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Comment by NahBrah | Hacker News Reader

Are these "anti-abuse tools" going to be as poorly-made as the GG blocker? Because if so, you're going to do more harm than good.

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Been working pretty well for me, and the code's been pretty straightforward. I mean, unless you have more substantive issues with it you can raise and substantiate, this reads as just static and noise, really.

The issue is that it works on the premise of guilt by association. It blocked an IGDA chairman FFS. The only thing it serves to do is filter out opinions you disagree with, which does nothing but harm anyone who cares to think outside their comfort zone.

It works exactly according to its intended algorithm, which is very clearly documented on the GitHub page. Yet you claim it's poorly coded.

The "only thing it does" is block people who follow specific accounts, as they overwhelmingly tend to be annoying GamerGaters on Twitter. You only find it harmful because people you haven't personally annoyed yet are pre-emptively blocking you from doing so.

It's a <300 line Perl script that anyone could have thrown together in less than an hour. If that's all it takes to be a coder worthy of anything other than code monkey work then I've been looking for jobs in the wrong places. And if you really think that someone following someone you disagree with on Twitter is grounds for never interacting with them at all, then I'm sorry to say but you exist in a nice little hugbox.

Your primary objection to it seems to be entirely predicated on the fact that it prevents you from annoying people who would rather be left alone. "<300 line Perl script" isn't a substantive or useful criticism.

Indeed. I would think a hastily coded perl script written in a fog of tequila being so effective is a pretty good vote in my favor.

I mean, imagine what I can do with gin.

Say the word and I'll postmates a bottle of Bombay Sapphire to your office.

When the two choices given you are to exist in a hugbox or get abused and insulted every day for a few years, I think I know what sane people are going to do. Including you, despite your bluster. There are other ways to counteract being in an echo chamber that don't involve constantly turning the other cheek to a mob of wild assholes.

It did block an IGDA chair! One who had deep connections to MRA sites, responded by tagging in #gamergate to get his friends to take up his fight against this "unfair" censorship, and shortly after this incident found himself to no longer be associated with the IGDA.

System working very very much as intended there!

The only /real/ false positives it's ever generated that I'm aware of are a handful of people closely following hate group leaders to report on them, all of whom easily passed through the whitelisting process, and support the blocker wholeheartedly.

Would a campaign to get someone fired because they held progressive political views, be considered harassment or abuse?

Wait, first the problem is that it's poorly-made, then the problem is that it's really good at what it does (but it's supposedly bad at it), then the problem is that it was way too easy to make something that effective?

These all seem like mutually exclusive criticisms (still lacking in substantiation). Which one is it?

Also, even if you granted all of the above concerns, what business is it of anyone's if they choose not to have to listen to people? Right of association, and all. If it's really as damaging as you claim, either people will see that (and stop), or they won't.

p.s. 'hugbox' is a pretty amazingly offensive term, especially on a community site which has generally shown broad support for neuro-diversity, and I don't think it honors the community guideline to "Be civil".

>The only thing it serves to do is filter out opinions you disagree with, which does nothing but harm anyone who cares to think outside their comfort zone.

For me it's simply a matter of making twitter usable.

I wasn't aware this existed and never had the slightest need, but following GDC on twitter this year was a spam fest without it.

If you can offer me a more effective GamerGate blocklist, I'll gladly switch to it. Or if you could make GamerGate stop being so repulsive, that would be even better.

Why are you criticizing a solution to a problem you don't have without offering an alternative? It's almost like you don't care about the problem or the people it impacts at all.

oh for sure man

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