alt Hacker NewsI’d encourage a change of labels away from “friend/foe”. It may seem minor but the subtle loaded nature of those paired terms encourages an adversarial stance rather than one of productive discourse. It’s not catchy so there’s probably better than this but, just as an example— “engage/ignore” could better signal to the user a neutral “do I want to bother with this person?”
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That's just Slashdot's influence. They did the same thing at some point.
favorite / potato
Although there are some commenters I would want to follow because they are potato.
There is something so magical about some of the more delulu Take Havers around here.
I'd suggest to move even beyond "engage/ignore".
This is HN. The focus should be "does this person provide interesting or thought provoking comments", not "relationships" or "engagement".
There are plenty of HN commenters whose opinions I absolutely dislike (I'm sure it's mutual ;), but I still read them - they are at least well reasoned or point out missing facts. I don't have to like them to learn from them.
That's such a friend thing to say!
I like friend and foe far more than engage and ignore. A foe isnt someone you ignore. Ignoring is what builds bubbles. A foe can often be right even if you disagree.
Agreed, independent of where the terminology came from, I think if you're trying to promote healthier engagement both for yourself and others using this extension, then not having such adversarial names it's probably a good idea. It should just end up being a sort of web of trust to help you decide what's worth engaging with — and sometimes perfectly valid people that you're not actually enemies with or anything just aren't worth your time engaging with because of fundamental axiological or positional differences.