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Comment by conesus

4 hours ago

Thanks to the HN moderators for re-posting this after I posted this a few days ago. I only notice now that it's on the front page.

Happy to answer any questions. Let me tell you, I've really enjoyed having those writers that I like highlighted on this comment thread because it makes it very easy to scan it.

I think it's important to remember that this is not about hiding writers you disagree with. It's simply about making it so that you can read more Hacker News threads and quickly scanning the comments, teasing out those writers that you agree with. It's also fun to read the writers you disagree with, if anything, to reinforce your opinion of them.

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conesus

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card_zero  1 hour ago

Is that what it's about?

> identify quality authors and filter out obnoxious commenters

> not about hiding writers you disagree with

> It's also fun to read the writers you disagree with

[But] > to reinforce your opinion of them. [Did you misspeak here?]

> this reduces the time I spent on Hacker News

> find the good stuff based on people you trust

This is very confused.

* Do we want to avoid ideas that we disagree with?

* Do we want to avoid authors we've labelled as annoying? (This is about meta-level bad ideas, about how to interact.)

* Do we want to avoid meta-level ideas that we disagree with?

* What if your friends disagree about who their friends and enemies are?

* What it they don't disagree, isn't that creepy? Echo chamber much?

* Is it right to pre-empt your own interest by labelling material before reading it? I don't know!

Seems to me that rational pre-filtering should be along subtle, personal, ever-changing lines, and you should constantly be deciding on the spot based on complex information including your current mood and dyspepsia. How should interest work? You may start reading a thing and decide "this is not for me" (or "this is a troll or a bot"). Or with a tool like this one you may carry out the same process faster, and more crudely, using less information and less serendipity. So you're encouraging people to be in a rush and make more superficial choices instead of mining for the gold. On the other hand, maybe they are in a rush and need to be like that.