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for those commenting about how unhygenic having many tabs open is, why bother trying to cajole others into having just a few tabs open? it's such a weird social

for those commenting about how unhygenic having many tabs open is, why bother trying to cajole others into having just a few tabs open? it's such a weird social norming behavior (to me). i can understand asking why others do it because it is not your norm, but why the addition of trying to force others to conform to your behavior? (i'm genuinely asking, as this kind of stuff is fascinating to me.) why not take the 30 seconds to mull it over to at least develop a sense of understanding/empathy before throwing out a micro agression around something so frivolous? i mean, if it's not hurting you, then let other people be, right? and besides, shouldn't the computer conform to how the human wants to work and not the other way around?

graphitezepp 9y ago
Personally tab bloat reeks of stemming from internet addiction and/or attention span issues. Would hazard a guess that this is the source of anti-tab sentiment.
- colanderman 9y ago
  Tabs left open don't feed internet addiction/ADHD. The act of opening a new tab does. ("Ooh I wonder if there's anything new on FB/HN/etc.?") I leave about a dozen or so tabs open; they track projects I'm in the middle of but can't complete right now for whatever reason. Leaving them put is organizationally helpful to my brain. (I do the same with physical items as well.) But the few sites I'm addicted to… those stay closed until I need a fix.
  - graphitezepp 9y ago
    Yeah "the act of opening a new tab does" I agree with. My original statement is based from my own behavior which I was projecting on to others (which I suspect others who are judging people in this thread may be doing), I don't leave my machine on overnight so the over 100 tab numbers being talked about freak me out.
  - joombaga 9y ago
    They certainly feed my ADHD. If I have an HN tab open between the the AWS console I have up currently, and that API documentation I need, HN may get some attention before I hit CMD+[ again.
- saurik 9y ago
  Ok, let's think about it in the other direction for a second, and trying on purpose apply just as much meanness so as to appreciate the duality: personally, attempts to limit the number of open tabs reeks of stemming from undiagnosed OCD and/or a lack of important tasks.
  - graphitezepp 9y ago
    I would be lying if I said I wasn't internet addicted, am diagnosed with ADD, and open a lot of tabs. Original statement came from my personal experience, did not mean to offend anyone.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- ahjushi 9y ago
  Anecdotally, both my parents (almost 70) have an insane amount of tabs open because they simply don't understand how tabs work. Every time they want to go somewhere else they open a new tab instead of using the current one, and they almost never close em. So this could be great for the less tech-savvy.
- clairity 9y ago
  appreciate the honest response. i disagree of course, because that's a pretty judgemental slippery slope argument (i.e., that a single behavior implies a whole host of other negative behaviors & attributes).
  - graphitezepp 9y ago
    As an admitted internet addict with an ADD diagnoses I am fairly annoyed that my comment was considered so rude. It didn't seem like something out of bounds to call someone out on to me. Sorry for any offense.
    - clairity 9y ago
      no worries, i personally didn't take any offense (for what it's worth, i upvoted you because your response seemed genuine and without ill will, even if i disagreed with you. but it's internet points, so worth about as much as the paper it's printed on =)
- krylon 9y ago
  > attempts to limit the number of open tabs reeks of stemming from undiagnosed OCD and/or a lack of important tasks. Or, alternatively, from keeping an eye on your memory usage. If memory is an issue, not opening too many tabs sure helps. On my 2GB-of-RAM netbook, I hardly open Firefox at all, on my 8 GB laptop, I just don't care. On my 12 GB work laptop, where I have stuff like mmc, multiple RDP sessions, Internet Explorer with multiple tabs (thank you, SharePoint!) and lots of other stuff opened, I still keep an eye on the number of tabs. Well, sometimes, at least. At 16 GB or above, I just don't give a flying ____.
ohazi 9y ago
For the same reason you might cajole others to perform regular backups. People who have too many tabs open are almost always using their tabs as bookmarks, or as an "I want to read this later" mechanism. Very few people actually have two hundred tabs open for a single train of thought. When you do this, you're one crash + failed recovery away from losing those pages forever. Yes, you can go through your history and try to recreate the list, but let's be honest here -- Most of those tabs were from six months ago. Finding and opening those pages manually is going to suck.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  If people use tabs as bookmarks, perhaps it is because something is wrong with bookmarks.
  - ohazi 9y ago
    I completely agree. It should be way easier to "braindump" a window full of tabs into a folder of bookmarks. There are browser extensions for this. Alternatively, browsers could start treating window + tab lists as less ephemeral, and make it easy to restore window + tab combinations at any time, regardless of whether the browser thinks it crashed recently.
    - Others 9y ago
      Chrome has that first feature. Right click on a tab, and click "Bookmark All Tabs..."
      - ohazi 9y ago
        The bookmarking interface in chrome could use a facelift. The fact that I have to come up with a name for the folder and think about where to put it makes this less than ideal. Extensions like OneTab make this sort of dump a one button affair, which makes the process easier when you also have ten windows open. It also keeps them separate from your longer term bookmarks, which is nice.
- 9y ago
kstenerud 9y ago
Because people like to feel superior, and criticizing others is one way to do that.
kodablah 9y ago
> shouldn't the computer conform to how the human wants to work and not the other way around? Completely agree. I am actually currently developing a tree-style-tab browser that has Chrome embedded for this reason [0]. I feel most people that tell people not to have a ton of tabs open haven't experienced the increased productivity with tree style tabs. I can ctrl+click 15 source files on a github page, opened as background tabs, then (with multiple tab handler) I can click+drag across the 10 close buttons and close 10 tabs with one gesture. I almost want to take a video of me "power-using" the web with tree style tabs and multiple-tab gestures to help others understand. I see it as vim:intellij::fewer-tab-argument:more-tab-argument. To each his own. 0 - https://github.com/cretz/doogie https://github.com/cretz/doogie
- clairity 9y ago
  nice! that sounds like a really good use of an explainer video because it's hard to visualize otherwise.
- darkpoints 9y ago
  I was thinking about a similar way to bookmark multiple things at once, make the gesture just a click, hold, slide and then choose option. Love what you got so far.

