List of recently added and removed tools

Site Development
1

Proposal

Add a list of recently added and removed tools to the front page.

Motivation

Sometimes I visit Privacy Guides just to see if any tools have been added or removed. Right now, there’s no good way to track the changes except by navigating through each section, which is kind of a hassle. If there is, feel free to close this topic.

Implementation

This list should appear on the front page. It should be a straightforward list with links that show when and why each tool was added or removed.

9 Likes
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We do have Site Development > Changelog although it tracks all changes.

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I think there should be a dedicated page on privacyguides.org for this. Say I’m looking for a removed tool like hat.sh, a search for it could at least surface a page with the date it was removed + a short justification / explanation.

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Changelog is different from what he proposed
I support his proposal also
the removed tools can be mentioned for specific time period

5

You can vote for it to show your interest.

1 Like
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I like this idea and would see myself using it. I think it provides “front-end users” (who aren’t likely to dig into Github or Forum post history) the chance to see what changes have been made.

I wonder if it might be wise to put the removed recommendations on the page they were removed from (near the bottom), with a clear color/background difference so no one accidentally thinks they are an affirmative recommendation. If discoverability is part of our aim, that would do a lot to help people find this page and put it to use.

I think a user having the experience of “here is a list of things we DO recommend and here is a list of things we used to recommend that were almost good or used to be good” helps them learn a lot about privacy. And they can click over to the detailed explanation on the (proposed) archive page.

1 Like
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There has been a lot of debate about how we should handle removed recommendations and anti-recommendations in the past, and what we generally landed on is: We don’t want to give any attention/real-estate/etc. to things that aren’t recommended, we only want to showcase the things that are.

I do think that this sets us apart a bit, because a lot of other resources will overly focus on the negative aspects of various tools (and in the very worst cases this can even manifest as fearmongering/FUD). By only highlighting the best tools out there and simply ignoring the rest we avoid this problem very easily, which I am happy about.

This isn’t set in stone though, and we could definitely be open to doing this in a thoughtful manner. I’m interested in more opinions on this.

2 Likes
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I also believe we shouldn’t add a separate list for removed recommendations, for the same reasons that @jonah mentioned. However, I can see how a list of newly added tools or services could be beneficial for some users.

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Hmmm. Yeah I can see that point. It makes sense to me.

So perhaps a single changelog page on the website (rather than github) does the trick. It doesn’t overly emphasize negative aspects, but does keep people up to date. It could simple contain a link to the relevant forum thread and ticket or pull request, where folks could learn more. I think this would be distinct from the github history because the goal wouldn’t be to include every change, just changes to recommendations (either additions or removals).

For whatever my singular vote is worth, I would find this useful. I currently have to do a bit more digging to find this information.

3 Likes
11

I would be in favor of this suggestion. Users visit PG for security and privacy recommendations but if a product or service suddenly disappears from the list and there is no mention of it that could be be detrimental to one’s safety. Reviewing a changelog is not user-friendly because it’s meant for developers to communicate changes to a program, so users have to sift through the list of changes to find relevant information about the apps they use.

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I like the idea of a list of added / removed tools, as well as rejected tools. Many people will hear how good a tool / service / app is (e.g. Simple Mobile apps) and when they don’t see it recommended on PG they could assume PG is not in the know and waste time suggesting it or asking about it in the forum.

1 Like