Silencer app.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Examples of where it could be useful were given; such as not wanting to know the result of a football match, the winner in a TV talent contest etc.

I think you are giving this silencer thing more credit that it's due.

These things more often than not either rely on searching for known posters or known phrases and either replacing that text or blocking the page entirely. In a similar way to how a lot of net censor products work.

How would you propose it deal with (say) members talking about an episode of Dispatches? Bearing in mind you don't know who will mention it, so it won't be able to block all posts from a given member. Then bear in mind that while it is quite a good documentary/current affairs series from Channel 4, Dispatches is also a generic English word. Any attempt to block threads mentioning that word could also possibly block threads mentioning Amazon (or any mail order firm) as these may include the word Dispatches.

You also mention football results. Yes, you could filter the names of the teams, the word results, match or football, but these would also block a *lot* of unrelated threads. Anything that happens to mention any of those words, which would cover a lot of subjects.

OK, so the likes of Google, Facebook, Siri and Cortana do more advanced checking that could possibly determine that you are talking about a football match being played by Manchester United rather than (say) Man City fans being United in their support for their team, but Siri and Cortana run on huge server farms, and have had Apple and Microsoft spend a *lot* of money and time developing artificially intelligent back end software to run them. Facebook and Google also have huge server farms, and a lot of money to develop the back end software powering those farms*.

Remember, while we have made huge advances in the power of computers over the years, our current computers are nowhere near powerful enough to actually understand the data they are searching through, so they can only look for given pattens. They lack the kind of understanding which our brains offer without us even thinking about it.

In short, without a massive advance in the power of computing hardware, I don't think you'll see any plug in that can do the kind of blocking you are asking about anywhere nearly as well as you can do it yourself just be ignoring any posts you don't want to read.

*To given an idea of how huge these server farms are, a few years ago, one of the analysts concluded (based on figures he'd obtained from their suppliers, as Google do not reveal this kind of information) that although they do not sell any servers or network hardware at all, Google are the third largest server manufacturer (beaten only by Dell and IBM IIRC) and one of the largest manufacturers of network hardware on the planet.

[alanbjames]

Maybe a Crystal ball would help?

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by idi banashapan

why would you want to create a false utopia? what makes other peoples views less valid than your own? by blocking people, you just create a list of comments that agree with your own opinion. doesn't that completely defeat the point of a debate forum?

I would have found it useful to block those that only want to bait and stir, often accompanied with sarcastic, immature and snide comments purposely intended to upset and offend.

The fact that someone holds a different view to me isn't a problem; a good debate can be both informative, interesting and enjoyable. Despite this, I remember reading somewhere on the internet that only about 10% of forum discussions end up with one of the parties changing their mind on a given subject! I'll try and find it and will post the link if I manage to.

Originally Posted by Russ

So perhaps keep out of threads likely to reveal such things until you've viewed it for yourself?

Originally Posted by Chris

How would a silencer help, unless you knew in advance which member was likely to post sports or tv contest results?

It sounds to me like some people will make endless excuses and attempts to avoid their own lack of self-discipline.

If you don't want to know the results of a popular TV talent contest, then refrain from reading web pages where the result is likely to have been posted. Simples.

As it had already been established that it doesn't work on forums, I was actually referring to sites such as facebook. Sorry if I didn't make that clear enough.

Originally Posted by Stuart

I think you are giving this silencer thing more credit that it's due.

These things more often than not either rely on searching for known posters or known phrases and either replacing that text or blocking the page entirely. In a similar way to how a lot of net censor products work.

How would you propose it deal with (say) members talking about an episode of Dispatches? Bearing in mind you don't know who will mention it, so it won't be able to block all posts from a given member. Then bear in mind that while it is quite a good documentary/current affairs series from Channel 4, Dispatches is also a generic English word. Any attempt to block threads mentioning that word could also possibly block threads mentioning Amazon (or any mail order firm) as these may include the word Dispatches.

You also mention football results. Yes, you could filter the names of the teams, the word results, match or football, but these would also block a *lot* of unrelated threads. Anything that happens to mention any of those words, which would cover a lot of subjects.

OK, so the likes of Google, Facebook, Siri and Cortana do more advanced checking that could possibly determine that you are talking about a football match being played by Manchester United rather than (say) Man City fans being United in their support for their team, but Siri and Cortana run on huge server farms, and have had Apple and Microsoft spend a *lot* of money and time developing artificially intelligent back end software to run them. Facebook and Google also have huge server farms, and a lot of money to develop the back end software powering those farms*.

Remember, while we have made huge advances in the power of computers over the years, our current computers are nowhere near powerful enough to actually understand the data they are searching through, so they can only look for given pattens. They lack the kind of understanding which our brains offer without us even thinking about it.

In short, without a massive advance in the power of computing hardware, I don't think you'll see any plug in that can do the kind of blocking you are asking about anywhere nearly as well as you can do it yourself just be ignoring any posts you don't want to read.

*To given an idea of how huge these server farms are, a few years ago, one of the analysts concluded (based on figures he'd obtained from their suppliers, as Google do not reveal this kind of information) that although they do not sell any servers or network hardware at all, Google are the third largest server manufacturer (beaten only by Dell and IBM IIRC) and one of the largest manufacturers of network hardware on the planet.

Interesting, thanks for taking the time to explain this.

[Russ]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

As it had already been established that it doesn't work on forums, I was actually referring to sites such as facebook. Sorry if I didn't make that clear enough.

Have a look for an add-on for Chrome and FF called FB Purity, it allows you much greater control over what you see (or ignore) on Facebook.

[RichardCoulter]

Thanks, i'll take a look at that Russ.