Show HN: Block positive reinforcement from HN with uBlock

#1

Post by matt_holmes » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 2:09 PM UTC

Inspired by the nytimes post "Luddites don't want your upvotes", and presumably being a Luddite myself, I have used uBlock to block my Karma score at the top of the page.

I found myself (on old account) reflexively checking my Karma score and found myself responding emotionally to it. I do not like this. Positive reinforcement can be a dangerous thing! And negative reinforcement make me feel a bit crap. I'm going to post what I think is the right thing, votes be damned! However I do see the use of downvotes for getting rid of stupid comments and spam as a good thing. I see the use of down/upvotes for political ideologies as a bad thing.

SO, I simply used uBlock to permanently block "Karma" across HN topbar.

Simply go to uBlock icon, press Element Picker Mode (the eyedropper), select the Karma number, and select the Create button. Done.

Re: Show HN: Block positive reinforcement from HN with uBlock

#2

Post by LinuxBender » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 2:15 PM UTC

If you would like to hide more aspects of this, in uBlock -> My Filters, add:

    ## HN Block Karma View
    news.ycombinator.com##.comhead .score:style(overflow: hidden; display: inline-block; line-height: 0.1em; width: 0; margin-left: -1.9em;)
    news.ycombinator.com##.comhead:not(.sitebit):style(overflow:hidden; display: inline-block);
    news.ycombinator.com###hnmain > tbody > tr:first-of-type table td:last-of-type .pagetop:style(font-size: 0!important; color: transparent!important;)
    news.ycombinator.com###hnmain > tbody > tr:first-of-type table td:last-of-type .pagetop > *:style(font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.45em;)
    news.ycombinator.com###logout::before:style(content: "|"; padding: 0.25em;)
    news.ycombinator.com##form.profileform tbody tr:nth-child(3)

Credit to someone else here, I don't recall who created this.

Re: Show HN: Block positive reinforcement from HN with uBlock

#3

Post by petodo » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 2:45 PM UTC

You would need also hide score of every comment and it still won't solve issue with unreadable grey comments work low score or collapsed flagged/banned comments.

Re: Show HN: Block positive reinforcement from HN with uBlock

#4

Post by than3 » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:27 AM UTC

I agree, this is a dark pattern that needs to be addressed.

That and the other thing where they arbitrarily changing the bar colors from Orange to Red or something else.

Its very manipulative, and serves no legal purpose as you haven't formally agreed to be part of human experimentation which can potentially be considered a violation of laws depending on where you are.

There's a reason colleges have ethics board and official waivers when conducting experiments like this.

Re: Show HN: Block positive reinforcement from HN with uBlock

#5

Post by unsupp0rted » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

Positive reinforcement on HN has made me a more concise, more useful commenter.

Re: Show HN: Block positive reinforcement from HN with uBlock

#6

Post by seydor » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:56 PM UTC

I do the opposite, using the karmas as experiments . Throwing an idea to see what the groupthink thinks. Or gauging whether it's worth to keep talking about certain things here or use better venues.