Why I Am Switching to Interleaved Email Replies and Why You Should Too - <AUTHOR> http://brooksreview.net/2011/01/interleaved-email/ <comment><USER2> Bottom/Top posting is like deciding which side of the road to drive on - it's more important to do what everyone else does, rather than follow a "correct" system.

Every Silicon Valley corporation I've ever worked for has followed a top- posting model, ergo, I top post when communicating with them.

On the flip side, Open Source mailing lists like LKML bottom post, so I bottom post when communicating with those communities.

At the end of the day, after 10 years of daily use, I've never really noticed much of a difference between the two systems - as long as everyone uses the same approach consistently within the community, it's pretty straightforward to follow the thread.

<comment><USER3> Clients should be able to allow you to switch between top and bottom posting at will.

<comment><USER4> Wave solved this problem really well. I wish it had worked out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been using inerleaved responses for 20 years. It's the only right way.

The only time I top post is

1) If the reply is not a direct answer to a question, but instead a more general statement

2) If the email had a single question.

Why do I top post for #2? Because most mail readers these days give a preview. A short answer at the top will show up in the preview, so the recipient doesn't have to open the email. This is especially useful on today's mobile devices with small screens.

I never bottom post, because scrolling all the way down is annoying.

* I also top post when dealing with non-technical "old-timers" because they seem to get confused with the interleaved responses.

<comment><USER6> I've been doing it longer than that, but I don't quite agree that "it's the only right way". I top-post maybe half the time now, depending on the kind of reply (as you note) but also my audience's expectations. For example, when replying to a developer list for an open-source project, I'll usually use interleaving because it's the style in that community. In business contexts I'm more likely to top-post because that's what everyone else does (and as another poster noted, Outlook is broken).

I guess we don't disagree too much; I'm just saying I don't try to force interleaving where it's not likely to be appreciated.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, when I said "it's the only right way", that was kind of a joke. Should of had a smiley there.

I think we pretty much agree -- I tend to lean towards interleaved, but will top post when it is expected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interleaving only works if the email you're replying to consists of separable units that can be replied to individually. Replying to messages with complexity beyond "A/S/L??", I find that replies tend to depend on each other and if you try to quote, or selectively quote, parts of a message and reply to each section, your reply ends up having forward and backward dependencies, splitting up important points between different block quotes, and repeating itself. This is especially true when you have to introduce new information the other person wasn't aware, or if you need to explain your reasoning, or depart from their expected answer format. In short, any time your reply contains anything additional beyond direct answers to the questions. In the real world, most answers entail such additional information.

I know we value each and every precious keystroke, but I tend to stick with that old adage we learned in middle-school of restating the question in your answer. Since you're re-establishing the email context in your own words rather than using the words & order the other person gave you, you have the freedom to structure your reply that best communicates whatever it is you need to add.

My experience is that interleaved replied are also less concise. Re-stating context allows you to summarize it, and it allows you to unify several points into one response. Interleaved replies encourage repetition--I can't tell you how many debates I've seen with point-by-point rebuttals, where the last N-1 chunks all start with "Again," "As I said before," and "Like I just said."

To use the example from the original article: Best reply would be "Thursday sounds great!" Much shorter, and I don't have to re-read what I already wrote to understand it.

<comment><USER8> As lots of the other comments suggest, I think a highly context dependent approach is probably best. If the email is a response within a group of people, I'll assume that everyone has read the prior email or two (or has access to it in their mail reader). In that case, if my message is a single response to the entire content of the message, then I'll top-post, so within their email reader, they can read only the relevant new bits (my message), then go back to the quoted text below for context if they've forgotten.

On the other hand, if there are specific points that I want to address, I will happily interleave my text, to make it especially clear what I'm responding to. As in everything, look at the context, and see what makes the most sense.

In regards to the "sounds great!" response, the OP was just a poor answer to the question, regardless of whether it was above or below. It would be like if I asked you whether you wanted coffee or tea, and you just said "Yes". While technically true in a Boolean sense, it doesn't help me decide which one to pour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Some versions Microsoft Outlook incorrectly quote bottom-posted e-mails, causing your reply to be lost in the line noise -- it's greyed out, like the quoted text above it. This bug caused me no end of problems until I found out about it, in 2009.

I had repeated customer complaints about "Blank e-mails" or missed content in my inline replies.

Until the very last Outlook user disappears, I can't risk bottom-posting in business correspondence. You can thank Microsoft for destroying the legibility of e-mail threads.

<comment><USER10> I always top-post "comments inline below" to avert this problem. Works great.

<comment><USER11> It probably doesn't matter either way, as it doesn't seem like people do more than skim emails. They won't scroll down to read interleaved replies-- Outlook/Entourage's text-formatting doesn't help--nor will they even scroll down if your top-post goes past the default view.

If you can't say it all in three short paragraphs, you either have to spread it out over a few more focused emails, spoon-feed over IM, or--horror of horrors--meet in person!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think people waste too much time and energy on this debate.

I use & encourage my correspondents to use short, informative subjects -- mostly via leading by example. This way, I can attach some vague context to it.

When I reply to a message, I put my response at the very top of the message. This allows my recipient to receive my message, scan the useful subject line to gain context. He then selects the message and instantly sees my latest response.

He doesn't potentially have to scroll through pages and pages of responses, signatures, taglines, client-mangled quote levels, and compliance footer paragraphs.

It wastes time and it makes no sense. I don't need to read top to bottom because I only want to see the latest bits, and those are ready at the top of the message.

</comment><comment><USER13> Aren't blogs just one giant top-post after another? I think most-recent-at- the-top is actually quite natural for unbounded conversations, where the most- recent posts are likely to be the most relevant, and you almost certainly don't care to read the entire history. Email fits this pretty well.

(As an aside, I think the Q/A nature of the example given is unfair, since Q/A conventionally goes top-down. Compare to this, which seems quite natural

      28
      > How old are you?

It's even more natural and obvious to go bottom-up when multiple layers of quoting are present:

      28
      > How old are you?
      >> I'll answer exactly one personal question.)

As for the interleaved style, it's somewhat a matter of taste, but I find it often creates nitpicky, disjointed conversations; responding in paragraphs rather than lines encourages more cohesive, literarily satisfying exchanges.

<comment><USER14> I don't find those examples natural at all.

<comment><USER13> Well, fair enough. I find it natural, your mileage may vary. :)

Do you also find the top-posting style of blogs, twitter, &c awkward? I really do think there is something to be said for putting the newest information first.

<comment><USER14> I don't mind blogs, because posts tend to largely stand alone. They're like consecutive articles in a magazine. It can be a little annoying in the case where, say, a post is tagged, and I click on the tag to get all related posts, and they cover multiple pages and I need to walk to the last page to get the first post. That can be a little annoying.

Twitter is a little annoying for me, when there's a discussion going on, where it's difficult to get the context of each twitter message. If the tweets stand alone, as is often the case, I don't really care.

Back in the Usenet days, I was a scrupulous interleaved-response writer. Quote the specific sentences or phrases being responded to, followed by my response. I prefer to have that bit of context, right by the response, in that order (quote then response).

<comment><USER15> Exactly, I used to interleave...but the times are a changin and there's not much we can do about it. Twitter, FB, blogs are not going to change (nor should they). OP is about 16 years too late to this argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> He just now realized this? Top posting has been frowned on for YEARS. Even back in the BBS/FidoNet days you top posted at your own peril.

The classic description of top posting says it best - <http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html>

And while you're at it, don't forget to [snip] out the parts that aren't relevant.

