Ask HN: How can I block posts about Musk, Twitter, Mastodon and related topics? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How can I block posts about Musk, Twitter, Mastodon and related topics?

7 pointswsgeorge6 comments

Since Elon completed his purchase of Twitter, the quality of conversation on this site about those topics has plummeted.

I'm almost at the point of getting off HN for several weeks until the hive mind finds something else to vex it. But I realise I'll be losing a lot of high quality conversations too.

Does HN have filters for topics you don't want to see?

View on HN

If you have uBlock Origin installed, you can add the following to My filters:

  # top (title / url)
  news.ycombinator.com##tr.athing span.titleline > a:has-text(/(Musk|Twitter|Mastodon)/):upward(tr)
  # bottom (stats / comments)
  news.ycombinator.com##tr.athing span.titleline > a:has-text(/(Musk|Twitter|Mastodon)/):upward(tr) + *

(warning: there is a side effect where it would mess up the formatting of the effected posts such as this one)

You can click the 'hide' link to make it go away. Of course you have to see a post before clicking that link, but at least it's a way to take revenge on it.

If it helps at all (probably not), the way we moderate this sort of topical avalanche is described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33509084.

> I'm almost at the point of getting off HN for several weeks until the hive mind finds something else

Something else will fill the void. There is always hot drama to discuss in the tech world. I do a mental filter without using a program or piece of code. I just don't pay that clownshoe any attention.

I use my own HN client app[0]. It groups by keyword, "Twitter" being one of them, so they can all be ignored in one place. It also shows the top daily posts in reverse chronological order, as well as grouping Ask HN and Show HN.

The goal of it is to group popular/mainstream topics and bring the ungrouped stories to the top to increase visibility of less popular but still engaging stories, which tend to be the more interesting content I come to HN for. That and to provide a stable day by day listing so I don't keep revisiting expecting to find a another juicy story hiding somewhere.

[0] https://hackerer.news

There are numerous topics on HN where the quality of conversation is poor, and remains poor. Cases in point: anything regarding diversity, women in tech, or the vintage HN boogeyman that is the H1B visa.

If I see those topics, I just don't click. The comments, at least the top-rated ones, are always the same.

BTW, I don't recall seeing anything about Twitter on the HN front page on Monday, at least during ET work hours.

Isn’t the simple solution to ignore those threads? There is no need for a technical solution.

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