20

Hide pointless user data on userscripts.com

When I look at answers, I often take the user's reputation points into account on whether I upvote them or not. This is a terribly bad thing to do as you should vote on answers based on quality, and nothing else. (It also keeps me from getting distracted looking at other user's rep :p ).

So here's a Greasemonkey scripts that hides other user's reputation points, badges, and avatars (except your own badges and reputation points in the header). The relevant information, like their username, when the question was edited, and their accept rate, are kept.

Source:

// ==UserScript==
// @name           Hide other users reputation
// @namespace      CrazyJugglerDrummer
// @description    hides all users reputations except yours in site header
// @include        http://stackoverflow.com/*
// @include        http://superuser.com/*
// @include        http://serverfault.com/*
// @include        http://meta.stackoverflow.com/*
// ==/UserScript==

function addGlobalStyle(css) {
    var head, style;
    head = document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0];
    if (!head) { return; }
    style = document.createElement('style');
    style.type = 'text/css';
    style.innerHTML = css;
    head.appendChild(style);
}

addGlobalStyle("span.reputation-score, span.badge1, span.badge2, span.badge3, span.badgecount, div.accept-answer-link, div.user-gravatar32 { display: none; }"); //hides undesired user info
addGlobalStyle("#header span.reputation-score, #header span.badge1, #header span.badge2, #header span.badge3, #header span.badgecount { display: inline; }"); //unhides that info in the header (your own info)
4
  • Not sure I agree with the premise, answering questions well and in large numbers should make you better at giving good answers, but the intent is good, I guess.
    – Tchalvak
    Nov 21, 2009 at 0:06
  • 5
    @Tchalvak I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the premise. This is primarily to keep me from wasting time looking at other user's rep and biasing my actions on that information. :D Nov 21, 2009 at 18:05
  • Would use this but since i block all gravatars already they're invisible half the time anyway :)
    – RCIX
    Dec 2, 2009 at 7:43
  • stackexchange.com##.user-gravatar32 filter hides avatars. Can be used with uBlock Origin or another blocker.
    – user598527
    Jul 9, 2017 at 18:49

3 Answers 3

11

If you are biased by numbers, you really should block the current vote counts of the posts as well, and set your sorting preference to 'newest first'.

5

This (edited) version (the original version is in the question) hides your and other users' user data on all StackExchange sites. (I added the *.stackexchange.com/) It also blocks your own reputation and badges (which you can see at your profile page anyway). (I removed the last line.)

Special notes: You can easily add more websites to this list by editing. Use tampermonkey to use userscripts in Chrome.

// ==UserScript==
// @name           Hide you and other users' reputation
// @namespace      Raindrop11
// @description    On all the sites below
// @include        http://*.stackexchange.com/*
// @include        http://stackoverflow.com/*
// @include        http://stackapps.com/*
// @include        http://mathoverflow.net/*
// @include        http://superuser.com/*
// @include        http://serverfault.com/*
// @include        http://meta.stackoverflow.com/*
// ==/UserScript==
function addGlobalStyle(css) {
    var head, style;
    head = document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0];
    if (!head) { return; }
    style = document.createElement('style');
    style.type = 'text/css';
    style.innerHTML = css;
    head.appendChild(style);
}
addGlobalStyle("span.reputation-score, span.badge1, span.badge2, span.badge3, span.badgecount, div.accept-answer-link, div.user-gravatar32 { display: none; }"); //hides undesired user info
3

Reputation is not pointless when looking at answers: if you're considering which approach to take first, you try the one suggested by the person with the highest rep. The badges are a secondary indicator. I would suggest that this is exactly why these numbers are displayed with the answers.

Reputation has a certain stickiness because of this, and it's a natural part of how the site works. Someone coming "off the street" shouldn't expect to be able to get the same attention as someone who already has an established reputation, even if they're giving the same quality of answers.

The user images, though, are unimportant.

2
  • 1
    This is a user installed script. If a person feels that seeing the user information can get in the way of him making unbiased assessments of the answers, then he is free to install this script.
    – voyager
    Jan 27, 2010 at 16:59
  • 3
    I agree with The Big Cheese. Due to my personal flaws, I'm unlikely to upvote answers from users with high rep. Jon Skeet has 100K+, isn't that enough? I would upvote lots of stuff new users posted to encourage them to keep coming to SO. However, this does nothing to help the asker as the actually content of the answers is not being evaluated. Rep shows how long you've been on SO, and you can easily know your stuff with 1 rep. Jan 28, 2010 at 1:31

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