<comment><USER17> Enforcement of the preference for inline replies has (as I understand it) waned greatly in recent years. As I understand it, people who began conversing over email seriously in the late 1990s or early 2000s are much less likely to have learned about this than old-timers.

(I say this as someone who started in the late 90s and later converted to inline replies when I realized their benefit several years later. Many people my own age -- even technical ones -- think my inline replies are abnormal.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> People tend to use examples that make their methods really shine. The example conversations in this post work out really well, but they're more like an IM conversation than most email treads I've had. Try a few examples where someone writes a couple of paragraphs and your bottom reply is below the fold. Most people will think you didn't reply, not that they have to scroll to find it.

This is less of a problem with email and more an issue with how email clients display threaded conversations. Does anyone that uses Gmail think this is a problem?

<comment><USER19> > Try a few examples where someone writes a couple of paragraphs and your > bottom reply is below the fold. Most people will think you didn't reply, not > that they have to scroll to find it.

Then you're quoting incorrectly. (Notice how I quoted only a section of your original, in my reply here.) Proper correspondence includes trimming the quoted section. Not simply leaving the whole thing there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Didn't we lose the Top Posting debate 20 years ago?

<comment><USER21> Yes, but it's still heartening to see people re-discover it.

It helps confirm that we were right all along, it's still someone doing email better and possibly convincing other people to be better, and it may make people think: 'the geeks were right about interleaved bottom-posting (I now realize after using email enough to compare to their experience), what else were they right about? Standards? FLOSS? Backups?'

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Too much scanning. Put your reply at the top where I can find it easily and not go hunting for pieces of it all over the places, like the shoes after the dog got ahold of them.

<comment><USER23> Your email client doesn't use obviously distinct visual styles for quoted stuff? When someone writes in interleaved style, I just look at the message- bits, and look at the quoted parts for context. It's easy.

<comment><USER24> Regarding that, I hate it when people mix various quoting styles. It causes the quoting system to render text incorrectly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The problem with interleaved posting is that it becomes very confusing once you get beyond two or three replies. Especially when you have multiple people, it becomes difficult to track the nesting level of the current line so that one can determine who is "speaking" at the moment.

<comment><USER23> On phpBB bulletin boards, the usual custom seems to be to quote the person you're replying to, and _maybe_ the person they quoted, if absolutely necessary. The reply depth should never go high enough to cause problems. This works well.

<comment><USER24> That's fine for bulletin boards, where all you have to do is scroll up to read the rest of the history. However, until very recently (i.e. GMail) viewing the history behind a particular e-mail message required you to go back through all your e-mail and find the previous messages in the thread. On a busy list, this could be quite a bit of trouble. Hence, having the entire history in the message itself could be quite useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> My current preferred style of reply is to write replies as self-contained unambiguous answers [1]. It takes maybe a couple seconds of additional thought and typing and the result is far more readable than interleaved.

Speaking of which: as a reformed pedant I have to say that interleaved is a style that only a pedant could love. Most emails simply do not contain questions that demand such precise replies, let alone multiple such questions.

And certainly no-one other than a fellow pedant will ever, ever appreciate an interleaved response. The tone implicit in its structure is somewhere between nitpicky and borderline-argumentative. Even if you stubbornly insist on absolute precision in your replies, do be aware of what the format is saying.

[1] For the "lunch" example in the article, the reply would look something like "I haven't talked to Steve since he left town. Breadsticks sound awesome for Thursday!" with no quote of the original email at all, because the answers are perfectly clear on their own.

The cases where Tyler has forgotten what he asked me, or how, are edge cases far more appropriately resolved by threaded email clients and search. There's simply no call to carry detritus into every conversation when the only upside is saving the recipient a two-second search in a tiny minority of cases.

</comment><comment><USER26> I may be taking an "old school" approach to this, but I top post. That top post is an actual coherent written document that answers the questions with enough context to make it clear that it's answering questions. If you treat email like chat, then yes, top posting is dumb. However, email can also be an extension of the "letter writing" style of interaction where you don't just answer with one word. I'm not sure that I think it's a good idea for email to evolve into "slow chat".

<comment><USER27> You are not old school. In fact top-posting is sign that you are a relative newbie.

Long ago there was USENET, and everyone knew how to properly format their posts, and by extension, e-mails. Windows didn't even have a network stack, back then.

<comment><USER26> You might want to check your assumptions and read my post. The subject of my entire post was what literary form was appropriate to what medium. I've been using BBSes and the subsequent networks since 300 baud modems. Perhaps I was influenced by a more literate line of programmers and writers but calling me a newbie is ridiculous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Honestly, at this point I'd be happy if I didn't have to suffer people using @somename on mailing lists.

</comment><comment><USER29> In general most people with an email don't know how to write an email, what is the right balance between top posting (sometimes it is faster both to write and read), and when instead an interleaved reply is needed.

And when the latter is needed, what is the right amount of email to take, what to remove, where to put a [snip], and so forth. I at this point think this is something that just programmers and other power users can get right.

I'm completely pessimist in the ability of the random internet aware guy to be able to reply well to emails...

</comment><comment><USER30> Once top vs. bottom posting is sorted out, then comes the question of plain text vs. rich text/HTML email. I used to be firmly in the plain text camp, until I realized that was dumb, via a thought experiment.

Imagine a world where we have computers, networks, word processors, the web, and so on, but someone it didn't occur to anyone to come up with email. So, we are still using the postal service for our mail needs. We use computers to compose our mail--but then we print out the document, stuff it in an envelope, attach stamps, and mail it. Finally, it occurs to someone to invent email.

Are they going to invent it as a plain text system? Of course not. They are going to try to make it be as capable as postal mail. Since people sending postal mail send documents that use rich formatting, and have embedded graphics, and have attachments, and so on, email will have those capabilities, too.

Now back to our world. In our world email was invented at a time when we simply did not have the technology to reasonably support those things. It was plain text due to technology limits, not because plain text was better.

Well, those technology limits are gone.

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't find interleaving natural. It would be natural if we were using old school hypertext and reading from anchor in the original text to response in the new text. But as it is, I have to skim a whole email again to find the small portion that changed. If the reply is terse enough, I have to reread the large original to get enough context to understand what they are saying.

If the large portion is snipped, you can't read the whole thread in the final message(s, for forked threads), but have to go spelunking through multiple messages.

Also, on some mail readers it is hard to tell the difference between responses and text indented for visibility, like quoting or code or equations. Replies to replies get really messy.

I also don't like scrolling.

I got used to reverse chronological reading with blogs (the train has almost sailed on them, huh).

What top posting forces you to do is to form one coherent complete thought (if you plan to be understood).

</comment><comment><USER32> The correct answer is to use a client that does threaded conversations and hidden quotes properly, like Gmail, and then not care about top or bottom posting at all. Seems like an argument only for old fogies who used email in the dark ages.

(Disclaimer: I only started using email for real stuff when Gmail came out.)

</comment><comment><USER33> Good in theory, confusing in practice, especially when the font face and color are the same as the original text.

Also, most people are used to top-posting, and coming across the rare inter- leafing response leads to initial confusion.

<comment><USER34> Font faces and color in email can join top-posting in the bin of terrible ideas.

<comment><USER23> What better way to express your personality than by sending all emails in 20-point pink Comic Sans MS, with no paragraph breaks at all?

I've seen several people do this. No exaggeration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> In an ideal world, people would read the entire email and give a short and concise answer to each question. The answer should also have enough clues to reference the question.

It would be 'Sure, Lunch at 1pm on Thursday' instead of 'Sure, Thursday 1pm'.

However, most of the time it doesn't work that way. Some forget questions, give short and vague answers, or just don't reply. Also depending on the email client, the email text doesn't show formatting and the each line is prefixed with > or other characters making it a hassle to pull out text you want and format it just to do squeeze the answer in between.

</comment><comment><USER36> Gmail already does this... welcome to 2005.

<comment><USER37> I'm confused, doesn't Gmail do top posting?

<comment><USER38> Yes, Gmail does top posting, but the threaded display that Gmail uses shows each message in chronological order from the top down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> People have been battling over top-posting and interleaved quoting for fifteen years, about the time Microsoft introduced their HTML email client that couldn't handle proper quoting without messing up the whole message, and subsequently introducing email to people who couldn't handle even trying to quote properly.

This is nothing new. Anyone who's used to BBS's, usenet, or any pre-Microsoft email will probably assume that interleaved quoting is the only way to properly reply to a message.

</comment><comment><USER40> This article only shows examples that supports its points. Most of the long email discussions happen over a period of a few hours and you don't need much context to know what is being discussed. For these kinds of emails (which are the majority of the messages I read every day), interleaved replying is a nuisance since you find yourself having to skip over the same content over and over again.

This is why top posting won this battle a long time ago (when hotmail appeared, pretty much).

</comment><comment><USER41> I interleaved for decades, then switched for anything that's not a point-by- point reply. And it's all GMail's fault. You see, top replies are now snippeted in my GMail and on my phone.

I can process email faster that way, as can most folks I converse with.

</comment><comment><USER42> I remember getting into a big argument about top/bottom posting in 1996. I was in favour of having replies underneath the original text, and I still am, because it makes everything easier to read.

</comment><comment><USER43> Yikes. That article was entirely too long for a topic that is mostly a matter of personal preference.

99% of the email I get works fine for top-posting replies.

</comment><comment><USER44> Interweaving works great as long as a note is included at the top to look below for the replies or comments.

</comment><comment><USER45> I really hate that format of replies. So, no, I will not be switching to that format.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think people on HN actually do a great job of interleaving in comments and replies.

</comment><comment><USER46> If I'm not mistaken this is the default setting in thunderbird.

</comment><comment><USER47> Is the styling broken for anyone else in Chrome?</comment>


Google doesn't understand what iGoogle does. Offers unrelated 'alternatives'. - <AUTHOR> https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2664197

<comment><AUTHOR> None of their suggestions is an actual replacement (or 'alternative') to iGoogle's dashboard.

Nothing else I've looked at seems to work the same way. There's about a bajillion RSS readers. Even some that allow a dashboard layout. But I can't find anything (useful) that provides the same service as iGoogle.</comment>


Groupon Groupon - <AUTHOR> http://www.grouponforgroupon.com/

<comment><USER2> You are hereby granted honorary membership in The Yes Men.</comment>


Materialize CSS - <AUTHOR> http://materializecss.com/ <comment><USER2> It looks already abandoned, even before reaching v1.</comment>


Internet and Society - <AUTHOR> http://harvardpolitics.com/interviews/internet-society-interview-zeynep-tufekci/ <comment><USER2> Tufekci sounds quite pessimistic. This quote stuck out to me as representative:

"What I see hopeful is recognition that putting all this burden on the shoulders of every individual sounds great on paper, just have an informed citizenry who's just going to spend half their time on Wikipedia and half their time sort of searching for fact checks, and being replaced by the fact that no you can't do it that way because people cannot function that way."</comment>


Public boolean isUserAGoat() - <AUTHOR> http://developer.android.com/intl/es/reference/android/os/UserManager.html#isUserAGoat() <comment><USER2> I got a false positive on this function when checking against a user cuthbert_calculus and I never heard the end of it.</comment>


Virtual items to rent out or take out a mortgage - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/yiedl/introducing-yiedl-c86397c973e7 <comment><AUTHOR> Yiedl is an Ethereum based protocol allows owners of virtual assets represented as NFTs to rent out their assets and take out a loan by collateralizing them.

<comment><USER2> NFT?</comment></comment>


Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin and 23andMe Co-Founder Anne Wojcicki Have Split - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20130828/google-co-founder-sergey-brin-and-23andme-co-founder-anne-wojcicki-have-split

<comment><USER2> Its not in their DNA to be together...</comment>


Block Buster Reports A Loss... blames bad movies... might be right. - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2009/03/why_is_blockbuster_suffering_s.php

<comment><USER2> My wife now spends a lot of time in front of the TV breast-feeding the recently-arrived kid #2. So, I got her a Netflix Roku box. She was skeptical at first but is now quite pleased. If all movies were available this way, I think she'd forgo renting DVDs. Quality isn't as good as Blu-Ray, but it's better than an old-school DVD.

How can Blockbuster compete against Netflix when its business model is based on the retail distribution of physical goods? Netflix is working hard to cannibalize its dvd-by-mail business and will end up with a much higher margin business as a result.

IIRC, a few years ago, Blockbuster was telling investors that consumers loved the experience of going to the video store to pick out rentals! Don't worry, nothing's rotten here folks.

BTW, the Roku works really well. Other than its screwy menu scheme (ok once you readjust your assumptions), it's a beautiful simple device.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting. I wonder if rentals as a whole are down. If so, then this would suggest that the MPAA claims that piracy is killing the industry are wrong. This would be especially true because cheap rentals are the obvious substitute for expensive theaters in a tight economy.

On the other hand, the recent crop of crap movies can only account for so much in the video rental business. I mean, it's possible to rent older movies as well as new crap, so if people just want to watch a movie, and the new ones are lousy, wouldn't they just watch a good old one?</comment>


Pricing Experiments You Can Learn From (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://conversionxl.com/blog/pricing-experiments-you-might-not-know-but-can-learn-from/ <comment><USER2> "Asking people what they'd pay for and how much rarely works."

Yes, asking a person about what he or she is willing to pay _hypothetically_ doesn't work. But there are numerous scientific studies that show that using a Vickrey auction, similar to Google's ad auction mechanism, can elicit a person's maximum willingness-to-pay. In fact, it's one of the reasons why William Vickrey won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. The primary reason why you would reveal your maximum willingness-to-pay in a Vickrey auction is because you know beforehand that if you win the auction, you won't have to pay your own bid——you always pay less than your own bid as a winner. How much less is up to the auctioneer but in all cases it's less than your own bid. The pay- what-you-want mechanism cannot reveal how much a person values a product or service because there's such a strong financial incentive to simply state a low amount.

Disclaimer: I'm the co-founder of Veylinx, a platform to measure maximum willingness-to-pay of users using Vickrey auctions.

<comment><USER3> _> But there are numerous scientific studies that show that using a Vickrey auction, [...], can elicit a person's maximum willingness-to-pay._

Yes, but participating in an auction is a _concrete_ action to "commit to pay" \-- and therefore not what the author is talking about.

The context of the author's quote you extracted ( _" asking people what they'd pay"_†) is about _abstract_ notions of what consumers _think_ they would pay; e.g. gathering hypotheticals of prices from marketing efforts like customer surveys or focus groups.

Surveys and focus groups have no _real money_ payment commitments. Auctions do.

† author also wrote a few sentences later: _" When it comes to money, people are unable to predict accurately whether they'd pay or not. It's much easier to spend hypothetical dollars than real ones."_

<comment><USER2> I agree that skin in the game matters. But my point is a bit more subtle. Imagine the following situation: I present you a new product and I'm going to ask you how much you're willing to pay for it. Let's agree that you'll pay the amount you mention dependent on the flip of a coin. Even though you clearly have have committed to potentially paying real money, this method won't reveal what I really want to know: your true perceived value of the product (maximum willingness-to-pay). The Vickrey auction solves this problem.