graphitezepp 9y ago

Personally tab bloat reeks of stemming from internet addiction and/or attention span issues. Would hazard a guess that this is the source of anti-tab sentiment.

colanderman 9y ago
Tabs left open don't feed internet addiction/ADHD. The act of opening a new tab does. ("Ooh I wonder if there's anything new on FB/HN/etc.?") I leave about a dozen or so tabs open; they track projects I'm in the middle of but can't complete right now for whatever reason. Leaving them put is organizationally helpful to my brain. (I do the same with physical items as well.) But the few sites I'm addicted to… those stay closed until I need a fix.
- graphitezepp 9y ago
  Yeah "the act of opening a new tab does" I agree with. My original statement is based from my own behavior which I was projecting on to others (which I suspect others who are judging people in this thread may be doing), I don't leave my machine on overnight so the over 100 tab numbers being talked about freak me out.
- joombaga 9y ago
  They certainly feed my ADHD. If I have an HN tab open between the the AWS console I have up currently, and that API documentation I need, HN may get some attention before I hit CMD+[ again.
saurik 9y ago
Ok, let's think about it in the other direction for a second, and trying on purpose apply just as much meanness so as to appreciate the duality: personally, attempts to limit the number of open tabs reeks of stemming from undiagnosed OCD and/or a lack of important tasks.
- graphitezepp 9y ago
  I would be lying if I said I wasn't internet addicted, am diagnosed with ADD, and open a lot of tabs. Original statement came from my personal experience, did not mean to offend anyone.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
ahjushi 9y ago
Anecdotally, both my parents (almost 70) have an insane amount of tabs open because they simply don't understand how tabs work. Every time they want to go somewhere else they open a new tab instead of using the current one, and they almost never close em. So this could be great for the less tech-savvy.
clairity 9y ago
appreciate the honest response. i disagree of course, because that's a pretty judgemental slippery slope argument (i.e., that a single behavior implies a whole host of other negative behaviors & attributes).
- graphitezepp 9y ago
  As an admitted internet addict with an ADD diagnoses I am fairly annoyed that my comment was considered so rude. It didn't seem like something out of bounds to call someone out on to me. Sorry for any offense.
  - clairity 9y ago
    no worries, i personally didn't take any offense (for what it's worth, i upvoted you because your response seemed genuine and without ill will, even if i disagreed with you. but it's internet points, so worth about as much as the paper it's printed on =)
krylon 9y ago
> attempts to limit the number of open tabs reeks of stemming from undiagnosed OCD and/or a lack of important tasks. Or, alternatively, from keeping an eye on your memory usage. If memory is an issue, not opening too many tabs sure helps. On my 2GB-of-RAM netbook, I hardly open Firefox at all, on my 8 GB laptop, I just don't care. On my 12 GB work laptop, where I have stuff like mmc, multiple RDP sessions, Internet Explorer with multiple tabs (thank you, SharePoint!) and lots of other stuff opened, I still keep an eye on the number of tabs. Well, sometimes, at least. At 16 GB or above, I just don't give a flying ____.

ohazi 9y ago

For the same reason you might cajole others to perform regular backups. People who have too many tabs open are almost always using their tabs as bookmarks, or as an "I want to read this later" mechanism. Very few people actually have two hundred tabs open for a single train of thought. When you do this, you're one crash + failed recovery away from losing those pages forever. Yes, you can go through your history and try to recreate the list, but let's be honest here -- Most of those tabs were from six months ago. Finding and opening those pages manually is going to suck.

oh_sigh 9y ago
If people use tabs as bookmarks, perhaps it is because something is wrong with bookmarks.
- ohazi 9y ago
  I completely agree. It should be way easier to "braindump" a window full of tabs into a folder of bookmarks. There are browser extensions for this. Alternatively, browsers could start treating window + tab lists as less ephemeral, and make it easy to restore window + tab combinations at any time, regardless of whether the browser thinks it crashed recently.
  - Others 9y ago
    Chrome has that first feature. Right click on a tab, and click "Bookmark All Tabs..."
    - ohazi 9y ago
      The bookmarking interface in chrome could use a facelift. The fact that I have to come up with a name for the folder and think about where to put it makes this less than ideal. Extensions like OneTab make this sort of dump a one button affair, which makes the process easier when you also have ten windows open. It also keeps them separate from your longer term bookmarks, which is nice.
9y ago

kstenerud 9y ago

Because people like to feel superior, and criticizing others is one way to do that.

kodablah 9y ago

> shouldn't the computer conform to how the human wants to work and not the other way around? Completely agree. I am actually currently developing a tree-style-tab browser that has Chrome embedded for this reason [0]. I feel most people that tell people not to have a ton of tabs open haven't experienced the increased productivity with tree style tabs. I can ctrl+click 15 source files on a github page, opened as background tabs, then (with multiple tab handler) I can click+drag across the 10 close buttons and close 10 tabs with one gesture. I almost want to take a video of me "power-using" the web with tree style tabs and multiple-tab gestures to help others understand. I see it as vim:intellij::fewer-tab-argument:more-tab-argument. To each his own. 0 - https://github.com/cretz/doogie https://github.com/cretz/doogie

clairity 9y ago
nice! that sounds like a really good use of an explainer video because it's hard to visualize otherwise.
darkpoints 9y ago
I was thinking about a similar way to bookmark multiple things at once, make the gesture just a click, hold, slide and then choose option. Love what you got so far.