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Hacker News evading criticism by selectively adding noreferrer to certain links

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Re: Hacker News evading criticism by selectively adding noreferrer to certain links

#111

Post by Hamuko »

NoGravitas wrote: post #103
dang wrote: post #78

We got complaints from users about sites punishing HN referrers so I tried to oblige them, the same way we do other user requests. At the moment I feel caught in a double bind because there are complaints no matter what we do. I'm in a workshop today and can only check HN on breaks, so I can't properly read this thread yet. I'll return to it later, probably this evening. Edit: I think I agree with the users arguing t…

It's absolutely super gross to selectively apply noreferer to links only to Asahi Linux or JWZ's blog, because it's obvious you're doing it specifically to spite the people running those sites. If you applied it to every link, that might be different. I mean, the receipts are still out there, people still know what's up. But at least you're not being openly prejudicial.

Aren't the people selectively doing stuff on their websites for people with a HN referer header doing it out of spite?

Re: Hacker News evading criticism by selectively adding noreferrer to certain links

#112

Post by zamadatix »

mindcrime wrote: post #61
throwawayadvsec wrote: post #11

[flagged]

As it should. Personally speaking, I flagged this thread, and I hope others do as well. There's nothing productive to be accomplished here, nor anything intellectually stimulating to discuss. So yeah, I'm totally for deleting/killing this entire post.

I think a public review of what to do by Dang (responded to this thread) is not only productive, but highly valuable. It's unreasonable to sit around and wait for a neutral version of this discussion to pop up, it likely never will and the issue is only going to get worse.

Re: Hacker News evading criticism by selectively adding noreferrer to certain links

#113

Post by pseudosavant »

foogazi wrote: post #104
pseudosavant wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is enough to make me never touch Asahi Linux. What a childish game for a Linux distro? How dare someone link to their website without their approval...because that is totally how the internet works?? ffs.

What about robots.txt ? lots of sites have preferences on how you access them Paywalled articles are posted here everyday Why not respect the site owners wishes ?

Respect that Asahi thinks people like you and me, because we dare to get tech news from Hacker News, deserve to be excluded?

What if the site wasn't accessible to people who had been to the Washington Post or Fox News because Asahi didn't like those people as a blanket rule too? It is the exact same principle. I don't think you ever need to respect people that are actively trying to exclude you.

Re: Hacker News evading criticism by selectively adding noreferrer to certain links

#114

Post by josephcsible »

dang wrote: post #78

We got complaints from users about sites punishing HN referrers so I tried to oblige them, the same way we do other user requests. At the moment I feel caught in a double bind because there are complaints no matter what we do. I'm in a workshop today and can only check HN on breaks, so I can't properly read this thread yet. I'll return to it later, probably this evening. Edit: I think I agree with the users arguing t…

You did the right thing by adding noreferrer to their links. Knowing where people got to your site from without them explicitly telling you is a privilege, and it's one that they chose to abuse.

Re: Hacker News evading criticism by selectively adding noreferrer to certain links

#115

Post by Hamuko »

foogazi wrote: post #104
pseudosavant wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is enough to make me never touch Asahi Linux. What a childish game for a Linux distro? How dare someone link to their website without their approval...because that is totally how the internet works?? ffs.

What about robots.txt ? lots of sites have preferences on how you access them Paywalled articles are posted here everyday Why not respect the site owners wishes ?

Asahi Linux paywalling their blog is a very valid option for them if they want to control who sees it and who doesn't.

Re: Hacker News evading criticism by selectively adding noreferrer to certain links

#116

Post by birdyrooster »

NoGravitas wrote: post #103
dang wrote: post #78

We got complaints from users about sites punishing HN referrers so I tried to oblige them, the same way we do other user requests. At the moment I feel caught in a double bind because there are complaints no matter what we do. I'm in a workshop today and can only check HN on breaks, so I can't properly read this thread yet. I'll return to it later, probably this evening. Edit: I think I agree with the users arguing t…

It's absolutely super gross to selectively apply noreferer to links only to Asahi Linux or JWZ's blog, because it's obvious you're doing it specifically to spite the people running those sites. If you applied it to every link, that might be different. I mean, the receipts are still out there, people still know what's up. But at least you're not being openly prejudicial.

[flagged]

Re: Hacker News evading criticism by selectively adding noreferrer to certain links

#117

Post by zamadatix »

foogazi wrote: post #67
cj wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dang, have you considered applying the noreferrer to all links? HN users wouldn't notice the difference. I guess the main downside would be the owner of the submitted page might see a spike in traffic without knowing where the traffic is coming from. Edit: Thinking more, maybe not a great idea across the board. It would make it harder for site owners to recover if HN is causing downtime (hug of death).

> the main downside would be the owner of the submitted page might see a spike in traffic without knowing where the traffic is coming from. Sounds like a bad outcome - what is the upside to this ?

For that outcome? Probably none, that's why it's the main downside. For other outcomes? It allows the current redirect/content change strategy to be applied without being called out as a specific one-off action to person/group/site, as it is here.

Re: Hacker News evading criticism by selectively adding noreferrer to certain links

#118

Post by the_only_law »

pseudosavant wrote: post #108
tonightstoast wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Have these people ever been on 4chan? I’m with that other comment, this childish dogma is making it difficult to be supportive of Asahi.

Yes, I'm sure HN is just as bad as that site where people do things like doxx/swat users, or encourage things like a violent insurrection.

At least 4chan has some level of self awareness.

Re: Hacker News evading criticism by selectively adding noreferrer to certain links

#119

Post by Redoubts »

NoGravitas wrote: post #97
pseudosavant wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is enough to make me never touch Asahi Linux. What a childish game for a Linux distro? How dare someone link to their website without their approval...because that is totally how the internet works?? ffs.

Do you hate jwz, too? Because I assure you, if you follow a link from HN to jwz.org (without removing the referer header), you will get much worse than a Google redirect.

> Do you hate jwz, too?

I mean, he definitely needs to look in the mirror.

Re: Hacker News evading criticism by selectively adding noreferrer to certain links

#120

Post by pseudosavant »

birdyrooster wrote: post #40
jawns wrote: post #16

As best I can tell from perusing the thread: - The Asahi Linux team was "blocking" links to their site from Hacker News by detecting HN as the referrer and redirecting those users to Google. - HN added the "noreferrer" tag to at least one of the links, which tells the browser to not pass the referrer string. This means the Asahi Linux "block," which relies on the referrer information, does not work. - Asahi Linux tea…

Also lots of accusations about how our entire site is somehow abusive even though 1) I and many others here have contributed our resources to Asahi and 2) they have not put forth sufficient (any??) evidence. I can imagine how stressful it must be to run a major project like Asahi, but it seems like a bit misguided to cast Hacker News as a net negative source of interest.

Until today, I had a positive perspective on Asahi, and HN is the only place in my life I ever heard about Asahi. Maybe they shouldn't paint with such broad brushes about the visitors to HN?
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