<comment><USER4> I'm not familiar with Vickrey auctions; can you explain how they solve the problem the author is referring to?

<comment><USER5> With eBay proxy bidding, you tell eBay what the maximum is you are willing to pay. Then, if you win the auction, you don't pay your maximum. You pay just above the maximum amount of the bidder you beat (i.e. the person who would have won if you hadn't participated).

So, how should you bid if you are a rational person? You should bid the maximum you are willing to pay. As there is zero chance that you will pay more than you needed: you will always pay just enough to beat the second place bidder.

So, the incentive is such that you reveal your maximum price to eBay.

<comment><USER2> The eBay application isn't really appropriate because eBay always reveals the highest bid, which removes the incentive to reveal if you have a lower willingness-to-pay. A pure application of the Vickrey auction gives all participants an incentive to reveal their maximum willingness-to-pay.

<comment><USER5> "eBay always reveals the highest bid, which removes the incentive to reveal if you have a lower willingness-to-pay"

I don't understand how it removes the incentive? Would you mind going into more detail?

(I ask because I believe I am rational when I place eBay bids, and I always choose the actual maximum I'm willing to pay.)

<comment><USER2> Let's say that the first bidder placed as a proxy bid $100 but eBay only shows $1. This will already exclude everyone who has a maximum-willingness-to-pay lower than or equal to $1. A second bidder might put as a proxy bid $120. This wil result in eBay setting the highest bid at $101. At that price nobody with a maximum willingness-to-pay lower than or equal to $101 will reveal their max. The Vickrey auction doesn't reveal anyone's bid and, thus, you collect a lot more bids (demand curve data). I agree with you, however, that the eBay mechanism results in the same person winning the auction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I sense an upcoming reckoning against these techniques.

Big "SALE!" signs and prices ending in 9 aren't benign: they're malevolent attempts at psychological manipulation, and they degrade consumer trust the minute customers recognize them as such. While it's likely impossible to fully counter the bias, I've started clutching my purse strings more tightly since those big glowing signs became less of a declaration of value, and more of a warning that "We don't have your best interests at heart"

These techniques work, but only because people view this manipulation as acceptable and commonplace. It would do wonders for consumer confidence (and therefore sales) if stores could give a credible and transparent promise that they make every attempt to inform consumers about the value of their products. Shoppers like myself (busy, uninformed about most categories of things they buy, and unconfident that they can navigate the "DEALS" landscape and come out ahead) would not only shop there: they'd pay a premium to do so.

<comment><USER7> _> Big "SALE!" signs and prices ending in 9 aren't benign: they're malevolent attempts at psychological manipulation, and they degrade consumer trust the minute customers recognize them as such. While it's likely impossible to fully counter the bias, I've started clutching my purse strings more tightly since those big glowing signs became less of a declaration of value, and more of a warning that "We don't have your best interests at heart"_

You won't see this - someone has already tried before it and it nearly financially ruined the company.

The sad thing is it works and people are easily manipulated. Ron Johnson (former CEO of JC Penney) nearly bankrupted JC Penney with his "fair and square" pricing. Consumers are so used to being manipulated by fake sales and xx.99 pricing that having merchandise advertised without any gimmicks actually results in _worse_ sales. [0]

I'm hoping one day people will turn around and be against being psychologically manipulated, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. After all, many people still defend advertisements. A socially accepted form of psychological manipulation that is intended to make you feel worse about yourself and your life unless you buy <product> because <product> will make you happier.

The fact people are okay with ads in _any_ context completely baffles me. There are people who are totally fine with being emotionally and psychologically manipulated in return for something being "free". To the point where people in western cultures associate the colors red and yellow with food and don't question why.

[0] [https://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence/the-real- reason-m...](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence/the-real-reason-most- prices-end-in-99-cents-1.4731238)

<comment><USER8> He failed because sales for JC Penney fell, but in a sense perhaps he succeeded in preventing people from purchasing clothes they didn't necessarily need?

<comment><USER9> It would have been a success if he had gotten people to pay a premium for the clothing they did need.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The notion that you must be good at selling shit is reinforced in most companies, colleges and probably schools.

The idea that choosing products and making correct economic decisions is a skill - this idea is formally taught almost nowhere.

Is there any surprise that manipulative techniques work so well?

If you think this is driven purely by self-interest of companies, you're probably wrong. Employees in most big corps waste immeasurable amounts of resources on "internal marketing" (from resumes during hire, to presentations, to emails sent to their bosses). Most big companies still believe it's better train 100 workers to sell their shit, than to train 1 VP to use basic math and critical thinking. Similar situation with resumes. HR bemoans people lying on their resumes, and then do absolutely everything possible to incentivize applicant to lie as much as possible.

Heck, even here. Where are the articles titled "here is how I rationalized my shopping"?

<comment><USER10> As far as pricing, I think one way to combat the manipulation is to put prices on your shopping list and never buy anything just because it's cheap, unless it's already on your list.

Another strategy is to ignore prices altogether and just skip items that are too expensive before the final checkout.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I remember reading that article about having three variants of a product. I think it was something like that:

1\. one really cheap but bad

2\. one better but much more expensive

3\. one even better, and more expensive

Since for most people, the middle option (2) made more sense than the cheap one (1), they would all buy the last option (3) because for a bit more money you had something better than 2.

Apple seems to be using a similar strategy with very limited capacities for their first option, which makes most people buy the more expensive option to have more capacity. From there it's easy to jump to more expensive stuff, or to add options and accessories.

<comment><USER12> This is price bracketing, which is a form of anchoring.

The idea is that if you had two items, one for $10 and one for $40, adding a $200 item is going to increase sales of the $40 because it makes it seem more reasonable in comparison. It's not going to push a lot of people to the higher-priced item.

The Apple example I like is the iPad. It's priced against both the 512gb version (+$350) and the Wifi+Cellular (+$130) so you think that the $649 version is a bargain against $1129 and you don't compare it against the Amazon Fire at $49.99.

<comment><USER13> An iPad wouldn't be compared to an Amazon Fire because they aren't comparable products. If you value iOS, Facetime, iMessage, and Apple's general product experience, then others would also have to provide a similar experience to be comparable.

<comment><USER14> Most people I know watch videos and read books on their tablets, which works equally well on an iPad as on a Fire HD.

<comment><USER13> Most people I know FaceTime...every single older person in my extended family. It would be useless without them being able to Facetime with their grandkids.

<comment><USER15> That should be most _older_ people you know, then. Older people often choose Apple products due to the comparative simplicity of the operating system and UX. However, Android is far more popular in terms of total units sold on both phones and tablets, so the parent comment is broadly true.

<comment><USER14> True.

I don't know anyone who uses Facetime and I know a bunch of people with iPads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is the worst most distracting website to ever exist. As soon as I start reading a line something pops up (first a man, then another popup at bottom then sharing buttons covering up more screen). Why do you do this :(

<comment><USER17> [https://outline.com/4AgPdu](https://outline.com/4AgPdu)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I feel like this is the same general pricing experiments/info we have seen synthesized for the past few years in giant articles. I was hoping there were some new juicy SaaS pricing experiences to be shared.

 _Not that the information in this article is bad if you haven 't seen it before or haven't fiddled with pricing in a while_

</comment><comment><USER19> 2012: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4370904](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4370904)

2013: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5435862](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5435862)

</comment><comment><USER20> TIL: People are weird and irrational, and there's much we don't understand. Like why do shoppers moving in a counterclockwise direction spend on average $2.00 more at the supermarket?

<comment><USER21> Counterclockwise is an anti-pattern (at least for me), my guess is that it makes shoppers move more slowly, pay more attention to displayed items and spend more time at the shop.

