Tell HN: Add ?share=1 to Quora URLs to display content without login

There should be an adblocker list for popups, survey requests, etc

There must be a market for a chrome plugin that lets one ctrl+click to delete a DOM element, I wonder how hard that would be?

I wrote a bookmarklet to delete stuff like this without opening the inspector:

  javascript:(function(){document.styleSheets[0].addRule(".highlighted_to_remove","background:red !important");var e=function(e){if(e.keyCode==27){i()}};document.addEventListener("keydown",e);var t=function(e){e.stopPropagation();this.classList.add("highlighted_to_remove");return false};var n=function(e){e.stopPropagation();this.classList.remove("highlighted_to_remove");return false};var r=function(e){this.parentNode.removeChild(this);i();e.preventDefault();e.stopPropagation();return false};var i=function(){var i=0;var s=document;while(s=document.body.getElementsByTagName("*").item(i++)){s.removeEventListener("mouseover",t);s.removeEventListener("mouseout",n);s.removeEventListener("click",r);s.classList.remove("highlighted_to_remove")}document.removeEventListener("keydown",e)};var s=0;var o=document;while(o=document.body.getElementsByTagName("*").item(s++)){o.addEventListener("mouseover",t);o.addEventListener("mouseout",n);o.addEventListener("click",r)}})()

Post about it: https://plus.google.com/114437281866675781856/posts/hkp9F9Wr...

Readability is your friend! http://www.readability.com/apps

Remove It Permanently

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-it-per...

Based on Aardvark; fixes the web.

AdBlock's pretty good at handling this stuff too.

Eventually, this will become a crime and we, programmers, will support it. Because, legislating our way to money is easier. Locking down is easier.

Extensions like Readability and Clearly let you read just the main content on the page. It would be nice if they had an option to automatically load pages like in that mode. Besides avoiding all the clutter websites put, the pages would also load faster that way.

You might enjoy this "position:fixed fixer" bookmarklet I wrote, it just sets all elements with position:fixed to position:static. In 99% of the cases this does exactly what is needed to improve the page, without even having to manually click or select the elements.

    javascript:for(var a=document.querySelectorAll('*'),i=0,e; e=a[i]; i++) if (e.currentStyle.position == 'fixed') e.style.position = 'static'; void(0)

I have it named "fix", so I can just type "fix" in the address bar and it applies to the current page. It's lovely, all those floating fixed elements just disappear (possibly somewhere to the bottom of the page) and you get your screen estate back.

edit: I just see a bunch of others also made bookmarklets to remove elements, so I added a bit more description as to why mine is different. Setting all position:fixed elements to position:static really does seem to do exactly what you want in one fell swoop, in 99% of the cases.

I think websites in general are getting away with bloat overall. Ever since I started using noscript I've gotten increasingly annoyed by how every site seems to wanna run scripts from at least 3-4 sources that I know aren't essential to my experience on the actual site. Some sites have upwards of 15 sources and I have to wade through them to allow the content servers, etc..

Google having this as a feature for a while was great, annoying that they removed that....

Yes, Quora are really quite obnoxious and spammy in many ways.

It's a shame they went down this route after a promising start. They could have taken the StackOverflow route but chose to be Expert-Sex-Change instead.

I also did that plus deleted my account and all my answers, many of which were quite popular. It started so well too.

Isn't that forbidden by Google?

I've just tested and I don't see any image, the html is right there and just clicking will make the lightbox go away. I never see it anyway cause I'm signed in but I tried in incognito mode and it was fine. Not sure why there's so much misinformation and hate on HN when it comes to quora.

It's probably possible to recover the text from the blurred image (depending on the amount of blurring), some people would consider it a challenge

> ... they now screenshot the text, blur it ...

I think the blurred text is generic.

SO doesn't allow talky SV navel gazing opinion threads though.

Why the hatred? Quora isn't that bad. They fixed what google/yahoo answers couldn't

Having written enough on both to know them reasonably well (4 gold medals on SO, Top Writer on Quora), I like Quora much better as a platform. The community design is much better on Quora, I think the UI is more appealing, and I don't have to worry about insane moderators nuking valuable content because it doesn't fit their personal agendas for the site.

My only real objection to Quora is that they make it so hard to share content. I think the walled garden thing is just wrong; I (and many other Top Writers) haven't been shy about telling them that, either. I hope they will eventually come around.

It's really scummy that I land on these pages to be presented with a login box and need to do this trick to see the contents.

Nice! Thanks for the tipoff.

Another good one is simply to load the google cache. Often these sites want to turn up in search results, so they allow the googlebot to see the content, and then show the user a paywall. Obviously this means the full content ends up in the cache. This works for the Financial Times, and probably many other such places.

Tried it on:

http://forums.offtopic.com/printhread.php?t=5190971

And got redirected to the homepage instead.

It has been for over a year now.

http://www.quora.com/Quora/Why-hasnt-Google-banned-Quora-for...

Edit: Link fixed :)

They actually officially communicated about this method:

  Open any Quora URL. If you come across a Quora link
  anywhere and you want to read it without being asked to
  join Quora, you can add the text "?share=1" to the end
  of the URL.

http://blog.quora.com/Making-Sharing-Better

expert sex change

It's really not. Once you sign up, there are no pop-ups, nor are there advertisements of any kind.

They became popular because of Founder Fame by Association.

They started requiring registration because they belong to The Cult Of Registered User Metrics and they forgot the internet is 98% read and 2% contribute.

Yeah, I never click anymore. I have a login, I could probably ask them for it, but I'd have to log in every time because I never stay logged in to anything but HN, so meh.

You're honestly asking why someone would rather take the quick and much more anonymous way out instead of registering? It makes perfect sense to me.

Exactly. Quora doesn't even need a valid email for registering.

> why do you think people write great answers there?

Well, I certainly don't think it has anything to do with the fact that they require registration. People write great content on 4chan.

> Jesus H. the lengths people go through not to register a throwaway astounds me.

Have you ever actually been to Quora? The registration modal doesn't even give you the offer to register with a pseudonym that you so casually throw out. You get smacked in the face when you go to the site with a demand to link to your (real-name required) Google or Facebook accounts before you can so much as read 'their' precious content. To sign up with just an email address (that you then have to verify, which automatically opts you in to literally over 30 different 'newsletters' and notifications and other bits of spam that you have to manually opt out of individually). It certainly isn't just "type something into this form to shut up" as you suggest.

You are attacking a straw man argument. The problem lies not with registration, but with purposeful degradation of content a la expertsexchange, for the purpose of _forcing_ registration just for viewing. I'm _not_ interested in registering into every walled garden out there on the Internet, just for the purpose of reading a result of a web search.

(All right all right, you can do the "but it's technically not content cloaking" quora astroturf dance now; but you know the saying: if it walks like duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck...)

They are blurring the answers. If you search for something and end up on quora, it can get a bit frustrating , due to the fact, that you can't read the answers and are forced to sign up. That's just rude.

They abuse rel=canonical to increase their search engine rank but slam a registration wall in your face when you try to go read the content on their site.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6301280

- They blur their answers for non-registered users. They're wasting my time when I think I find what I'm looking for only to find a blurred image. Just tell Google you don't want to be indexed if you don't want to share the content.

- You can't use their website without using your real name. They're really persistent in this. A pseudonym won't do, they'll ask you to identify yourself with a scan of your ID before they let you participate. It's ridiculous.

If you have been on any answer with ?share=1 they're setting a cookie and you get no blurred answers until you remove the cookie or it expires.

It is authorized. They have published this and encourage people to use it. The main goal was, from what I could tell, to get popular writers to stop bitching about their interface all the time.