New GreaterWrong feature: anti-kibitzer (hides post/comment author names and karma values)
GreaterWrong now has a new feature (which was once available for the original Less Wrong):
Anti-kibitzer mode, which hides the names and karma values of posts and comments.
On GreaterWrong, take a look to the right side of the page, and you’ll see this icon:
Click it, and it’ll change to this:
Now the authors of posts and comments, and all karma values, are hidden:
Click the icon again to disable. (You’ll be asked if you’re sure you want to disable anti-kibitzer mode. NOTE: You can skip the confirmation prompt by holding the Shift key while clicking to disable.)
Having the anti-kibitzer turned on doesn’t interfere with any other functionality. You can still post, comment, reply, vote, click on users’ names to go to their user page (where their name will be obfuscated), etc. You can turn it on or off at any time.
Your own name, and your own karma values, are not hidden.
See the original Less Wrong post about this feature for more discussion.
I really like this feature, and will probably switch to reading on greaterwrong because of it. The only implementation choice I disagree with is the confirmation notification if you want to toggle it back on.
A reason to keep the confirmation would be to create a trivial inconvenience for people who are tempted to be biased by the Who and the karma value.
A reason to remove the confirmation is when I want to verify who is replying back to whom. Not the specific person’s name, just if B comments on A’s comment, and then someone comments on B, I’d like to toggle quickly to see if that someone is A or someone else.
OK, I made a slight tweak to the anti-kibitzer to help solve this. Now the different users on a given page are distinguished from each other by arbitrary letters.
This fixes the issue entirely, thanks!
I am glad you like the anti-kibitzer feature!
As for toggling quickly, I agree that this is important—which is why you can skip the confirmation dialog, by holding the Shift key when you click to disable the anti-kibitzer. (I am not sure if you missed this bit in my post, or, if you saw it but still think this is too inconvenient? I have made the note to that effect more prominent, in case it’s the former; if it’s the latter, my apologies.)
Definitely just missed it the first time around, my apologies.