<comment><USER22> Right-handed people, with their bias toward turning right, tend to walk anti- clockwise when entering a loop from the outside (such as grocery stores), and clockwise when entering from the inside.

[https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the- mind/human...](https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human- brain/predictable-walking-patterns-counter-clockwise.htm)

People who travel anti-clockwise see more stuff, because if they travel clockwise, then they'll turn right and toward the front/exit before they finish a complete loop around the store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Forced pricing is exactly why theaters sell 3 sizes of popcorn, with large "only being 25 cents more than medium. The goal isn't to get you to buy the large, it's to get you not to buy the small. There was a book I read years ago about this sort of psychology and food, but I can't recall the title.

</comment><comment><USER24> He lets a lot of weird behavior slide. Like this one:

"Under the simple pay-what-you-wish variation, 8.39% of people purchased a photo (almost 17 times more than before), but customers paid only $.92 on average.

The final option — pay what you wish, with half the purchase price going to charity — generated big results: purchase rates of 4.49% and an average purchase price of $5.33, resulting in significant profits for the theme park. This is a substantial result, especially since it came from a real setting."

Why does pay what you wish with half going to charity slash sales in half compared to standard pay as you wish?

<comment><USER25> A simple guess would be that people feel comfortable low balling the theme park but not the charity, even if any amount would help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Data Scientist / MBA Marketing here

There's a difference between "how much would you pay for X?" versus "would you pay N for X? How about M for X?"

You can also conduct a Discrete Choice experiment, asking respondents to choose between priced bundles (repetitively) to estimate the value of each component

</comment><comment><USER27> I really dislike this type of articles, because for any such statements to be true, they have to be replicated by different vendors on multiple occasions. When one vendor does one thing and gets a result once, it does not mean that this is a pattern than can be exploited.

</comment><comment><USER28> I would love to see recommendations for articles like this but for b2b pricing. I suspect there are better ways to price professional buyers.</comment>


Show HN: A Credit Card Scanner Using Vision Framework in iOS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/anupamchugh/VisionCreditScan <comment><AUTHOR> I was curious to experiment with the different use cases of Vision's Rectangle Detection framework in iOS and came up with this. A credit card scanner that crops the card and performs a perspective correction. The idea was to stay away from Regular Expressions for parsing the digits of the card. Hence, I created a movable rectangle that allows the user to select the region of interest and extract the text from it!</comment>


Questions About .org - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/12/03/questions-about-org/ <comment><USER2> I personally think a 10% annual price increase on .org domains is outrageous, considering the current price of a .org domain is $10. I know it's not a lot of money to an organisation, but it's a huge chuck of cash to the company that is getting paid across the millions of .org sites out there. It'll be interesting to see what they do with this windfall.

re: [https://www.keypointsabout.org](https://www.keypointsabout.org)

<comment><USER3> It's because people don't see the 10% as a lot. They go: $10 to $11 is nothing without realizing that it compounds. Try it yourself: _pow(1.1 [110%], 7.27) ≈ 2_. Every eight years, the price will have more than doubled.

Ok, $10 to $20 isn't a lot. But what about 3 decades down the line? That's now $174. You maybe could afford the $10 (maybe even $40), but could _you_ afford to pay that every _year_?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://twitter.com/njal_la/status/1201420518848638976](https://twitter.com/njal_la/status/1201420518848638976)

</comment><comment><USER5> Could Firefox's DoH promote OpenNIC somehow?

<comment><USER6> Better yet, setup something like the following:

\- Answer queries for .org. By default, forward queries to the legacy (pillaged) registry.

\- Allow administrators of domain in .org to "opt in" to being managed by Mozilla by placing special DNS records or the like.

\- "Opting in" is no charge from Mozilla if the Mozilla-registry nameservers are setup to match the legacy registry

\- At any time, a domain owner can stop renewing at the legacy registry. If the domain has been opted in to the Mozilla registry, its owner can pay Mozilla instead to continue their registration with Mozilla (and other onboard organizations/resolvers)

\- If the user stops paying the Mozilla registry, it removes the opt-in and the ownership is up for grabs back at the legacy registry.

The idea being that .org sites, especially the ones we've all come to rely on as infrastructure, could register with Mozilla to claim ownership of their names outside of just the pillaged registry. Then if the looters raise fees too high they can individually make the decision to cast off the legacy registry after pointing their communities at the new resolvers, with no disruption to services.

<comment><USER7> > _\- Allow administrators of domain in .org to "opt in" to being managed by > Mozilla by placing special DNS records or the like._

Wouldn't this effectively be a hostile takeover of .org by Mozilla? This seems like it could set a dangerous precedent.

E.g., what if Google decides later that some other registries are also untrustworthy and offers management on Chrome?

<comment><USER8> Yes. This is a terrible idea and would result in the bankruptcy of Mozilla from the inevitable lawsuits. The registry owner would sue them and they'd also doubtless face a class action from the registrants themselves.

<comment><USER9> They would have absolutely no grounds to sue. At all. There are already lying DNS servers, they haven't seen any legal threat for this exact reason. Tons of organizations also redirect DNS for their network.

<comment><USER8> Maybe I'm wrong. I'd expect that orchestrating a deliberate MITM attack would violate some relevant laws.

<comment><USER6> Creating a new name database that people can choose to use is not a "MITM attack".

<comment><USER8> It absolutely is. Alice registers with Mozilla for the same .org Bob registers with the official registrar and Mozilla sends traffic intended for Bob to Alice.

<comment><USER6> In your example, the traffic that goes to Alice is _intended for Alice_ , because the initiators of that traffic have chosen to use the new database to direct traffic.

But also note that per my description, Alice can't just register a domain that Bob has already registered at the legacy registry. Rather, the conflict in your example can only happen if Alice is registered at the legacy registry and Mozilla, lets her registration lapse at the legacy, and then Bob comes along and attempts to lay technical claim to the name because it is not registered at the legacy.

<comment><USER8> > _In your example, the traffic that goes to Alice is intended for Alice, > because the initiators of that traffic have chosen to use the new database > to direct traffic._

Is your proposal then that Mozilla doesn't actually use this database unless individuals opt in? In that case it's worthless.

> _then Bob comes along and attempts to lay technical claim to the name > because it is not registered at the legacy._

This is an entirely legitimate scenario. I don't know why you're being dismissive of this as if it doesn't matter. You've described a scheme where Mozilla intentionally hijacks a registrar. Of course the original registrar is still relevant.

<comment><USER6> > _Is your proposal then that Mozilla doesn't actually use this database > unless individuals opt in? In that case it's worthless._

.org consists of many projects that themselves build Internet infrastructure. For example, Debian could ensure their ability to keep using debian.org in the face of "Ethos" shenanigans by making it so all their infrastructure used the new-world resolvers. And could even do the same for the repositories and apt, if they wanted.

> _don't know why you're being dismissive of this as if it doesn't matter_

It's not that it doesn't matter, but that I see it is a good thing if there were competition between registries. In this scenario, what is actually happening is that Bob and the legacy registry are attempting to lay claim to a name that has already been claimed by someone else and recorded at the new registry. So Bob and the legacy registry can't claim the already-registered name in some universal sense - a registry of deeds does not own the plots of land that it keeps records on!

<comment><USER5> OpenNIC only uses unused tlds. But there could be an OpenNIC-only redirect in the legacy DNS record that would encourage users to migrate. Then the organization can look at traffic to decide when to switch.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


SEO SPAM network - Details of a mass attack (many .gov, .com and .edus hacked) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sucuri.net/2010/05/seo-spam-network-details-of-wp-includes.html

<comment><USER2> Part of the problem is that a lot of security advisories basically say "run the latest version".

