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Google Sidewiki

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Re: Google Sidewiki

#81

Post by bastawhiz »

LightBug1 wrote: post #71
bastawhiz wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I desperately do not want this to succeed. Who moderates it? No moderation means a fractal of spam, hate, propaganda, and low-value posts. You cannot have a system like this that's resistant to Sybil attacks without centralization or federation (or at least not without forcing users to get into crypto to use it... No thanks). You either accept that it's centralized, and it becomes siloed (see: reddit, Twitter) or you…

Who moderates wikipedia?

Editors, controlled by a (mostly benevolent) centralized authority

Re: Google Sidewiki

#82

Post by Philip-J-Fry »

Blackthorn wrote: post #79
crazygringo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, let's spitball. Maybe too much for an HN comment, but here we go: - Define an open protocol - There are multiple viewers (browser plug-ins), so different users can choose a different viewing/comment ranking interface experience - There are multiple "channels" of comments for any piece of content, but usually channels will be topic-wide, sitewide, or even internet-wide. All content for a channel comes from a singl…

I thought about this sort of thing as a reddit replacement. Browser extension that creates a forum on any arbitrary page. Backend is just nntp so pick your own server. Can't work on it because of corporate ip ownership and all that nonsense. It's a pretty trivial idea though, pretty much anyone could implement it if you don't bother writing a bespoke news client.

>Can't work on it because of corporate ip ownership and all that nonsense.

Is this an American thing? I'd understand that being an issue if you were using company provided equipment, doing it on company time, or creating a competitor.

But if you're just doing a side project in your own time on your own computer, how can your employer assert any sort of ownership over that?

Re: Google Sidewiki

#83

Post by bastawhiz »

crazygringo wrote: post #75
bastawhiz wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I desperately do not want this to succeed. Who moderates it? No moderation means a fractal of spam, hate, propaganda, and low-value posts. You cannot have a system like this that's resistant to Sybil attacks without centralization or federation (or at least not without forcing users to get into crypto to use it... No thanks). You either accept that it's centralized, and it becomes siloed (see: reddit, Twitter) or you…

OK, let's spitball. Maybe too much for an HN comment, but here we go: - Define an open protocol - There are multiple viewers (browser plug-ins), so different users can choose a different viewing/comment ranking interface experience - There are multiple "channels" of comments for any piece of content, but usually channels will be topic-wide, sitewide, or even internet-wide. All content for a channel comes from a singl…

The details are immaterial. Who stores the data at rest? If it's distributed, you have a cesspool of spam and nonsense. If it's controlled by a central authority, it's subject to the whims of that authority. If you choose a federated hub (a la Mastodon), you're stuck in your echo chamber or an empty room.

The protocol doesn't matter. Right now, those are the only three options (minus crypto) given our current technology. Without going into the technical feasibility of your solution of federated identity with distributed storage or deciding who becomes a moderator or how to avoid a bad actor spinning up thousands of servers to create millions of fake users to spam or any of the other problems, the issue is social: people choose to be in the place where the moderation is most agreeable to them, which will become the natural partition for how the users divide themselves. Whoever those moderators are responsible to (how do you get "fired"? who decides?) ultimately answers the question of centralized, federated, or distributed, and decides the implications and downsides of that approach.

Re: Google Sidewiki

#84

Post by dotancohen »

quaintdev wrote: post #20
INTPenis wrote: post #11

Didn't Firefox do something similar for a while? In effect it's not that much different from Reddit, being a link aggregator where people can comment on the links. The main difference would be that it works on any website and it doesn't have to be posted to reddit to spark a thread. I've read people's comments on here but I still think this is a great idea. As long as it's properly executed, meaning there should be n…

I was thinking of doing something like this few days back. I planned out everything like writing a sidebar extension for Chrome & Firefox. The whole time I was wondering why anyone else did not think of this. Then I realize this will not work on Mobile and almost gave up on idea immediately.

  > Then I realize this will not work on Mobile and almost gave up on idea immediately.
You could probably initiate an interaction with an app via the browser's Share button.

Re: Google Sidewiki

#85

Post by crazygringo »

bastawhiz wrote: post #83
crazygringo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, let's spitball. Maybe too much for an HN comment, but here we go: - Define an open protocol - There are multiple viewers (browser plug-ins), so different users can choose a different viewing/comment ranking interface experience - There are multiple "channels" of comments for any piece of content, but usually channels will be topic-wide, sitewide, or even internet-wide. All content for a channel comes from a singl…

The details are immaterial. Who stores the data at rest? If it's distributed, you have a cesspool of spam and nonsense. If it's controlled by a central authority, it's subject to the whims of that authority. If you choose a federated hub (a la Mastodon), you're stuck in your echo chamber or an empty room. The protocol doesn't matter. Right now, those are the only three options (minus crypto) given our current technol…

> Who stores the data at rest?

Each channel stores all the comments left on it. (They're not copied anywhere else, except for caching clients might choose to implement.)

> If it's distributed, you have a cesspool of spam and nonsense.

Channels that moderate will not, and most people won't be viewing channels that don't moderate.

> people choose to be in the place where the moderation is most agreeable to them

Yes, those would be the lists of approved channels that clients use, like I said maintained analagously to adblock lists. There would probably be one or two popular "mainstream" lists, and then various "progressive-only", "right wing-only", "lulz" etc. ones.

Think of it basically like Reddit, except each subreddit is its own server (channel) that moderates according to its own policies, and whenever you view a NYTimes article you pull up combined comments from the well-moderated subreddits and not from the badly/un-moderated ones.

