patrick.net

@HunterTits OK, from now on, images cached from an external url will retain the image suffix, like .jpg

Are you able to match up the @ sign with multiple hits across the border of a space?

If you match with @xxx yyyy send the message to them. If you match with @xxx send to them - in that order.

This seems possible.

Disallow usernames with more than one space, I don't think this would be a problem, but you'd have to verify of course and you'd actively have to prevent it.

Right now, an @ will just send a message to the string that follows, and not cross spaces to send to multiple people. You'd need multiple @ signs for that.

Some older users have a space in their name, before I disallowed new ones like that because it causes all kinds of problems. To send a message them, you have to use quotes, like:

@"user with space"

@Patrick

Given the new micropayment Jourmalism idea, it would be convenient if you could have a way for people to save a draft of their post until it's ready to be submitted. I'm working on a few longer pieces that (I hope) are worth the price of admission. Draft feature would be useful.

@GreaterNYCDude

People have asked for this in the past, so I guess I should finally do it. What should that look like?

How about this:

- in addition to a "submit" button on a new post, you have a "save as draft" button
- when you "save as draft" then it's a post, but no one can see it other than you

But then how would you find it again to finish it? I suppose you could look at your "new" posts on your author page:

https://patrick.net/user/GreaterNYCDude?order=new

It would still be near the top if you get back to it pretty soon.

And then when you finally "submit" it, the post date would be changed from when you first hit "save as draft" to the current time.

Can you think of any improvement on that?

Patrick says

Can you think of any improvement on that?

Use a word processor and post when you're ready.

GreaterNYCDude says

Given the new micropayment Jourmalism idea, it would be convenient if you could have a way for people to save a draft of their post until it's ready to be submitted. I'm working on a few longer pieces that (I hope) are worth the price of admission. Draft feature would be useful.

It would be nice and I know Patrick kind of answered. I don't make a ton of posts, but when I do I generally draft them in notes. Yes, I'm stuck in the Apple platform. I even do it with my longer comments. If you like writing, always save it or draft it somewhere else. Not pooping on the draft idea, but you have no idea what the future holds. Patrick could say fuck it and close the site tomorrow and all your drafts are there.

Everyone is different so it's hard to create the perfect platform. It's also why I despise Twitter. If you can't spend 3-5 minutes to read content you're a common retard. I don't want to click a link unless it's to verify data of what you're talking about. I like hearing different opinions, but you can't do that in short form in my opinion.

Either way I'd draft in whatever program you choose. I like notes because it's available across all my devices as I'm sure other apps/programs are the same now. Then just copy and paste. That way you have your content on your own machine/device and it cannot go away if you were ever to decide to do something with it. I've contemplated writing a book and try to save everything I can. It would be a nightmare to sort though, but I generally have everything I wanted to keep.

GreaterNYCDude says

it would be convenient if you could have a way for people to save a draft of their post until it's ready to be submitted

@GreaterNYCDude OK, I made a way to save a draft post. You'll see it if you go to create a new post.

If you have an unpublished draft, you'll see a link to it on the home page.

There may still be bugs. Please let me know if you find any.

You already have a like, and dislike, add a SPAM button (and maybe UNSPAM?) button.

Let users set a threshold for "SPAM" counts before the post just doesn't show up for them.

I don't think anything should be censored. I don't believe in not being able to see a post simply because it's been voted down so many times either - it leads to group stupidity. People could abuse the "SPAM" button, so maybe also make it visible who marked it as SPAM.

If I see spam, and ONLY if I see spam will I mark it.

The "flag" link is supposed to do that for comments. I know "flag" is generic, but it would get very busy to have multiple flag options.

Or maybe you mean for posts (ie threads). You're right that I need a spam or flag link for those.

I keep having this dilemma:

A. Allow new users to create a new post (thread). But then spammers immediately start creating spam posts to get them on the home page.
B. Require one or more comments before allowing a user to create a new post. But then legit users like Mr. O'Looney the undertaker get confused because there is no new post button visible right away.

What should I do about that? I guess I could allow new users to create posts and let users mark them as spam, but that's kind of annoying for users too.

Patrick says

What should I do about that? I guess I could allow new users to create posts and let users mark them as spam, but that's kind of annoying for users too.

Brand new users have their posts in quarantine for 24 hours.

By default, they are visible to anybody that has X number of posts (a real user) - they can mark the new post as SPAM / NOTSPAM (by default it's marked as NOTSPAM)

Users can opt out of this responsibility or can be barred from it, should they abuse it.

Patrick says

The "flag" link is supposed to do that for comments. I know "flag" is generic, but it would get very busy to have multiple flag options.

Flag can be a pull down menu, you'd just need a bunch of reasons

Flag
* Remove Flag
* Personal attack
* Spam
* Pornography
* Whatever else you can think of
* General (needs new category)

richwicks says

Brand new users have their posts in quarantine for 24 hours.

