Comment on feature proposals with Hoodwink.d

While forum threads are useful for discussing feature proposals, they have the impedances of being neither in place on the voting pages nor available for every proposal. (While you could open a thread for a threadless proposal, there's no way for you, the good samaritan, to add the link.)

So it's interesting to consider a system such as Hoodwink.d, a third party system using client side code to add commenting to any web site. This idea has been around for quite a while, such as in the original buzz-catching startup during the first dot com boom, ThirdVoice. ThirdVoice's current web legacy now mostly comprises the anti-ThirdVoice activism from back when people cared about it, provoking much the same reaction as Microsoft SmartTags did. As Hoodwink.d does the same thing as ThirdVoice--enables viewers to add "hidden" comments not under the control of authors--if it becomes popular, I wouldn't be surprised if it receives the same welcome from proponents of hardline authorism, as well as people who (quite rightly) simply don't see the point.

<Neill> what's the added value? the ability to mouth off about something you saw on the web? to your circle of friends? there are not already technologies to do this? am I not using such a technology right now as I'm typing this?

If you're interested, don't worry too much if you don't understand the "main" Hoodwink.d page; it's deliberately obtuse for (supposed) coolness. The first step is to make it possible to visit the real Hoodwink.d page, as described at this "absolute simpleton's guide" to step one. Once you can visit hoodwink.d, you can register and set up the service, which requires either Greasemonkey for Firefox or a Ruby page-rewriting web proxy called Mousehole.

Take care with these user scripts, though. Because Hoodwink.d has to ask the server for instructions on where to place its commenting apparatus, the script will report to Hoodwink.d what web sites you visit. You can easily limit these by setting the Hoodwink.d user script to only run on certain sites. This also saves time as the Hoodwink.d JavaScript doesn't have to run when other pages load. To do it in Greasemonkey, go to Tools → Manage User Scripts, select the "Hoodwink'd!!" script, then change the URL patterns in the "Included pages" section. Remove the * entry and add patterns for specific pages, such as http://secondlife.com/vote/*.

All was well and good when I was trying this out, until I found that the feature proposal site links to strange URLs for the proposals, which broke the way the Hoodwink.d script showed comment counts. So I wrote an additional user script that seems to fix it. After installing Hoodwink.d and that script, the feature proposal site should have magically grown blog-like comments.

This is a very roundabout way to discuss it, but I have to confess that the continued misuse by residents and lack of Linden gardening of the voting system makes me much more likely to contribute snide comments in a private register like Hoodwink.d than to post constructive criticism on this site. You, being the kind of person who cares enough to read drivel like this, generally don't need my advice. I really have to look at the projects I have on the table and think, why bother?

However I'll cut the self-effacing blather there, and share a discussion question instead. What positive action could you or I take to cut the endless torrent of crap into the feature system? Adding a third party discussion system like Hoodwink.d is a possible answer, but I'll be surprised if it's used as more than a snarky backchannel.

Comments

[ProtoCat]

Ohsnap, you totally let the cat out of the bag. ~<3

[Bartholomew]

I like it and the background and colors make it easy to read.