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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  1255 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: PSA: We are no longer in the midst of an experiment.

Honestly if you made "block" a two-week thing, rather than a permanent one, we'd all be a lot better off.

I would also argue considering what a resounding success chat is that if you put a "blog" function on everyone's homepage to post their pictures or whatever whenever they felt like it you'd get some engagement there. I mostly throw random weird gifs in there but it bugs me that every time I change it the old one gets removed.

If you want people to treat each other like humans you need to humanize the interface, not make it feel like people are appearing in traffic court.

Frickin' build a themebuilder FFS. Let us build and share themes. Dumb shit like that. The world needs more dumb shit right now. My two favorite Twitter accounts at the moment are

and





mk  ·  1255 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I suspect that if I made block or mute temporary, there would have been backlash.

I can see the value of the user-page blog thing, but it quickly becomes a whole other type of posting with all the formatting issues that brings. I've considered that it might be interesting to give OPs the option to have chat or comments appended to their post and see what happens.

goobster  ·  1255 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I suspect that if I made block or mute temporary, there would have been backlash.

There could be a couple of ways to do this...

First, if you block or mute someone, you can set a duration for that block or mute to remain in effect. Say, a day, or a week, or a month. Whatever number the user puts into the field. The expiry would be shown next to the username in your blocklist.

Second, blocking/muting someone could have three options: For a Day, For a Week, Cancel.

If you know someone is just being a putz because they are worked up, and will be back to normal (or on their meds) after a while, you could do a one click action to drop them out of sight for a set period of time. Then, when the block lifts and you see them again, if they are still putzing out, with one click you can make the block permanent, if they still deserve it.

kleinbl00  ·  1255 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I suspect that if I made block or mute temporary, there would have been backlash.

LOL you have demonstrated loudly and clearly that you don't care tho so sorry, you can't ever use that argument again.

    I can see the value of the user-page blog thing, but it quickly becomes a whole other type of posting with all the formatting issues that brings.

Said the guy who created "chat" when "weather" wasn't interesting enough

    I've considered that it might be interesting to give OPs the option to have chat or comments appended to their post and see what happens.

NO

Chat is ephemeral. Posts are not. You can't put a chat on a post because then the discussion about it becomes time-sensitive and subject to "who is looking at it right this moment."

I am under NDA, but I will say that one of the most stolid, staid and conservative platforms I use is rolling out a theme builder. It has absolutely nothing to do with the functionality of the software (which costs four to five figures depending on how it's configured) and everything to do with human factors engineering and the fact that we're all stuck in UIs all day long now.

mk  ·  1255 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    LOL you have demonstrated loudly and clearly that you don't care tho so sorry, you can't ever use that argument again.

I don't think that's a fair assessment. I care more than you suspect, and likely more than I have let on. You might not like what I have done, but it's not because I don't care.

    Said the guy who created "chat" when "weather" wasn't interesting enough

IRC was useful but unreliable. Chat was a replacement for that. It was fairly easy to do because of its limited interaction with the application. Same with weather. Some things that seem like they should be easy are difficult, and some things that seem like they would be difficult are easy. This falls in the first category.

I think chat on posts could be fun/interesting. It definitely wouldn't be fitting for all posts, but I can imagine that for some posts it might be more fitting. Chats on posts would probably be saved to the database.

kleinbl00  ·  1255 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I don't think that's a fair assessment.

That's your fault.

    I care more than you suspect, and likely more than I have let on.

Why? Why not let on? It doesn't benefit you in the slightest and dissolves your credibility and my empathy. You started this by saying, effectively, there's a whisper campaign of butthurt people who I won't mention and in order to soothe their savaged fee fees I'm going to impose a solution on everyone else that isn't up for discussion, isn't up for debate, starts now and will end when I feel like it and then the minute goobster goes look everyone you can no longer truly delete your posts how wondrous you jumped RIGHT the fuck in to say woo hoo let's end anonymity without any discussion whatsoever. It was only when a dozen of us rang alarm bells in your face that you waved off.

You are behaving DANGEROUSLY. What you are doing is demonstrating that nobody here has any ownership stake but you, that the rules will change at any time and the only inputs that you will consider are the ones that interest you. I've been dealing with this for three months now - my kid's private school is doing the same "we really care, we just don't feel obligated to demonstrate it" bullshit and half their enrollment is threatening to leave. You're both making the same mistakes: you have given no thought whatsoever to user agency and you have felt no need to give anyone the impression that their input matters in the slightest. It's disempowering, alienating and off-putting in the extreme because what you're doing is communicating I'm only here for the people who agree with me.

    Some things that seem like they should be easy are difficult, and some things that seem like they would be difficult are easy. This falls in the first category.

Classic coder mistake, and why non-coders hate coders: "hey it'd make life way better if you did this one simple thing" "yeah that thing's not actually simple I'm gonna do this other thing instead" "no one asked for that in fact it makes our life worse" "yeah but it's easier and I'll be able to tell our boss I solved your problem" "you aren't you're making my job harder" "tough shit you can't do my job so suck it."

I have LIVED MY LIFE dealing with interfaces designed by UI experts and dealing with interfaces designed by coders. The choices are obvious and immediate and the long term effects are unavoidable. An interface that wraps around the code is universally terrible and will be adopted by the people who have to use the product while an interface that had code written for it may be less feature-rich but will be used by everyone. I used to design massive AV projects and half my goddamn budget was on the control system because you know what? If the History department can't even turn on the goddamn projector it won't matter if the lecture hall has 7.1 surround.

    I think chat on posts could be fun/interesting.

Yeah you also thought a twelve hour waiting period in the "are you thoughtful" corner would be beneficial to the site. Let me be clear: I don't want this. I don't want this SO HARD. I would turn it off if I had the option, and if I didn't have the option, I wouldn't post.

There is no "chat" section on any blog platform anywhere ever. "Then we can be the first!" no, candy corn doesn't go with zucchini either but guaranteed some schlub tried that somewhere and didn't write down the results because it was so immediately, obviously, verifiably terrible.