Thanks for the suggestion. This is probably the best solution so far.

Patrick says

richwicks says

Brand new users have their posts in quarantine for 24 hours.

Thanks for the suggestion. This is probably the best solution so far.

If you want to be a little evil, and somebody DOES spam, you can just shadow ban all their posts. I mean, google does this all the time, and when it's NOT spam, just something they don't want you to communicate.

I was just thinking that. I could show them their own post, but not show it to others for 24 hours.

That seems OK as long as I tell them what's going on.

Patrick says

I was just thinking that. I could show them their own post, but not show it to others for 24 hours.

That seems OK as long as I tell them what's going on.

When it finally is visible to everybody else, it should got to the top of the page.

Here's another idea - I knew a guy working on something like a Facebook competitor - the idea was a "drunk email" thing. You could send out an email, but a timer could be put into it to make you rethink of what you just wrote. He didn't flesh it out entirely, but you get the idea.

I've heard that idea before somewhere. I think people won't go for it because they prefer instant gratification, but you never know.

Patrick says

I've heard that idea before somewhere. I think people won't go for it because they prefer instant gratification, but you never know.

What happened to the image post thread? I liked that. Maybe remove the reply button in that thread, and just let people skim the memes.

I still think that whenever a video is posted, that should show up as a "post", where people can just comment on it. Replace the ability of the other sites to censor and allow discussion on the video. Under the video post, you wouldn't be able to add another video, but you could make a link to one.

That's what Facebook was, before it went to suck.

Still have another idea for you, but you won't log into my pi. I'm not going to share it publicly. Next time we meet up. Basically, it will obviate the need to police any site but that might require quite an overhaul to implement.

richwicks says

What happened to the image post thread? I liked that.

It's in the footer as "latest images".

Patrick says

richwicks says

What happened to the image post thread? I liked that.

It's in the footer as "latest images".

I'm no website designer, but over this weekend, I might take time to make a mockup of a better interface.

I hardly EVER scroll to the bottom of the page, and I doubt I'm the only one like that. I expect the top and the bottom of the page to have the same links.

Frames are now frowned upon though, but I don't know why.

Some people on here may have a law background, why not give legal advice (purely informational with disclaimer) to get the micropayments going. I would pay for that if needed, I often have specific questions since I'm familiar with the rest of the matter and would like pointed advice. I am also planning on doing stock reviews for small cap bio trades as soon as I find some time

@Blue I remember you wanted the ability to edit or delete your own comments which are more than two weeks old.

Now you can do that.

I had blocked that in the past because it seemed like altering history, but maybe it's too restrictive of a policy.

I've started calling threads "threads" instead of posts.

So now there are just threads and comments. I won't use the term post anymore.

Patrick says

@Blue I remember you wanted the ability to edit or delete your own comments which are more than two weeks old.

Now you can do that.

I had blocked that in the past because it seemed like altering history, but maybe it's too restrictive of a policy.

@Patrick, can't you just set it up so that one post replaces the original, but a button can be clicked to see the previous post?

I'm of the mindset that it is altering history. Maybe a post should be editable for up to 10 minutes, but after that, it's just archived and the default that is shown is latest revision. This prevents shenanigans.

Say I wrote something that was reasonably popular and got 10 votes, then edited 10 days later to say "Hitler is the best, and kill all the Jews", because I could do that.. I wouldn't but it's possible to do.

richwicks says

Patrick, can't you just set it up so that one post replaces the original, but a button can be clicked to see the previous post?

I could, but I'd need to keep a revision history for comments, and that's a can of worms.

On the other hand, it might nice for threads so that an author could open up a thread for edits and everyone could pitch in to correct things, as on non-locked Wikipedia articles. Maybe the author should then have the ability to revert changes, but the whole history of edits and reversions would be accessible.

In fact, maybe I should repost all the locked wikipedia articles here so that patrick.net users could edit them!

An unforeseen benefit of the "save as draft" feature of composing a new thread: as long as the thread is a draft, it is not visible except to the author as a note on the home page.

This means that if you want to remove one of your threads from visibility, you can just edit it and click "save as draft".

Thanks, I must have broken something. I'll take a look.

@Patrick

There is something wonky going on with quoting: when I post a reply to one one message with a quote in a thread and then try to reply to another in the same thread the first one gets quoted again instead of the second one. (MacOs 12.5.1, Firefox 104.0.2)

UPD. Tried to make a screen recording of this behaviour and of course it works normally now. =))

If any text is selected, the quote link assumes you want to quote that text.

So if you want to quote two people, make sure you unselect before making the second quote. Or maybe I can do that automatically...

Patrick says

If any text is selected, the quote link assumes you want to quote that text.

So if you want to quote two people, make sure you unselect before making the second quote. Or maybe I can do that automatically...

I'm aware of this behavior. That wasn't it.

Finally got image upload progress indicator working as well. Just text percentage uploaded, but good enough for now.

