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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

#531

Post by mewpmewp2 »

brigandish wrote: post #342
TeMPOraL wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't apologize. It's a pretty common practice. Some e-commerce vendors may not like it, because it disturbs their statistics or marketing shenanigans, but the error here is on their side - they assume that putting something in a cart is an intent to purchase. That assumption is wrong. It's obvious why this happens. The shopping cart, as an e-commerce pattern, is a bookmarking tool . You put stuff there, it stays the…

> stars on GitHub - they're not an expression of appreciation for the project, they're just bookmarks Project maintainers often don’t think so. I think they should be just bookmarks and not a measure of popularity, better to hide the number of stars. It’d hopefully make some maintainers more humble and helpful. Maybe!

They are really good to understand whether project is used by enough folks for it to be validated and most likely maintained.

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

#532

Post by heavyset_go »

cuddlybacon wrote: post #529
thow-01187 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google does this even more egregiously with Android - my default browser is Firefox, but any links from Google News, Google Assistant and other Google software open in Chrome.

On iOS if you click a link in a Google app it will ask you if you want to install Chrome or continue with Safari.

On iOS, Chrome is just a skin over Safari's rendering and JS engine.

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

#533

Post by reificator »

ryandrake wrote: post #308
reificator wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The browser is designed so that a website gets one chance to ask for that permission, rather than nag every single time you visit. If it's not a dark pattern to ask again every time you hit Deny, then why don't they do it again every time you hit Allow?

It’s a trick to try to take a yes / no choice and sneakily turn it into a “yes / ask me again later” choice. Silicon Valley in general seems to have a huge problem with the idea of user consent and permanently revoking consent.

Perhaps I phrased my response poorly, but yes, that's basically what I meant.

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

#534

Post by brigandish »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #531
brigandish wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> stars on GitHub - they're not an expression of appreciation for the project, they're just bookmarks Project maintainers often don’t think so. I think they should be just bookmarks and not a measure of popularity, better to hide the number of stars. It’d hopefully make some maintainers more humble and helpful. Maybe!

They are really good to understand whether project is used by enough folks for it to be validated and most likely maintained.

Isn’t that what the commit dates are for? Or the issue list?

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

#535

Post by brigandish »

brigandish wrote: post #352
thraway123412 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

HN obviously isn’t for them.

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

#536

Post by m463 »

dclusin wrote: post #5

I think the biggest dark pattern is social platforms holding the browser hostage instead of opening content in the users native browser app. Social media sites are built on user generated content. By keeping users in the app like this it puts the website at an inherent disadvantage and prevents them from providing a compelling first class experience that might compete with facebook for attention, due to their inheren…

All the video conferencing apps do this - Teams or Webex always try to download the app before they give you the option of using the browser unless you carefully navigate things.

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

#537

Post by m463 »

hda2 wrote: post #380

The "hold-your-offline-device-hostage-until-you-attempt-to-connect" pattern. It goes something like this: When setting up a new unlinked kindle device, Amazon tries to trick you into connecting to the internet by showing a wifi setup screen that cannot be skipped. The only way to skip it is to supply the device with bad credentials and let it attempt to connect and fail. Only when it fails will it allow its owner to…

I think this is probably the darkest pattern of all.

So many offline devices are forced to have an online component.

Simple IoT devices with just bluetooth - they require an app that will phone home.

More complicated devices with wifi or ethernet - they will nag you again and again until you are connected to the mothership.

Even apple with all it's "privacy is a right" won't turn off bluetooth or wifi in the quick menu - they just toggle it and it comes back. You have to dig into settings to turn them off "for real".

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

#538

Post by philwelch »

anoncake wrote: post #398
ryandrake wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one is kind of on the os platform though. I can’t think of a legit use case where an app should get access to every single contact in my address book. This is incredibly personal information, and should be guarded better, perhaps by asking consent for each access and for each contact. The app should have to explain in detail why it wants access to a particular contact.

> I can’t think of a legit use case where an app should get access to every single contact in my address book. To manage your contacts? The permission to access all your contacts does need to exist, even if it's currently overused.

I am totally willing to do away with third-party contact managers if it means preventing this malarkey.

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

#539

Post by mewpmewp2 »

brigandish wrote: post #534
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are really good to understand whether project is used by enough folks for it to be validated and most likely maintained.

Isn’t that what the commit dates are for? Or the issue list?

Amount of issues to infer how much library gets used? That might work, but it feels like amount of issues would depend very much on the complexity of the library itself. It would be great if this number was also on the main page then and it would be possible to sort by that, but it still feels iffy to use that.

And maybe in some cases you would like to know amount of issues per amount of stars.

With issue count if it's a simpler type of library you would imagine there are quite few issues, but you'd still like to know whether this library is validated by enough folks. If it has plenty of stars and very few issues, this seems to be indicative of a very good option.

Ideally you look at all signals, also download counts from packagist/other managers as well.

I just don't think it would be a valid idea to remove the star count in an attempt to make some folks more humbler. I doubt it would make maintainers more helpful.

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

#540

Post by user3939382 »

gnicholas wrote: post #175

I can't believe that the Microsoft Teams software automatically reinstalls itself in my login items every time I open it. I don't use it often — mostly when I have calls with people at Microsoft — but this happens without fail every time. As far as I'm concerned, this makes the Teams software malware. I have never had any other software that repeatedly put itself into my login items that wasn't clearly malware. If I…

Google Chrome’s update software does this on Mac, every time it launches it tries to reinstall its auto starting updater. Adobe does this as well.
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