Does that make sense?

Re: Google Sidewiki

#86

Post by Blackthorn »

Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #82
Blackthorn wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought about this sort of thing as a reddit replacement. Browser extension that creates a forum on any arbitrary page. Backend is just nntp so pick your own server. Can't work on it because of corporate ip ownership and all that nonsense. It's a pretty trivial idea though, pretty much anyone could implement it if you don't bother writing a bespoke news client.

>Can't work on it because of corporate ip ownership and all that nonsense. Is this an American thing? I'd understand that being an issue if you were using company provided equipment, doing it on company time, or creating a competitor. But if you're just doing a side project in your own time on your own computer, how can your employer assert any sort of ownership over that?

Yes, it's an American thing.

Re: Google Sidewiki

#87

Post by bastawhiz »

crazygringo wrote: post #85
bastawhiz wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The details are immaterial. Who stores the data at rest? If it's distributed, you have a cesspool of spam and nonsense. If it's controlled by a central authority, it's subject to the whims of that authority. If you choose a federated hub (a la Mastodon), you're stuck in your echo chamber or an empty room. The protocol doesn't matter. Right now, those are the only three options (minus crypto) given our current technol…

> Who stores the data at rest? Each channel stores all the comments left on it. (They're not copied anywhere else, except for caching clients might choose to implement.) > If it's distributed, you have a cesspool of spam and nonsense. Channels that moderate will not, and most people won't be viewing channels that don't moderate. > people choose to be in the place where the moderation is most agreeable to them Yes, th…

> Yes, those would be the lists of approved channels that clients use

Who moderates the list of channels? Who decides which curated lists of channels are available?

> most people won't be viewing channels that don't moderate.

Who decides the moderation policies? Who enforces that the moderators are doing their jobs, nominates new ones, and fires ineffective ones?

> Does that make sense?

Nothing you described is technically infeasible, it's just you're trying to describe a federated system while avoiding storing data on federated servers.

The problem is not in storing or distributing the bytes, it's about policy and governance. What you're describing is a federated system, with power being put in the hands of the people who maintain the lists of channels and the people who decide which lists to publish to their users (assuming they're different people). Someone is still in charge, just not a singular centralized authority. That's a federated system, and they exist already, and the social and political problems with running them are well known.

Re: Google Sidewiki

#88

Post by nlawalker »

nlawalker wrote: post #57

I was just thinking about how I wanted something like this the other day - like a lot of other PM-type people at my work, quite a bit of my output is "docs and decks", which I have found carry around a strong "work in progress" vibe. Whether you're sharing one out on your screen in a video call or sending it to someone so they can open it themselves, it's impossible to make a piece of work feel like a finished produc…

Too late to edit, but wanted to ask the question directly: can anyone recommend a static site generator or CMS plugin that adds this functionality to a content-driven site? Anything/any generator or CMS is fine, I'm in the "poking around" phase of getting ideas. It would be for small-scale usage, on the order of a team annotating and discussing simple web content with basic text.

Re: Google Sidewiki

#89

Post by crazygringo »

bastawhiz wrote: post #87
crazygringo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who stores the data at rest? Each channel stores all the comments left on it. (They're not copied anywhere else, except for caching clients might choose to implement.) > If it's distributed, you have a cesspool of spam and nonsense. Channels that moderate will not, and most people won't be viewing channels that don't moderate. > people choose to be in the place where the moderation is most agreeable to them Yes, th…

> Yes, those would be the lists of approved channels that clients use Who moderates the list of channels? Who decides which curated lists of channels are available? > most people won't be viewing channels that don't moderate. Who decides the moderation policies? Who enforces that the moderators are doing their jobs, nominates new ones, and fires ineffective ones? > Does that make sense? Nothing you described is techn…

> Who moderates the list of channels?

Like I said, groups of people create lists the way adblock lists are currently created.

> Who decides which curated lists of channels are available?

Viewers will come with default popular lists (like adblockers do), but anyone can add any list or channels directly.

> Who decides the moderation policies? Who enforces that

The owner(s) of each channel.

> it's just you're trying to describe a federated system while avoiding storing data on federated servers.

Exactly, since there are a lot of problems we know are associated with that.

> What you're describing is a federated system, with power being put in the hands of the people who maintain the lists of channels and the people who decide which lists to publish to their users (assuming they're different people)

Exactly. That's really the most crucial part here.

> the social and political problems with running them are well known.

Are they? Because I'm not aware of any federated system set up in this particular way. Subreddit moderation works pretty well, and adblock lists that adblockers use work pretty well, so I'd love to know if there's an obvious social/political gotcha I'm missing here.

Re: Google Sidewiki

#90

Post by zeryx »

bastawhiz wrote: post #87
crazygringo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who stores the data at rest? Each channel stores all the comments left on it. (They're not copied anywhere else, except for caching clients might choose to implement.) > If it's distributed, you have a cesspool of spam and nonsense. Channels that moderate will not, and most people won't be viewing channels that don't moderate. > people choose to be in the place where the moderation is most agreeable to them Yes, th…

> Yes, those would be the lists of approved channels that clients use Who moderates the list of channels? Who decides which curated lists of channels are available? > most people won't be viewing channels that don't moderate. Who decides the moderation policies? Who enforces that the moderators are doing their jobs, nominates new ones, and fires ineffective ones? > Does that make sense? Nothing you described is techn…

I know crypto is a curse word here, but what you're describing is literally a perfect use case for IPFS and a DAO
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