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Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

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Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#351

Post by bashinator »

jdgoesmarching wrote: post #317
bogwog wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And on iOS at least, whenever you visit the site you'll get a popup that blocks the page with two options: continue in mobile app, or continue in safari. It's basically "install our shitty app, or keep using the web version?", except it's worded and displayed in a confusing/misleading way with what seems to be an attempt to mimic a system dialog.

Not to mention how awful their AMP pages (redundant, blame grammar) are already. Searching for topics on Reddit is a nightmare, you’re stuck with their awful native search, their awful mobile app, or the awful mobile site.

And yet through the miracle of scrolling and screen zooming I’m somehow able to use old.reddit.com just fine even on my relatively small iPhone X

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#352

Post by brigandish »

thraway123412 wrote: post #235
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The moral of the story is that they were so big on a dark pattern, I'll be getting the subscription. > Yeah thanks for rewarding them for that. That was not a nice thing to do -altering a quote, to make it appear as if I said something I didn't. I am leaving your response in its unmodified entirety, above. Look, you have your opinion, I have mine, but It's a decent app. I will be providing feedback to them -as a p…

That was not intended to be read as a literal quote or an attempt to make it appear as if you said something you didn't. That's a fairly common way of picking a message apart to make a point, on some parts of the internet. Sometimes people paraphrase instead of literally copying words (esp. if there's no good short sequence of words to borrow), but quote marks are still used. I wish we had a better notation for this.…

> That's a fairly common way of picking a message apart to make a point, on some parts of the internet. Sometimes people paraphrase instead of literally copying words (esp. if there's no good short sequence of words to borrow), but quote marks are still used.

Among people who can’t make their point with an accurate representation of someone else’s words. All the descriptive words for this behaviour are negative, for good reason. I suspect you know this, hence the throwaway account.

> I wish we had a better notation for this.

The better notation for this is not to do it, that’s why there is no notation for it.

> I'm sorry to have caused confusion.

I’m not sure HN is for you. Don’t do this again if you’re really sorry.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#353

Post by ratww »

zemo wrote: post #99
dylan604 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Etsy does a "Only 4 items left, but 7 people have it in their cart" or something similarly worded

Etsy users put things in their cart to bookmark them. I haven't been there for six years now, but one of the problems I worked on at Etsy was getting people to stop using their cart as a bookmarking tool. While I was there I worked on the functionality to fave an item as well as the functionality to add items to a List of favorites. There was another tool called Treasuries for this purpose that we phased out, so ther…

> one of the problems I worked on at Etsy was getting people to stop using their cart as a bookmarking tool

I bookmark things in my cart in both Etsy and Reverb because the bookmarking requires an account, and I'm definitely not making one. But at least that doesn't seem to count in the "x users have this in their cart".

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#354

Post by bobmaxup »

elliekelly wrote: post #293

Well it’s quite clear that none of the commenters so far have read the document they’re commenting on and almost none of them seem able to distinguish between “software” and the internet. And I can’t say I blame them. I know the fenty website isn’t software but what about facebook and amazon? I don’t really consider them software but I suppose most of their users access the site(s) through iOS and android apps which…

Why is a website not software?

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#355

Post by funfunfunction »

bogwog wrote: post #288
jeremy_wiebe wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is commonly referred to as a “soft ask.” The reasons for it are not always nefarious. On some platforms you cannot provide any commentary on why you want to send push notifications and so the soft ask provides a way to give more context on the next (real) permission dialog. I’m not saying this isn’t abused all over, but when used effectively it can provide the user with more information to decide if they want to…

I'm not referring to "soft asks". The dark pattern is creating a fake dialog that mimics the real system dialog in order to mislead, and circumvent a feature designed to protect users from spam/abuse. Telling a user why they're about to get a permissions dialog, and displaying a real system dialog, is obviously not a dark pattern. They're common as hell, but I can't seem to find a live example of what I'm talking abo…

Reddit does this on their IOS app.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#356

Post by godelski »

yaml-ops-guy wrote: post #182
godelski wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just impressed how bad slack is on mobile. Either I'm getting messages on my computer and phone (on phone after I've responded on the computer) or not at all.

I've been having this problem with push notifications for quite a few apps, but Slack just seems to genuinely do whatever the hell it wants, regardless of whatever I've set preferences to.

Yeah I know what you mean. Like sometimes I'll get messages hours after they are sent. Even when my main computer is off so would be considered "away". Now I just have to frequently check slack and that in itself feels like a dark pattern.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#357

Post by lioeters »

chiefofgxbxl wrote: post #8

Windows 10 does not respect the "default browser" setting when opening web-based content through apps. For example, clicking on "Help" links or search results from the start menu always opens in Edge. This seems far worse than their IE-bundling issue back in the day... at least users have a few web browsers to choose from, but what good is that when user preference is overridden?

That reminds me.. On macOS, the default application to open files with the .html extension is Safari, which I found is impossible to change. A tiny thing but it still makes me angry that someone at Apple intentionally removed my ability as a user.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#358

Post by whymauri »

godelski wrote: post #142
lima wrote: post #51

Slack has a fun dark pattern - they purposefully remove functionality from their web app to make you install their native app. The web app has a workspace switcher sidebar, but it only appears on ChromeOS, where you can't install the native client. https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/144258/slacks-we...

I'm just impressed how bad slack is on mobile. Either I'm getting messages on my computer and phone (on phone after I've responded on the computer) or not at all.

Same here... no clue what's happened over the last few years. Slack used to be pretty reliable when I first used it.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#359

Post by whymauri »

sircastor wrote: post #324
yawnxyz wrote: post #282

I hate it when Linkedin or Lunchclub does a "connect your friends!" and you accidentally click a button and it literally launches spam invites for your entire address book. Worst part is that NO ONE has ever called them out for such a dark pattern, but the pattern forces ppl to send unsolicited emails to their contacts AND pretends it's meant to be sent by the person. Incredibly devious

I accidentally signed into gmail via LinkedIn a while back and it caused me grief for months. I had to write a number of apologetic emails, and I’m still annoyed at LinkedIn -it’s been 13 years.

This has happened a few times with alumni from my college, except their address book automatically syncs large mailing lists are contacts...

This results in a LinkedIn invite getting sent out to thousands, if not tens of thousands of people. Literally malware-level behavior.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#360

Post by zelon88 »

jeremy_wiebe wrote: post #239
bogwog wrote: post #152

A common one is fake consent popups for system notifications. Websites need to ask for consent before sending system notifications via the Notifications API. If a user declines, that website is blocked from asking again (for obvious reasons) But many websites cheat this by showing a fake consent popup designed to mimic what the browser would show. If a user clicks "Decline" on the fake popup, the website won't show t…

This is commonly referred to as a “soft ask.” The reasons for it are not always nefarious. On some platforms you cannot provide any commentary on why you want to send push notifications and so the soft ask provides a way to give more context on the next (real) permission dialog. I’m not saying this isn’t abused all over, but when used effectively it can provide the user with more information to decide if they want to…

Why not make a user who wants notifications click a special button taking them to a special page where you show the notifications popup?

I'm sure if you asked, everyone who does this is going to tell you that "MY use of it is not nefarious. It's everyone else's fault that technique is abused."

Stop breaking the users browser. If you are, regardless of your intent; you are making a shitty experience for somebody, somewhere.

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