They're also driving away contributors with more altruistic motivations. There are a few niche subjects for which I can offer a semi-useful perspective. But I'm not going to do it if Quora build a big fucking wall around it. When they started introducing that I deleted my account. Fuck them.
I've a simple but strict set of security rules for whether I'll use a
website.
- it does not want to run javascript
- that I can access it over Tor without being blocked
- that it will work in a text based browser like elinks
Despite the protestations by idealogues that no such sites exist, HN
meets all those requirements, as do dozens of useful sites I regularly
use.
If and only if I get to evaluate the quality of a site based on those
requirements, I may eventually register, with nothing more than an
email, in order to post replies.
Quora fell off that list long ago. More recently so did StackExchange.
Often I find that things break as soon as Cloudflare proxies are
involved.
You must agree that for almost every web-based product, designers and product managers can safely decide to completely ignore all people who have requirements like yours without it ever affecting their success.
Designers and product managers may completely ignore people like me,
trample all over our needs and ignore us. Why would they care about
the one percent. All good luck power to them and their values.
But I am also not the least bit concerned with whether their products
are a success or not. Why would I care if they do not?
Yet I cannot concur that "almost every" site does. No, there are some
that do. Moreover, those sites seem to self curate as being of very
good quality. So I am happy that there are thoughtful, intelligent
people out there who "get it". When they stop, so do I, and just move
on. It's not personal and I'm not invested in them.
My experience running websites tells me that ignoring people like you is actually mandatory because they'll take up all your time and have opposite tastes of contributing users.
Oh indeed. What a wonderful training set this will make one day when
it's sold. We'll be too sore to sit down in the morning, but right now
at least we're getting a reach-around.
Given that HN has a public API to export all the conversations nobody needs to wait for that day to make it into a training set. In fact, I would be extremely surprised if it hasn't already been trained on.
Richard is most concerned about injustices toward people that take
away their freedoms. I am most concerned about the security of people
and how software makes them insecure in order to profit from, or abuse
them. These are proximate but different.
It is a bit worrying that both freedom and security are thought
'fanatical' by some.
> It is a bit worrying that both freedom and security are thought 'fanatical' by some.
I'm afraid any discourse that's similar to religion in how it's done is 'fanatical' for me. No matter if it's about $DEITY, blockchain, "AI" or freedom.
Edit: oh, forgot Oppenheimer and Barbie. Haven't seen them and never will. I can't stand cults in my entertainment either.
> It is a bit worrying that both freedom and security are thought 'fanatical' by some.
Because those are your grandpa's and your dad's causes, respectively. The operative word for this generation is "consent."
Manipulate someone into giving Consent and you can do whatever the hell you want to them. They asked for and agreed to the abuse!
It all starts with clicking "I accept."
My skin crawls anytime I see someone bring it up; it's a red flag that someone is trying to apply BDSM protocol negotiation to an otherwise-simple interaction. Attorneys do this shit too. People only ever do it at all when they're trying to rewrite the rules in their favor.
In all honesty I think grandpa's and dad's causes were getting home
with all their arms legs still attached, but I hear you. Once the
sound of trumpets fades and the flags are folded, it's hard to get out
of your head what has been internalised so deeply. Yeah they're just
words, usually uttered by men who've sacrificed nothing.
But hey, this thing about "consent". Jolly interesting. Because not a
single person I've met born after 2000 really has the capacity
I do not mean that in a disparaging way, but I do mean it in a serious
legal sense. I don't think that in the 21st century the vast majority
of adults have the capacity to consent to digital contracts. It
started with EULAs, and has since plunged the entire legal profession
into degeneracy. It's total failure to protect the lives of common
people from technology predators is shameful.
It's hard to me to see how a site with a vision like Quora (had) can continue existing for long after they start ignoring accessibility issues.
Sounds like I should be looking for a Stack Overflow alternative too.
(I'm suspecting that this might be related to the recent issue of better accessibility also making it easier to abuse for neural network based abusers, and it certainly looks like a hard problem to solve for the most popular websites.)
Accessibility is important. But it doesn’t relate to success of a company. Besides, modern screen readers and even accessibility affordances on modern cell phones - at least iPhones - don’t struggle or care whether the site uses JavaScript
Surely my absence played no pivotal role in their downfall. I didn't
even know Quora had "died". How sad. RIP Quora. But a tjpnz said:
"They're also driving away contributors with more altruistic motivations"
Now, I can agree with that, because I see a very strong alignment
between the set of people who strongly uphold their own values and
have self-respect, and those who stand up for the rights of others and
have something to give.
The "walled garden" internet basically drives away people who give a
fuck.
One other way of saying “drives away people who give a fuck” could be saying those people are self-aggrandizing, self important, always yelling at the top of their lungs about their zealotry telling everyone at first opportunity about how they turn off JavaScript and don’t contribute the much to the discussion
I liken people like this to the Amish. They balk at modernity as being incompatible with their beliefs. So they withdraw from the world and live life as they see fit.
What they don’t do is go around all the time yelling at people telling them how their lifestyle is wrong or constantly telling other people how they don’t use certain technologies.
He’s right, people who always talk about they don’t use sites that require Javacript adds about as much to the conversation as people who show up in television conversations and say “I haven’t owned a television in 20 years, do people still watch TV?”
If we stick with that analogy, then since HN requires no Javascript,
it's more like we're having a discussion on a radio show, and I am
saying "I don't really watch much TV", no?
What I hear is that Javascript is a means of speed and power to
you. And for you, forgoing that power would serve no useful
purpose. Do I understand that correctly?
What I am wondering is, do you think that for other people, they
should, maybe even must, feel the same way? Even if they are very
pleased just listening to the radio?
Of course. What I do not want or need is code that's been part of the
web since about 2016-2020, which is arbitrary code execution by
complete strangers. Not even in a sandboxed disposable web browser.
Now I suspect you'll want to tell me how actually Javascript is
perfectly safe... and that's a conversation we can save for another
day for the sake of both our dignity and friendship. I'm afraid it's
my job to know otherwise.
If you knew about that many exploits in the wild, surely you could (white hat) tell the company who created the browser or (black hat) make a lot of money by selling it to three letter agencies or private companies that sell it to three letter agencies.
However, in the real world, a fully patched Android or iOS operating system - especially one that is in “lock down mode” is not any more susceptible to
Zero day exploits than the number of other exploitable parts of the OS that you also don’t have any control over.
And even if you only run open source software, how long was the OpenSSL bug in operating systems before it was discovered?
Do you use your mobile’s messaging system? That’s been one of the primary targets of exploits that will target you directly.
I appreciate your sincere and sweet overtures scarface, but I'm just
not that kinda javascript girl. You're right though, everything out
there is riddled with holes. Let's not give up though.
This is one of the kinds of product that people will skip if they can't evaluate it frictionless.