Timeline for Is the "hot network questions" element on Stack Overflow a dark pattern?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
14 events
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| Feb 14, 2019 at 17:49 | comment | added | Beofett | @worc you seem to be defining any information that might interest users, even though not directly relevant to what they originally came for, as "tricking" them. By this definition, you would be hard pressed to find any site that doesn't do what you're calling dark patterns. If I'm looking at a hat on a website, and I see a button that says "shirts", well... shirts aren't hats, and therefore not relevant to what I'm reading. Dark pattern! To this logic, navigation menus are dark patterns unless I am specifically interested in every option. Dark pattern! | |
| Feb 12, 2019 at 23:38 | comment | added | worc | wikipedia and tvtropes are link-heavy, but everything is relevant: what you click is what you get. what you're shown is relevant to what you're reading. hnq is a dark pattern for users with strict, narrow goals, less so for users who are okay with the occasional, distracted wiki-walk through the stack exchanges. saying otherwise is just a straight lie. | |
| Feb 12, 2019 at 5:05 | comment | added | Karan Harsh Wardhan | @JonW i was just waiting a day for some other answers to pop up for a discussion aspect, i was not looking for "validation". it is not a black/white answer anyways in my opinion | |
| Feb 12, 2019 at 4:53 | comment | added | user2357112 | @kkarakk: Whether or not the HNQ is a bad thing, it's not the specific kind of bad thing that "dark pattern" refers to. | |
| Feb 12, 2019 at 1:34 | comment | added | Ian MacDonald | If HNQ are a dark pattern, then literally all of Wikipedia is, too. So many rabbit holes. | |
| Feb 11, 2019 at 15:48 | history | edited | JonW♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Feb 11, 2019 at 15:27 | comment | added | DasBeasto | @kkarakk First, you're assuming your opinion on the HNQ is the same for everyone. I, for one, enjoy clicking through the different networks and reading interesting Q&As so to me it's not something I "don't want to do", I SEEK this out. Second, if distracting you from the single "main purpose" (whatever that may be, apparently ask/answer QA) then practically everything is a dark pattern; creating accounts, commenting, upvotes, privacy policies, etc. All of which are something I didn't "seek out" but cetainly aren't dark patterns. | |
| Feb 11, 2019 at 15:17 | history | edited | JonW♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Feb 11, 2019 at 13:58 | comment | added | aslum | @kkarakk by that argument the entirety of TV Tropes is a Dark Pattern. | |
| Feb 11, 2019 at 13:58 | comment | added | JonW♦ | @kkarakk It seems that your question was not looking for an actual answer, but more validation as to your definition of what Dark Pattern is. I have provided description as well as links that cover off what Dark Patterns are, but I cannot force you to accept them. | |
| Feb 11, 2019 at 13:30 | comment | added | Karan Harsh Wardhan | just because it doesn't fit into a crowdsourced generic grouping doesn't mean it isn't dark. again no one is forcing me to visit stackoverflow at all, it's the subtle misdirection of visiting stackoverflow for a purpose vs being pushed towards aimlessly browsing quasi interesting content and wasting your time | |
| Feb 11, 2019 at 13:23 | comment | added | JonW♦ | @kkarakk You aren't being tricked into clicking them though. Being mildly distracting isn't a dark pattern. You know what's going to happen if you click on those links. You aren't forced to click one in order to continue reading the current page, they don't suddenly appear just as you're about to click elsewhere. As I say, they might be considered clutter or just visual noise, but that is a different issue to dark patterns. See these examples: darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-pattern. Side bar content doesn't constitute any of these. | |
| Feb 11, 2019 at 12:52 | comment | added | Karan Harsh Wardhan | Dark Patterns are about being tricked into doing something you otherwise don't want to do - like clicking off the technical question i was reading and being led to a question about dining plans in disney world? i don't SEEK this out, this is a question right next to this answer i'm replying to which also piques my interest when i should be thinking about how to reply to you.unless you're the type of person who only looks at your cursor while you think you will look around and see things that distract you...banner ads can be trained against,HNQs keep changing in qty/quality per page refresh. | |
| Feb 11, 2019 at 10:22 | history | answered | JonW♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |