Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report” • Hacker News Board

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#181

Post by msandford » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:13 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #179

dylan604 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the incompetent decisions that ERCOT has made over the past few "severe weather events", I would say ERCOT and ESKOM are eerily similar.

All my reading said that the decisions ERCOT made during the weather event were all very competent. They kept the grid from collapsing, which was their job. The fact that extensive load shedding and brownouts etc needed to happen was not a result of decisions made during the weather event, but lack of infrastructure investment over decades (that may or may not have been under the control of ERCOT, rather than the leg…

> All my reading said that the decisions ERCOT made during the weather event were all very competent. They kept the grid from collapsing, which was their job.

I respectfully disagree. Demand might have been twice what supply was, but the way the load shedding was done wasn't smart at all. The rolling blackouts were done on a roughly 18-48 hour basis, i.e. if you lost power you probably lost it for at least 18 hours and I know plenty of people who lost it for much longer, up to 48 hours.

If demand was double what the supply was then it should have been possible to give people power for say 2 hours every 4 hours. Or maybe 6 hours every 12 hours. If demand outstripped supply by a factor of 4 then 3 hours every 12 hours.

But that's not what happened. A lot of houses have gas furnaces but they need electricity to run the fans and the ignition system and such. People died in their houses either from the cold or from running their cars in their garages trying to stay warm. A lot of pipes were burst due to not enough heat in the buildings.

I can think of at least a dozen ways in which the load shedding could have been better managed. I wouldn't agree that it was very competent.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#182

Post by aidenn0 » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:14 PM UTC

euph0ria wrote: post #53

The company I work for has forbidden the use of Google and their services such as GCP etc. due to how they treat their Play Store developers and other customer, in particular that there never seems to be any human being that you can talk to and find out what you need to do to fix the situation. We do not want the same to occur to our servers or if there is an overflow from Play Store ban to GCP etc. The business risk…

I really don't understand why google doesn't offer some sort of human support. It's not terribly hard to implement something that is revenue neutral (or even positive), and the customers with the most money to spend are really going to want it.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#183

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:15 PM UTC

jonathanlydall wrote: post #32

For those not from South Africa, this app is primarily for people to be able to get notifications or look up when their area will be affected by a "planned power outage", or as Eskom (our state owned power utility) refers to it, "load shedding". "Load shedding" is enacted whenever they have a power production capacity issue where different areas take turns without power so as to not let the power grid collapse. This…

Unfortunately, an under-moderated chat feature is considered a risk these days, like an open email relay or an open proxy. I personally think Google erred too far on the side of caution here, but developers should be aware that chat features aren't as cheap to add as they used to be; they change the risk model of the app.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#184

Post by MikeUt » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

ivanbakel wrote: post #176

MikeUt wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current blackouts were blamed on corruption, followed by "the good old days of apartheid when corruption ran at an all-time high", implying blackouts were just as bad in the past. It would be nice to first clear up the factual issue of whether blackouts have grown more or less frequent, before jumping ahead to the moral calculus of who should be applauded or condemned more.

>implying blackouts were just as bad in the past. I don't understand where this implication comes from. In claiming that current governmental corruption is the cause of the current blackouts, the throwaway commenter implied that blackouts were less prevalent in the past. The reply then objected to the idea that the previous government was less corrupt - but the opposite statement does not require that blackouts were…

> I don't understand where this implication comes from.

From "blackouts are due to corruption -> corruption was just as bad in the past". Especially since blackouts were the only symptom of corruption mentioned. Yes, it's possible blackouts didn't manifest due to different reasons, despite equal corruption - that's why it's an implication.

> Is it worth "clearing up", given that blackouts are not a direct function of corruption?

A simple hypothetical "Yes blackouts are more common, but the old government was just as corrupt due to " would have been much more informative, so yes I do think it's worth clearing up.

Are we supposed to compare governments without comparing the state of the country they ran (run)? Except, of course, apartheid - that doesn't get left out.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#185

Post by rendall » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

jollofricepeas wrote: post #115

rendall wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it's difficult to address problems with the government if, whenever anyone does so, someone brings up the former government. Bring up slavery in Dubai, and people start talking about the transatlantic slave trade and European colonialism. It gives people of the present a free pass to behave reprehensibly, because other people in the past behaved reprehensibly

You should read the comments. 1. It was a throwaway. 2. The reply was... “It does not matter who holds it. Unchecked power always corrupts.” The problem with the ANC is the same issue as The Nationalist. Without strong opposition and even a stronger free press, unchecked power always leads to corruption.

> "The reply was... “It does not matter who holds it. Unchecked power always corrupts.”"

I would love it if that was indeed your reply. If your reply were indeed simply "It does not matter who holds it. Unchecked power always corrupts." I would upvote the hell out of that. It's true and eternally true. Well, almost, because when I am World Dictator for Life I will rule only with profound, infinite beneficence and enlightenment.

I'd like to refer you to this tweet: https://twitter.com/lofimandala/status/1371310164821774337

In response to someone pointing out that Dubai is built on slave labor, this person felt the need to say:

"And European cities weren’t? Don’t get me wrong, slave labor is abhorrent but it’s telling it only gets invoked when certain countries participate while the entirety of places like the United States were built upon imperialism, slavery, and genocide."

I am certain, if confronted, this person would point out the *"...Slave labor is abhorrent..." part of the reply, but it is nevertheless difficult for me to understand how the observation as a whole helps current slaves, of which there may be 40 million in the world. "Slave labor is abhorrent, but..." is a sentence that will not end at a good place.