A suggestion for users: for additional privacy when pasting URLs, try to delete as many of the GET parameters (the stuff after the ? mark).

You can just try deleting all of them, and if that works, paste that URL. Otherwise, you may have to keep some to get the page to work.

The goal is to prevent any identifying parameters which websites sometimes tack on to track which user a URL came from. Patrick.net never does that, btw.

fb_id=nnnn or anything like that is clearly Facebook adding on who you are.

Now images in quotes will be reduced to half size. Huge images get in the way of quoting.

Dan8267 says

Trolls do well not to piss off admins. This must be a new species of troll: suiciders.

Patrick says

Finally got image upload progress indicator working as well. Just text percentage uploaded, but good enough for now.

Looks like Ireland to me. There's only one kind of green grass like that.

Patrick says

@AmericanKulak

Yes, Cliffs of Moher. Crazy beautiful and dangerous to walk along. Look how close the path goes to the cliff. And the wind was gusting back and forth.

Patrick says

Yes, Cliffs of Moher.

They resembles to Channel Islands National Park.

@citTits I don't remember putting that in, but must have.

I see now it's 7 new threads per day. I kinda remember that someone was trying to spam the forum with new threads at some point.

Sorry about that.

I think I've got image tagging working.

Below any image wider than 300px, you will see an "add tag" button.

You can click it, enter a tag, and then that image will be tagged with your tag, which allows much easier search of images (if you know the tag to search by).

All the tags will start with _ because:

1. # does not work in urls, being reserved for within-page links
2. _ will add some uniqueness so that you can search otherwise common words and get a limited set of relevant result images

The tags are stored in the "alt" property of the image, so the author of the comment or post with an image can go in and manually add, change, or delete a tag on any image he or she posted.

Combine all the different Paul Pelosi hammer attack threads into one master thread.

https://patrick.net/post/1377465/2022-10-28-mr-pelosi-attacked
https://patrick.net/post/1377480/2022-10-29-depape-entered-rear-door
https://patrick.net/post/1377463/2022-10-28-pelosi-s-husband-threatens-to-release
And probably this one as well:
https://patrick.net/post/1377481/2022-10-29-pelosi-attack-suspect-was-a-psychotic

@zzyzzx OK, did it.

Now this is the definitive thread for the Pelosi attack:

https://patrick.net/post/1377463/2022-10-28-pelosi-s-husband-threatens-to-release

@patrick

I tried out tesseract today (an ocr lib) and it was easy to use. I was thinking maybe you could use it to make the text in images searchable. Tags still fill the void when the image doesn't contain any relevant text, but many images on here contain headlines, and so might be useful if they were searchable.

// npm install tesseract
// fyi I used node 18.12.0
const Tesseract = require('tesseract.js')
let filename = 'npr.png'

Tesseract.recognize(filename)
    .catch(err => console.error(err))
    .then(function (result) {
        console.log(result)
        console.log(result.data.text)
        process.exit(0)
    })

result of console.log(result.data.text)

m K@su L SIGNIN i NPR SHOP
[E] NEWS X CULTURE J MUSIC () PODCASTS & SHOWS  Q SEARCH >
TECHNOLOGY
4] . .
Elon Musk said Twitter wouldn't become
v a 'hellscape.’ It's already changing
E October 31}, 2022 - 4:'?9 PMET
‘v‘ gs Considered
fl SHANNON BOND

from



I think it worked pretty well out of the box w/ default settings! It still worked w/ my network cable unplugged, so they aren't calling some web spyware service to accomplish it - its done locally.

Maybe an implementation could be something like

CREATE TABLE image_words (
    post_id INT,
    file_name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    words VARCHAR(20000),
    created_at DATETIME DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP NOT NULL,
    most_recent_ocr_attempt DATETIME,
    most_recent_ocr_success DATETIME,
    FULLTEXT KEY (words),
    -- I'm not sure which of the following indexes would work best w/ mysql for the query, but one of them should work well I think.
    INDEX dates1 (most_recent_ocr_success, most_recent_ocr_attempt, created_at),
    INDEX dates2 (most_recent_ocr_attempt, created_at)
);

-- Have a background worker run this query and process the results every X minutes.

-- Find rows that have not been successfully processed yet. 
-- If an attempt was made on a row, but it failed, we try to process it again but not for at least a week. 
-- The reason we process newest first is a similar reason for why we wait 1 week before reattempting 
-- a failed row - this query+table is basically a queue, and we want to make sure we don't eventually clog the head of the queue up 
-- with stuff that keeps failing over and over, which might prevent the worker from ever consuming fresh work that it
-- can succeed with. Let it try the new stuff first, and then if it has spare time, it can reattempt failed stuff.
select * 
  from image_words 
 where most_recent_ocr_success is null
   and (
        most_recent_ocr_attempt < CURRENT_TIMESTAMP - interval 1 week
        or
        most_recent_ocr_attempt is null
   )
 order 
    by created_at desc
 limit 100