We built this during Startup Weekend San Jose this weekend. It's built on node.js, socket.io, mongodb, redis and knockoutjs on the front end. Check it out - social networking in reverse!
Well, I used redis to hold a few sets for each user. You can atomically add items to sets in redis. Mongodb doesn't support this functionality (AFAIK). MongoDB is great for dumping and retrieving lots of data and is more durable than redis. Haven't built a site using these tools before so has all been a learning experience.
Redis now uses the same journaling for durability that Mongo does. What you get with Redis is complex atomic ops and transactions, but at the cost of not having sharding.
Take a look at the $push and $addToSet[1] update operators in mongodb. They are both for atomically adding one or more elements to an array in an object. On the other hand, MongoDB doesn't support server-side set union or intersection so if you are using those features redis would still probably be a good use there.
Maybe you can get an initial block of 100 people to follow and have a "Give me 100 new friends" button which gives the user another 100 random people to follow.
The way your HN title is written it makes your project look like a fb plug in or somthing. You may be more direct in what is your interesting project about.
I would definitely try it if for no other reason than the novelty. But I don't enjoy logging into facebook to check facebook... much less logging into facebook to check some other social networking site.
I like the idea, and tried to share the site on Facebook. For some reason it came out with just the link and no descriptive text (usually you get the first few sentences from the page, which you can then edit). Something in the way the code is being generated, maybe?
If you want a proper thumbnail & description when people share your site on Facebook, consider using the Open Graph meta tags starting with "og:" which Facebook parses: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/opengraph/objects/
I'm guessing you'd get to know them by their posts, and day by day eliminate the ones you don't really want to hear about... would be cool if when you dislike they just appear less often, so there is no need to block
Right off the bat though I have a problem conceptually. If this is at all analogous to Facebook (and perhaps it is not), the onus is now on me to block hundreds of millions of users instead of adding a few hundred. What you could do instead is to block groups of users based on the type of content they share. In this model it's like what stumbleupon would be with only a thumbs down option. And I could see that being a really great way to learn about new interests you would never find otherwise.
I think they wanted to add it for a dramatic pause. Maybe an ellipsis would work better. "As soon as you start using TrollBlock you are friends... with everyone."
I see a list of "Most disliked users" and "Most blocked users" once I'm logged in. That seems like this is going to be a competition to be blocked with people intentionally acting like trolls. I wouldn't want to spend time on the site if that's what ends up happening.
Michael, agreed. After you block people, the firehouse becomes more consumable. It was built in 30 hours. We will figure out better "games" in the future.
Yes, don't get me wrong, I like the idea of blocking people and understand the stage of development. I created an account and would like to participate. My feedback is not to encourage trolling. I'd like to see a system that rewards the person with the best message/block ratio.
Good luck with the project. I look forward to seeing it grow.
I don't know about others, but anything that requires me to log in with Facebook ends up stopping me from using it because I don't want all my contacts to see that I signed up for it.
fragsworth. We will implement other logins soon. This was just an MVP and we wanted to have something "in the real world" to avoid people posting racist items.
I think you forgot the "V" in MVP... If we are free to be assholes in the social network and say what we really think ('cuz we are all assholes deep inside :-) ), the very last thing I want to do is tie it to my real-life account on FB.
Easy for you guys to implement, yes. "Viable"? I think not.
not sure if they implemented this in this mv?p but there is a trivial and at the same time incredibly unused solution: just add a checkbox "post anonimously" next to every interaction form.
A social network that bases itself on the idea that by default you're "friends" with everybody should not have any barrier to entry, by the basic philosophy of the thing.
If I can't see why I might want to join without joining, I'm not going to join, plain and simple.
Are you sure you don't want to ban swear words too? Banning racist remarks on a trolling platform seems almost like forbidding anything pink on a my little pony site.
I actually think this solves some serious problems.
I think most non-trolls don't realize how powerful the 'dislike' button is. With a like or upvote button, you don't do anything by way of separating trolls from real content. That's what the 'no' is for, and websites shouldn't be afraid of that.
Seriously, from here on out it should rapid cross-platform expansion. I'm looking at you, Youtube.
I feel like this is exactly what's going on with the HN G+ circle. About 80% are reposters, who I immediately remove from circles, about 15% post interesting stuff, and about 5% are just people sort of worth following like Linus Torvalds and Richard Branson.
I was thinking that this was going to be a filter on HN that blocked the comments by people you didn't like. That would be kind of a cool project. Basically, you could click "hide" and no longer see comments by a particular person. Over time, it could use clustering and machine learning to decide which comments you should see.
Much like the aphorism about all sufficiently complex programs effectively striving to re-implement Lisp, I think all sufficiently complex social sites are effectively striving to re-create usenet in its heyday.
This is a case where using Bootstrap didn't help them with having a clean design out of the gate.
I like the idea, but there is pretty much no way I'm going to authenticate with Facebook, simply because it looks so unprofessional and ugly.
A few simple changes, like not using the purple on grey, not using the color pink at all (there are lots of sites that will help you generate a good color pallet), and being more consistent with your padding between rows, would go a long way.
Guys, don't listent to wrong feedback coming out of... whatever. Trollblock is an awesome resource for trolling and you should stick to that idea.
Comments should be hella funny and yeah, keep the facebook login. Otherwise u'll have a bunch of weirdo nazis screaming out loud.
Cool stuff!
There have been intermittent issues. I was driving home from SWSJ and unable to deal with it for around an hour earlier this evening. Trying to fix a few bugs in the code now.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 96.6 ms ] threadReason you should use it? By default you receive everyones posts. It's up to you to block who and what you don't want to see.
Check it out! Thanks.
[1] http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Updating#Updating-%24add...
And that's an interested idea, how do you think user growth will affect this model?
Cool idea, though.
"The content that you see is consantly changing based on who is using TrollBlock"
Right off the bat though I have a problem conceptually. If this is at all analogous to Facebook (and perhaps it is not), the onus is now on me to block hundreds of millions of users instead of adding a few hundred. What you could do instead is to block groups of users based on the type of content they share. In this model it's like what stumbleupon would be with only a thumbs down option. And I could see that being a really great way to learn about new interests you would never find otherwise.
This reminds me of the Professional where Gary Oldman says "Bring me everyone. EVERYONE." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB_deAcoC2I
"As soon as you start using TrollBlock you are friends - with everyone."
Good luck with the project. I look forward to seeing it grow.
Easy for you guys to implement, yes. "Viable"? I think not.
If I can't see why I might want to join without joining, I'm not going to join, plain and simple.
* I don't know where these stats are, or what the figures actually are. People just keep telling me this over and over again.
I think most non-trolls don't realize how powerful the 'dislike' button is. With a like or upvote button, you don't do anything by way of separating trolls from real content. That's what the 'no' is for, and websites shouldn't be afraid of that.
Seriously, from here on out it should rapid cross-platform expansion. I'm looking at you, Youtube.
I like the idea, but there is pretty much no way I'm going to authenticate with Facebook, simply because it looks so unprofessional and ugly.
A few simple changes, like not using the purple on grey, not using the color pink at all (there are lots of sites that will help you generate a good color pallet), and being more consistent with your padding between rows, would go a long way.
Confirmed by http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/trollblock.com