Restricting access with .htaccess is a good idea; [http://www.themepremium.com/wordpress-security-restrict- wp-c...](http://www.themepremium.com/wordpress-security-restrict-wp-content- and-wp-includes-on-wordpress-using-htaccess/)

<comment><USER3> If you fail to upgrade immediately, malware is often installed and remains after an upgrade. I missed one site by a day and got infected. The default option to print the WP version in the <head> of each blog would certainly lower the likelihood of a script finding an outdated site. Unfortunately once hacked, truly cleaning the site requires

1\. Backing up theme, making list of plugins installed 2\. Inspecting theme for any hacks. (difficult if you wrote your own) 3\. Deleting _all_ files 4\. Walking through the wp_options table for any leftover holes (very difficult) 5\. Re-install WP 6\. Re-install theme and plugins.

The WP team needs to work in something like you linked to into the core.

<comment><USER2> I'm actively reviewing WordPress 3.0 beta for upgrade and plug-ins. Once I've got the .htaccess fix working in 3.0 beta I'll post the patch.

There are a few ideas I'm considering for securing and monitoring WP installations for intrusions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> i got hacked by something almost exactly like this like 3 months ago. They uploaded a folder called .files with about 2K html files there to each of my folders.

Probably a few million crap files all together. Was a huge pain in the ass to clear all that crap out. After that point I killed all wordpress installs, since it has such a huge target on it's back.

<comment><USER5> This .files attack was common too. We posted about it a while ago:

[http://blog.sucuri.net/2010/05/it-is-not-over-seo-spam-on- si...](http://blog.sucuri.net/2010/05/it-is-not-over-seo-spam-on-sites.html)

<comment><USER4> btw your blogsite is very scammy looking.

I got a message from my host with a link to your site, where you instructed to download and install a file...and I was 100% sure that it was just just a scam, where you sent out spam messages pretending to be hosts, with a link to the blog post where you were asking me to download malware.

In fact I was in the process of contacting customer support of my host, when I noticed the letter I got in recent history.

You should really spend a little time making it look more legitimate,

<comment><USER5> You lost me there. We never sent messages to anyone to download and install files. Can you forward the email to me (dd at sucuri.net)?

*but I agree, we really need some improvements on our design.

<comment><USER4> what I meant was that I got a letter from my host telling me I got hacked(a week or so after I fixed everything)...and they linked to your site.

But after hitting your site, I got the impression that it was just a scam site trying to get me to install some malware.

<comment><USER5> Oh, sorry about that. I misunderstood it.

But it is nice to see hosting companies linking to us :) I am still looking for a designer to work on our blog/site.

<comment><USER6> Shameless promotional plug: <http://waldendesign.com/>

I work for them 2 days per week, I'm sure we'll be able to help you if you're interested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone know anything about sucuri.net? Reputable?

<comment><USER5> Yes, we are reputable :)

<comment><USER7> Thanks for all those emails!

A few hours ago I didn't know if you were legit. Now I see how considerate you are.

So glad I met you on HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm failing to see any mention of a .gov domain in the article.

<comment><USER5> Just do the suggested searches at the bottom of it:

[http://www.google.ca/#hl=en&q=inurl%3A%2Fwp- includes%2F+...](http://www.google.ca/#hl=en&q=inurl%3A%2Fwp- includes%2F+%22viagra%22++inurl%3A.gov&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=a9f1b4a1f96dfa78)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _badminton.mit.edu_

Oh god no! Don't let it be true!</comment>


Stabilising Experience Replay for Deep Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning - <AUTHOR> https://parnian.ghost.io/understanding-stabilising-experience-replay-for-deep-multi-agent-reinforcement-learning/ <comment><USER2> I had seen this paper before, but I was confused by the "Fingerprint". This kind of makes more sense.</comment>


Show HN: Sorcerer – Professionally written blog posts for your company - <AUTHOR> https://getsorcerer.com <comment><USER2> Hello,

after having a quick look it's easy to understand what your page is about. The design is pleasant, clean and supports readability.

I'd have a few questions or comments, if I may: 1) What's the reason for starting the flow by "request an invite"? Is this a closed community? Are there only some people or businesses allowed to use your service? Or did you mean something like "start cooperation" instead?

2) It's in your FAQ, but to make the service more trustworthy, shed more light on your writers. Even if this is just a start-up and you are the only-one writing blogs, I'd say that including your profile. There are several services like this and writers are the key selling point which makes the difference.

3) Also, my suggestion would be to limit the scope of blogs (perhaps you want to do some testing on this suggestion). Your blogging business looks small. And I don't believe you can blog well about science, IT, cooking and gardening at the same time. Try to be best in limited domain and then scale it from there.

If you want feedback from more people, you can try [https://usability.testing.exchange](https://usability.testing.exchange) (disclaimer: I am associated with it).</comment>


KonnectR, Find new and exciting people to meet with now - <AUTHOR> http://konnectr.co/

<comment><USER2> "Show HN" is for things that you've made that people can play with. People can't play with something until it exists and is available to try out, so we take "Show HN" out of titles when the submission is an email signup, a landing page, a fundraiser, and so on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, thanks for the feedback and the edit. I thought that "Show HN" was also there for ideas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> great app for meeting people in a new area!</comment>


Show HN: Glee [Beta] – Dead simple app for delivering personal customer support - <AUTHOR> https://gleehq.com

<comment><USER2> Sorry for stupid question :) Where is favicon ?</comment>


A Different 'Darkness at Noon' - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/04/07/a-different-darkness-at-noon/ <comment><USER2> Isn't it odd that an article with in-depth discussion of a German-English translation does not feature any German?

> Meanwhile the "fever" Rubashov suffers during his interrogations is lowered > to a "temperature,"

The German source is already represented in English! Yet this is a translation as well. The author presents his own translation as neutral. This is weird. Especially given that many readers that are interested in the subject will have some notions of German. And even readers with no knowledge whatsoever of German will be able to read through a text with some German words as long as they are translated as well. Why couldn't the author write something like:

> The 'Fieber' Rubashov suffers from could easily be translated as 'fever', > but the more moderate synonym 'temperature' is used.

At least the author should have given the German excerpts in notes, since the reader has no way to access this newly discovered German text.

<comment><USER3> That was the same thing I was thinking...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Where else but the _NYROB_ can you get this level of erudition?

<comment><USER5> In the New Criterion. At least a few years ago this was true:

[http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Koestler-s- contradi...](http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Koestler-s- contradictions-4396)

<comment><USER4> Err, no. That is a straightforward book review, not an exhaustive treatment of how an undiscovered original manuscript of Koestler's was discovered in the archives, plus an in-depth examination of differences between the as-published English manuscript and the newly discovered German one, and a personal appeal to publishers, many of whom read the NYROB, to find a way to publish the new version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One of my favourite novels. Highly recommended especially if you like books like _Nineteen Eighty-Four._</comment>


Show HN: Real-time file sharing site - <AUTHOR> http://volafile.io/r/GAKbA <comment><USER2> The 12-hour lifespan of content links is interesting; it prevents indexing or hot-linking content on the site. Even if the RIAA/MPAA/etc. set up bots watching the room and issuing takedowns for infringing files, the time allowed to comply with a DMCA takedown is greater than the lifespan of a file on the service.

In other words: this should be fun, until they get sued out of existence.

<comment><USER3> Feature Request: Host on infrastructure outside of the US.

