[Greasemonkey] Question: what would happen if Greasemonkeysentthe ID of every applicable user script with each request?

[Paul Roub]

Matthew Gertner wrote:
> If some information about script usage is conveyed by GM (with an opt out
> for sites that try to abuse this), it isn't unimaginable that some
> progressive sites will improve their features in reaction to this
> information. 

There are some holes in this argument, though:

1.	If you're a web developer who is interested in whether or not GM is 
being used on your site, you'll watch the repository.  You'll want to 
know.  You'll find out.

2.	If you're interested in fixing the kinds of issues GM is used in the 
"broken" cases, you're probably already working on them in response to 
prior reader feedback, or because you've watched the repository.  For 
example, I went several rounds over the course of a year trying to get 
someone at Audible to even give an intelligent comment on the usuability 
problems of their site.  After several fruitless efforts (blogged 
elsewhere), I gave up and wrote a GM script to fix it, which I also 
forwared to them.  They know about the problem, the fix, and that a 
number of people are using it.  It's just that at some decision-making 
level, they don't care.  Log entries won't change that.

3.	"with an opt out for sites that try to abuse this" is where another 
arms race begins.  What defines abuse?  And if we declare a site so 
abusive that we don't want to admit to using GM there, what's to stop 
them sniffing it out via Javascript; and we sniff out the sniffing; and 
they sniff out *that*...  And then come the Forrester reports and 
newsbytes about those oppressive GM guys singling out and defaming those 
poor little websites -- if these seems far-fetched, note the recent 
hand-wringing over the mean, nasty, huge Web Standards Project singling 
out poor little Microsoft when discussing the ACID2 CSS tests.

Like so many things, GM is a great example of the value of 
loosely-connected, decentralized adaptation.  List all the complications 
you can think of ahead of time, if we get further entwined with the 
server side of the equation.  Now triple that number, as a rough estimate.

-paul