.

tokenadult2• 17 years ago

if reputation's that important, you can just cache the 'leaders' list

Exactly.

http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders

No need to spam up the site to get information that is found on a link already.

brianto2010• 17 years ago

jacquesm did warn you guys:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=779181

nir2• 17 years ago

The whole idea of "Karma" is silly. It encourages conforming to majority views and rewards people who are talkative rather than insightful - often mutually exclusive groups, since insight is gained by thinking & doing rather than posting comments.

I think HN would do well to drop karma scores altogether, making this script a non-issue to begin with.

brk2• 17 years ago

While we're on the topic of suggestions that aren't likely to be implemented ;)

I like to see the user name hidden on comments and submissions until after you vote and/or reply. Judge the content on the content alone, not on the author.

comatose_kid• 17 years ago

But then people would upvote comments (or worse, decrease s/n by responding) just to find out who authored them.

rincewind• 17 years ago

I trust security advice from tptacek or cperciva more than from [name withheld until you vote].

Threads get really confusing when [name withheld until you vote] argues with himself all the time.

pg• 17 years ago

Intriguing idea. Maybe I'll do something like that.

calambrac• 17 years ago

I disagree. There are people on here that I don't want to waste my time reading at all, they're more or less consistent trolls (who knows, maybe I'm one for some people). I may miss out on some accidentally or authentically insightful commentary now and then because I completely skip over comments by certain people, but there's enough insightful commnentary in the universe that I can live with it.

Reputations are important.

PebblesRox• 17 years ago

Hiding names should be optional, like "showdead." Then you can choose for yourself instead of getting stuck with a system you dislike.

sp332• 17 years ago

It's really hard to follow threaded conversations without any kind of ID.

jwecker2• 17 years ago

This was mentioned by someone here a few years ago, but I still think it would be cool to see the karma/posts ratio for people. Just for kicks, not for voting (:

To be perfectly honest I never even notice the names on comments.

OK, not totally true, I notice pg and one or two other people that I know personally. I remember when hacker news started and pg would automatically get pretty much every member upvoting him (hence him not being in the leaders section- no one even comes close I assume).

onreact-com• 17 years ago

Imagine this with politicians: Not knowing whether a speech was made by Obama or Cheney would greatly improve trust in politicians ;-)

ilitirit• 17 years ago

I'd prefer to see the number of karma points hidden, rather than the user name. The user names don't really interest me that much, and I tend to forget them very quickly.

radu_floricica• 17 years ago

Or just hide it and show it on mouse over.

The only problem is that is makes conversations difficult to follow. Who answered this post? The OP? The grandparent? Somebody else? One solution is to display made-up ids, but they have to be easy to recognize. Some help would be if you mouse-over an id to show the name on all the posts of the same user.

javanix2• 17 years ago

I'm not sure I agree with you. Karma as a measure of personal worth is silly, but as a way of cutting down on trolls it works pretty well. That number at the top of the screen is something that I'd bet the Reddit and TechCrunch commentors would care deeply about, and as such, it keeps them from dumbing down the discussion here too much.

In any case, HN is by far the best self-moderated discussion forum I've ever seen, and I'd be leery of making any major change that might conceivably disrupt that.

thras2• 17 years ago

I like Karma, because it means that established members don't have to worry too much about how any particular post will be received, and can present unpopular points of view without too much penalty.

davidw• 17 years ago

Footnote: it isn't completely "self-moderated", of course. There are moderators (although pg is the only one that is known) who can [dead] stories at will.

erlanger• 17 years ago

  *upvotes*

jobeirne• 17 years ago

Like any compromise, it offers negative points as well as positive ones. I would argue that very often (at least in this community), posts with large karma are valuable, if not necessarily as valuable as the karma would indicate.

Karma is a mechanism of convenience; that isn't to say it precludes users from browsing and enjoying non-karma'd posts.

svjunkie• 17 years ago

Karma isn't necessarily about conforming to majority views because (and I've especially practiced this at HN) it is completely reasonable to upvote a comment you disagree with. Of course, not everyone would agree with Voltaire, but I have seen enough civil disagreement within this community to believe that "Karma" at HN works the way it was supposed to. Moreover, insight is gained by thinking and doing, and those insights are often enriched by discussion with those who bring other perspectives to the table. By "rewarding" people who contribute to productive discussion, we help to encourage the HN community to enrich our existing insights.

tokenadult2• 17 years ago

HN has a feature request thread,

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363

which I count on the curators to read regularly.

scott_s2• 17 years ago

I don't see HN karma as a reward system, but a way to promote good, civil discussion.

UpFromTheGut• 17 years ago

I think karma can be very informative-- it gives me an idea of what the majority viewpoints are.

billswift2• 17 years ago

Karma can be more courteous than having to tell someone he's got his head up his butt; just downvote him, if enough people agree he should get the hint.

hc• 17 years ago

or, you could man up and say something... isn't the one with his head up his ass precisely the one who needs more than "a hint"?

hughprime2• 17 years ago

What if the karma system were kept, but people could only see their own karma score and not others'?

zackattack• 17 years ago

social shame/reward is a more powerful force than intrinsic motivation to be good/bad

tigerthink• 17 years ago

>It encourages conforming to majority views and rewards people who are talkative rather than insightful - often mutually exclusive groups, since insight is gained by thinking & doing rather than posting comments.

Erm, I always upmod comments that I consider insightful. I think the picture is more complicated than you make it out to be.

jacquesm2• 17 years ago

Karma is a great tool, but mostly behind the scenes. Keep the up/down arrows, lose the points until after a vote has been made, keep the name. That way you get away from the 'group think' mode.

sh1mmer• 17 years ago

I think you should read all comment without knowing the person's karama. You'll probably recognise some of our more illustrious users by username but really you should be evaluating each comment on it's merit, not the author's karma.

Please don't use hnreputation

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