EDIT: DISREGARD. It's already hosted outside the US. (Germany: [https://www.ip-projects.de/](https://www.ip-projects.de/))

<comment><USER4> I know a lot of this post-PRISM fear of the US government is to be expected and is certainly popular on HN, but comments that single out the US like this really make little sense to me. The governments of Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand all share tech-related intel with the United States and, potentially if not presumably, have similarly intrusive methods of surveillance. China goes so far as to ban social media sites that they don't have control over (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube) and replaces them with sites that they do (renren, weibo, and youku/tudou). That, combined with general censorship of the web, is far scarier than what the NSA does, even assuming the NSA's scope is as wide as television shows make it out to be. And even in most other countries, the scope of domestic Internet surveillance is unknown, which is very different from "known to be minimal".

Edit: Ah if this was about intellectual property takedowns, then currently the US situation _is_ a bit worse than most of the rest of the world. But still, China friggin censors their Internet, and comments like the above still seem to always single out the US.

<comment><USER5> The USA has taken possession of .com domains and raided physical premises based on copyright.

This need have nothing to do with the NSA and still be a perfectly valid and reasonable suggestion.

I think it's reasonable that _any_ site that has user generated content should consider not being hosted on US soil or using a .tld that is under US control.

<comment><USER6> In general I'd say Germany has quite some problems with UGC hosted here as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Auto-assignment of nicknames seems a particularly nifty feature -- a warm welcome for first-time users.

Overall seems a well-balanced crossover of IRC and message board. (Almost) Everything Google Wave wanted to be, but never had a chance to become.

How do I rent a private channel for company-wide use? ;-)

<comment><USER8> yeah, I would also be interested in having a private channel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Announcement: Because of the high traffic we are seeing right now, the radio > might take a long time to load or not work at all.

Hacker News killed the radio star.

Very cool idea. With a little faster chat (there's currently quite a delay between saying something and seeing it displayed) I can see it catching on. Hang out, share files, listen to the music together.

</comment><comment><USER10> There seems to be a twitter account here for it: [https://twitter.com/volafile](https://twitter.com/volafile)

Also, in chat I found [https://github.com/binlain/volafile- bugs](https://github.com/binlain/volafile-bugs) for solutions to fixing the site. However, I cannot vouch that is an official bug report location.

Considering this issue (nfsw): [https://github.com/binlain/volafile- bugs/issues/5](https://github.com/binlain/volafile-bugs/issues/5)

I find this website a little amusing, but also creative. I think it's quite exciting overall! Good luck!

<comment><USER11> That is the official bug report location.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> For those at work, there's quite a bit of stuff not tagged nsfw. Tread with care.

<comment><USER13> Thanks, I was worried about that:) Cool idea though, once it's a little more structured, that could be helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wait, a chat room AND the ability to share NSFW pics? What could go wrong!?!

</comment><comment><USER15> There's always something kind of magical about real-time sites -- like the Internet is a little less lonely, and there are real people out there.

Very cool!

<comment><USER16> Exactly my feeling. Couldn't really articulate it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The HN room is full. You can discover other rooms here: [http://volafile.io/discover](http://volafile.io/discover)

</comment><comment><USER18> Haha, just logged in to see this: "PaulGraham: APPLY TO YC SO I CAN MAKE SOME MONEY FROM THIS" and also "PaulGraham: THIS IS THE NEXT FACEBOOK".

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm German so I probably can't apply to YC. Plus I've just made this as a hobby/side project and don't have time to deal with trying to monetize it yet.

<comment><USER18> I am assuming this was not PG. There are much better ways to contact a site owner. Also the user kept saying "DROP THE THE". Obviously there is no "the" in the site's name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is basically IRC with file sharing... and everyone is ignoring the filesharing part because it's full of porn. So basically you created a html5 IRC clone, very cool.

Just wondering: What are your plans for this? And Does this have any IRC-like commands?

<comment><USER20> >and everyone is ignoring the filesharing part because it's full of porn. It's much better in smaller rooms.

<comment><USER19> Makes sense, I could see this eclipsing the current way we share files.

Thought of a new analogy: snapchat meets IRC meets torrents

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I love this idea and I think this has the potential to be really amazing. I could see myself using it socially as well as a sort of remote office. The ability to have music autoplay (? it appears anyway, doesn't seem to be working for me right now) seems very interesting. I think you're really onto something with this. My main concern would be privacy before I started using this on any type of regular basis though. If you can solve that, or even really just make a self-hosted version, I'd be all over it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Real-time file sharing on a site that seems to have already become a real-time UI to 4chan....

Let me think about this. No, no I don't trust my virus protection enough to open anything here.

</comment><comment><USER23> You did a great job with this. I got a couple 502s viewing files but it works really well so far.

</comment><comment><USER24> "The room is full. Please try again later."

You're gonna need a bigger boat.

<comment><AUTHOR> I had to limit the room size to 300 people because my cheap 5€ VPS was hitting 100% CPU load. There are about 500 people on the page across all rooms now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Nice concept, looks like 4chan may have gotten a hold of this one.

<comment><USER20> Talking about 4chan, I really love how this site seems to be a mix of some kind of IRC and imageboard. It's also bringing back memories of some DC++ rooms I used to visit when it was the best way to share files.

<comment><USER26> Yeah DC++ and i2hub were both awesome. Both got my internet privileges taken away for a year by my university for internet misuse. Good times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Interesting proof of concept although I personally prefer hipchat for a the "chatroom with group file sharing" benefit.

The ephemeral nature of the downloads is really interesting though. I've seen a number of sites starting to target that niche ([http://dissipateapp.com/](http://dissipateapp.com/) for file sharing specifically with "self-destructing" files) but mostly aimed at just messaging (like Snapchat or Frankly).

Why risk putting your important documents on a site where it's only a matter of time before it's compromised? Most of the time once your recipient has the file it's safe to remove from the cloud.

</comment><comment><USER28> It's very nice for what's going on right now. I mean, a big internet orgy. However, the lack of private rooms pretty much kills it for me.

Otherwise, it would have been perfect to use at work.

<comment><AUTHOR> There will be private rooms (hidden in the public list) and password protected rooms in the foreseeable future.

<comment><USER28> I really like your app. I have been using it for a while and brought a few IRC buddies on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Interesting concept for sure. What's the tech behind this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello. It's almost exclusively a nodejs + redis stack.

There are currently a little over 200 people on the page and moderating the site is taking most of my attention, I'll try to answer all questions in this thread anyways.

<comment><USER30> Build some community moderation tools and promote some trustworthy people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> What's the bandwidth cost for this kind of app? I'm always afraid a popular rampup would incur a huge bandwidth bill for sites like this.

</comment><comment><USER32> Might be desired behavior, but holding CRTL while clicking on a link in Firefox opens the link in a new tab, but it does not keep you on the main page. It's a bit annoying to click on a file and have to switch back to the homepage tab to get something else.

<comment><USER33> Also press MAJ then, new tab should open in background ;

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> It never ceases to amaze me how immature people can be when unleashed with this type of product!

<comment> vezzy-fnord To be fair, it's a 4chan project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The spam right now is out of control, but it might die off in a few days. You should consider using [http://wiki.xkcd.com/irc/XKCD- SIGNAL](http://wiki.xkcd.com/irc/XKCD-SIGNAL) mode for your chat.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'd hoped this was something like Napster built on WebRTC data channel. No such luck.

</comment><comment><USER37> I feel like I reached out and touched the face of the Internet. This is very very cool.

</comment><comment><USER38> I find very interesting how a lot of people is sharing their resume, suddenly all the HN traffic (potential employers included) are reading random resumes.

