I could imagine allowing users to opt into certain kinds of campaigns -- an "I'm interested in: [] Internet freedom [] Reproductive rights [] African warlords," or alternatively allow certain organizations / sponsors to control usage: "I'm open to issues promoted by: [] ACLU [] EFF [] NRA"

This is a potentially huge idea. Allowing users to create and choose topics of activism they care about, and voluntarily sign up for email alerts, provide ways to promote their topics, etc. - this could be something people really want.

Not really new - facebook has causes, I'm sure every other social platform has something alike. The problem is that most people don't care enough for most issues interest groups promote. SOPA was an exception because it was exceptionally bad idea. However as soon as it turns from exception to politics as usual, it would get the same amount of attention politics usually gets. No less, but also no more. Whoever is politically active/involved already gets such kinds of alerts from the sources he is affiliated with. Whoever is not, won't read them except in, well, exceptional cases.

We have that already with regular email and websites. Or Facebook groups

I'm not generally a fan of image replies, but the top comment on reddit really does nail it:

http://www.robotmutant.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/201109...

What's the 17 for?

It's a play on iOS notifications. They show a red number in the top right corner to signal how many notifications are unchecked. See: http://img.ehowcdn.com/article-new/ehow/images/a04/pb/9e/rem...

Looks more like Facebook notifications to me:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GYYM4bvG2so/TWWgp9gyuCI/AAAAAAAAAE...

It doesn't look anything like the notification in that image. It does, however, look exactly like the G+ notification thing.

I remember it floating around when G+ launched.

This was one of the first things I thought when reading this. It is so easy for this to become another situation where oversaturation makes it a flawed platform. The reason the protest against SOPA worked is because everyone jumped on board, and it seemed important. This is really the strength of lobbying groups. If bills are fed through with small pieces of a intrusive laws bit by bit, SOPA may return and be in place before there is even time to react. The moment the protest system becomes spammy and we start seeing messages about protests for unimportant topics, the movement will fail. This should be saved and used only in the most dire consequences and focus only on Internet freedom related topics.

This is definitely true and evidenced by reddit's various user driven charity campaigns always being followed by me-too-ers with "We did this great thing so while I have your ear here's my pet project..." This was especially bad after the Haiti- and Katrina-related drives.

I also hope it gets done right. Look at Avaaz.org if you want an example of how to do it wrong. I signed one of their petitions and was put on their mailing list, but they send out email for some of the dumbest things, which makes me go numb to the idea of getting involved. I unsubscribed when they sent out a notice saying they wanted donations because they were being DDoS'd... and then sent a second email the next day. Annoying and irrelevant to the organization.

> It's a great idea, but it needs to stay laser-focused on the Internet freedom issues that created it, and nothing else. No matter how tempting. You can not take the resulting group and use it like a handle to move people's opinions around in any direction.

Well said. This is not so much different from targeting a product brand - first you need to deliver on something that your audience wants. Then you might expand... cautiously.

Delivery is key. If you don't deliver something useful in a meaningful time period - throw the brand away - it's already useless. Pivots are more successful if you already have some traction.

If you do get lucky and delivery something useful within a meaningful time period, then you must keep delivering. You can expand scope, but never waver on the original promise (or an underlying principle on which the promise is based). Dilution is a big risk here.

More successful is to create separate brands and weave them together. This takes great skill, but forges an even stronger presence.

I agree completely. The more things you stand for, the more beliefs a person has to share with you in order for them to join. Pick just a few widely held beliefs if you want a large, influential organization.

Feature:

> Optional code that activates automatically according to criteria you specify (e.g. SOPA returns).

I think Facebook has a similar thing called "causes"?

Farcebook is no substitute for real websites

Agreed!

I hate you guys :-(

It doesn't seem to be in the News Guidelines any longer, but the prevailing opinion on HN is that comments that simply say "I agree" or the like:

1) Add nothing to the conversation. Just upvote if you agree; also commenting to that effect adds nothing.

2) They clutter up the comments, so they are actually worse than not commenting at all.

I seem to recall a previous version of the style guidelines actively encouraging us to downvote such posts in order to train newer accounts to stop doing it. But I might not be remembering correctly.

In any case, I can pretty much guarantee that's why you were downvoted (and I didn't downvote you, personally).

Which feels a bit dated now. Expressing that you agree isn't only valuable to the writer of the comment, and since the number of upvotes-downvotes isn't shown anymore the only way to express that you agree is to write an "I agree"-comment.

Yes there are advantages and drawbacks of showing the upvotes-downvotes but one drawback is that you create a need for "I agree"-comments.

you have to be careful with downvoting of new accounts, if they make a useless first comment and get heavily downvoted, the account will end up hellbanned, which is extremely frustrating for a new user.

Creating an account to post a useless comment does not bode well for the quality of that account's future contributions.

Exactly my thoughts.

"With great power comes great responsibility," etc.