Reeling from the disturbing sight of modern people defending or whatabouting modern slavery, I rebound into this thread. Just, please, you must criticize evil and corruption that exists now, in the present.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#186

Post by solarmist » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #182

euph0ria wrote: post #53

The company I work for has forbidden the use of Google and their services such as GCP etc. due to how they treat their Play Store developers and other customer, in particular that there never seems to be any human being that you can talk to and find out what you need to do to fix the situation. We do not want the same to occur to our servers or if there is an overflow from Play Store ban to GCP etc. The business risk…

I really don't understand why google doesn't offer some sort of human support. It's not terribly hard to implement something that is revenue neutral (or even positive), and the customers with the most money to spend are really going to want it.

Because they’re a “tech” company through and through and to them it’s a step backwards.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#187

Post by marcusverus » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

signal11 wrote: post #119

pistoriusp wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is far worse, but South Africa has an inept and corrupt government, I wonder what the excuse is for Texas?

I suspect the truth is, in the narrow domain of electric power distribution, Texas too has an inept government that’s beholden to certain vested interests in the garb of “free markets”. This is a state that has fetishized “light touch regulation” so much that it, for most of the state, has its own grid to avoid dealing with Federal authorities. And repeatedly failed to take action to get power companies to winterize…

> I suspect the truth is, in the narrow domain of electric power distribution, Texas too has an inept government...

This is an absurd comparison. South Africa owns and runs its power utility. The result is that they struggle to provide electricity on an ongoing basis. According to Wikipedia, small business owners in South Africa said that load shedding was the number one challenge that they faced in Q1 of 2019.[0]

Texas does not own or run its utilities. They are privately run, and are given wide latitude by the state. The result is that the worst of the utilities are tragically only able to provide 99.95% uptime, with some power consumers experiencing outages for a few days per decade.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_energy_crisis

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#188

Post by dylan604 » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #179

dylan604 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the incompetent decisions that ERCOT has made over the past few "severe weather events", I would say ERCOT and ESKOM are eerily similar.

All my reading said that the decisions ERCOT made during the weather event were all very competent. They kept the grid from collapsing, which was their job. The fact that extensive load shedding and brownouts etc needed to happen was not a result of decisions made during the weather event, but lack of infrastructure investment over decades (that may or may not have been under the control of ERCOT, rather than the leg…

> All my reading said

Comparing that to "All my expierincing" first hand. Not even close to the same thing. They would not have been in the stressed situtation in the first place had they enforced the recommended corrections for cold weather protection in the first place. The fact that they had to turn off power generation because pipes were freezing at the generating stations is an absolute joke, and is the prime cause of the stress.

The local weather forecasts remind people to move plants indoors, cover exposed plumbing, etc. Maybe they should also start including a friendly reminder to the local power plants to also cover exposed plumbing, but why would they listen to that when they've ignored government sanctioned reports from investigations into previous failures?

> ERCOT, the grid operator, did their job very competently "Turn off the power so the demand goes away" Check "Issue rolling black outs so that the demand is lowered and manageable, and give people a fighting chance" Nope. These were absolutely not rolling black outs, but static black outs. The method they chose to "save the grid" was just as incompetent as not maintaining their systems in the first place.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#189

Post by IndySun » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #91

IndySun wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simion314, If you would indulge another non-political poster. Playing devils advocate with and exploring your ps... >some big corporation What about a small one? >lock you out, decide what you read, apps you install or brick your application Are these an abuse of power? Illegal? Unethical? Is it their right to do these things to maintain some focus? (The example here is often that one does not want profanity, sexual…

I am for moderating stuff in general. So if you have a forum and want to ban politics or religious topic that is fine IMO. I would also be fine if Google or Apple would ban an application because it does something illegal or it's name/icon/description is offensive and it could "pollute" the store listing. I don't like when the giants try to ban some small applications because of user generated content but they never…

Thank you. We disagree on little. However one should be careful with broad terms like' offence'. To whom do you allocate the task of deciding for you what is offensive, is the tricky part.

The silicon corporates do move the goalposts to suit. Governments are not fair all the time. Where you are born impacts hugely on your life. And the laughably named 'free market' has the same flaws.

All of these issues we are discussing will be alleviated, though not eradicated (impossible), the more we move towards an equal and fairer society.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#190

Post by mindslight » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

msandford wrote: post #181

jrochkind1 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All my reading said that the decisions ERCOT made during the weather event were all very competent. They kept the grid from collapsing, which was their job. The fact that extensive load shedding and brownouts etc needed to happen was not a result of decisions made during the weather event, but lack of infrastructure investment over decades (that may or may not have been under the control of ERCOT, rather than the leg…

> All my reading said that the decisions ERCOT made during the weather event were all very competent. They kept the grid from collapsing, which was their job. I respectfully disagree. Demand might have been twice what supply was, but the way the load shedding was done wasn't smart at all. The rolling blackouts were done on a roughly 18-48 hour basis, i.e. if you lost power you probably lost it for at least 18 hours a…

> If demand was double what the supply was then it should have been possible to give people power for say 2 hours every 4 hours

The problem is if that electricity is being used for heat, the draw of the 2 hour on periods will increase to make up for the time off. Perhaps even resulting in more total usage, because when power is on, people will set the thermostat to 80 instead of 65, anticipating the power going off and it getting colder. When really you need everyone's expectations of comfort to change to 40 degrees (half the delta T).

The only way to win and supply some power to all houses is to keep the duty cycle so low that the amount of resistive heating equipment becomes the limiting factor (1 hour every 6 hours?). I don't know if they could have managed this, but it's certainly more complicated to figure out than simply lowering the period of the rolling blackouts.