I don't know if that would be effective at all but it is very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER39> Trolls... Trolls everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER40> I just saw some sick stuff there which can't be unseen. :'(

</comment><comment><USER41> This thing will explode. Get ready to monetize or shut it down :) Easy thing you could do is rate limit transfers by default and offer higher bandwidth with a small bitcoin payment.

<comment><USER42> Please dont go down this route it leaves bad taste.

Any site which segregates its users, oppreses those non-paying, poor people, isnt attractive at least in my book.

An alternative is to do like reddit, offer pay-for-services in exchange for something more, not take away functionality from those poor users to force some kind of payments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Very nice and cool.

Just one thing, I like to open links in a new background tab, so I just CTRL + click or just middle click with the mouse, the first option is not working the last one is fine.

</comment><comment><USER44> This sounds really cool, but socket.io.js is throwing "Unexpected response code: 502" when attempting to make a websockets connection.

I'll have to try again later, I suppose.

</comment><comment><USER45> So basically this is a porn site... It needs moderation badly!

<comment><USER46> To remove all the non-porn content?

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This reminds me of the old school Napster. I think it could use an AV scanner on upload. Also a preview mode for images and documents and videos would be cool too.

</comment><comment><USER48> Awesome project! I love the feel and the sharing mechanics!

<comment><USER49> Yeah I like it too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> >paul graham dancing with bill gates 1999.jpg

That escalated quickly.

</comment><comment><USER51> You count how many lines in the chat one has missed, but if you come back to the tab there is no indication where you left off. Might be useful.

</comment><comment><USER52> Is this kind of platform possible with WebRTC? (where the files are hosted on the users' computers instead of requiring your own servers?)

<comment><USER53> Yup it's possible. It doesn't appear to be here though, especially if the files have any sort of lifespan not dependant on the users browser staying open. Anyhow, I built something similar over at rtccopy.com which does use webrtc

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> lol. clicking on those pictures... "for adults only", "NSFW"

good thing i'm the first one here this morning....

</comment><comment><USER55> I saw this a few weeks ago, very cool project you're working on. I love the proto-web feeling it has. All the best!

</comment><comment><USER56> Is the source for this available somewhere?

</comment><comment><USER57> How are you handling piracy on the site? Surely that must be an issue. I see some torrents are being uploaded.

<comment><AUTHOR> Piracy is obviously an issue. And we (mods) will of course delete all files that might bring volafile in legal trouble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> NSFW

<comment><USER59> I don't know that the site is NSFW, but clicking the links on the site is not advised at work.

<comment><USER60> It's [largely?] unmoderated UGC, it's NSFW.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You should probably block EXE files for the safety of your users.

<comment><USER61> And .bat, .scr, .pif, .com? And .zip, .tar, .gz, .rar?

And then a shit load of file extensions that potentially run arbitrary code if you have the tool installed.

Seems kind of pointless.

<comment><USER62> Or they can just take the executable and change the extension. Extension-based blocking doesn't really work. However, these types of files generally have magic numbers in their headers that you could inspect to determine what they are.

Also, it'd be rather inconvenient if you couldn't upload a compressed archive to a file-sharing site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Is there an upload limit? Is it possible to share a 5gb file?

</comment><comment><USER64> Maybe some kind of AV scanning as files are uploaded.

</comment><comment><USER65> Glad it dose not automatically show the images.

</comment><comment><USER66> Keep it classy, Internet. Keep it classy.

</comment><comment><USER67> AWESOME I'm already addicted

</comment><comment><USER40> music piracy is the biggest issue you will face.

</comment><comment><USER68> Very cool site.

</comment><comment><USER69> There's a _lot_ of lag for a few people in a chatroom. Looks fun apart from that though.</comment>


Low flying Hot Air Balloons over Vilnius' International Airport - <AUTHOR> http://www.miestai.net/forumas/showthread.php?t=1544&page=134#2661

<comment><AUTHOR> Hot Air Balloon tourism in Vilnius is gaining popularity due to relatively low price and the unique opportunity to fly over the city. Only two more cities in Europe allow Hot Air Balloon flights over the city - Helsinki and Stockholm. It's a very rare occasion that flights are allowed over the the international airport, not only Europe, but probably anywhere in the world.

VNO approach Air Traffic Control (ATC) has special arrangements with balloon pilots allowing them to fly in one flock, they have to take off within 10 minute interval and all the communication is done with the leader of the group. Once the balloon is right over the airport territory, it has to ascent to 1km height in order to allow planes to go under, while in the close proximity it's opposite, they go down allowing planes to fly over.

In general, such flights are possible only because of good relationship between Hot Air Balloon pilots and ATC who have full control of the situation, so it happens even when some planes approaching the airport. Every situation is handled individually.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some more photos can be found: [http://www.miestai.net/forumas/showthread.php?t=1544&pag...](http://www.miestai.net/forumas/showthread.php?t=1544&page=133#2643)

</comment><comment><USER2> Context?</comment>


Unlock More Entrepreneurship In Your City - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/23/founderdating-unlock/ Finding the right people to work is hard, FounderDating is expanding their network by letting the community tell them where there is demand.  Then, connecting them. <comment><USER2> Still the most under-discussed aspect of launching a new startup: getting the founding team right. Happy to see this network grow... slowly and healthy.</comment>


Africa is  not poor, we are stealing it's wealth - <AUTHOR> http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/05/africa-poor-stealing-wealth-170524063731884.html <comment><USER2> Colonial states have also an ongoing responsability in the "poor Africa" myth.

For exemple Belgium still has a crunch on political life in CDR, though the soft power is now prefered (isn't dr Mukwege?) sometimes more violent events still have their origin in Western Europe.

France have more or less the same attitude with its former colonies. The convertibility of the FRANC CFA is assured by the French treasures [0]. Curiously several African leaders who made attempts to leave this currency, were assassinated.

The "Françafrique" is a system were French politicians received money without any conterpart (it was not even corruption!). See the story of Jacques Foccart and Robert Bourgui, who implemented and ran it for years [1]. They are weird and fascinating guys.

[0] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-17/african-m...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-17/african- monetary-union-stirs-criticism-of-france)

[1] (in French) [https://www.challenges.fr/election- presidentielle-2017/qui-e...](https://www.challenges.fr/election- presidentielle-2017/qui-est-robert-bourgi-le-tres-embarrassant-ami-qui-a-paye- les-costumes-de-fillon_461228)

<comment><USER2> Sorry it is not "crunch" but "crush" that was intended, and not "conterpart" but "conterparty". I cannot edit the comment right now, why?

I should not be so sure of my English to write comments without verifying if the language is correct, it is not my native tongue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> its not it's</comment>


London Squared Map - <AUTHOR> http://www.aftertheflood.co/projects/london-squared-map

<comment><USER2> Tried my hand at doing this with US states, feel free to contribute any improvements

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QUdlGrjWuo77QFAjBd1p...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QUdlGrjWuo77QFAjBd1pON3XqDRGUppOwormgrFsjIw/edit?usp=sharing)

<comment><USER3> Would be cool to add some geographic features? Maybe the Mississippi and the Rockies?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a foreigner, but a reader of English fictions, I can only guess a handful of the borough (Camden, Lambeth, the City, Westminster, Islington?). While it looks neat, I don't think brevity is always a boon.

<comment><USER3> I would assume its meant for people familiar with the city, city planners etc.

When I read the first paragraph of the article and looked at the very first image I hated it, but the further I scrolled the better I understood what they tried to do and the more I liked it.</comment></comment>


New York Attorney General Sues Tagged.com for deceptively mining email contacts - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/new-york-attorney-general-sues-taggedcom/?src=twr

<comment><USER2> About time! I hope any import email contact tool is forced to have nothing preselected.</comment>