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This will burn all my carma: Can we please talk about what he says? Is the topic in any way related to good blog design? There are quite a few blogs without

by noptic 13y ago

This will burn all my carma: Can we please talk about what he says? Is the topic in any way related to good blog design? There are quite a few blogs without capitalization and if it is really so important to you feel free to write about it. IMHO All those comments on design/grammar/font/... in every discussion on HN are mere distractions and add no value.

TylerE 13y ago
Nonsense! They create social pressure to not make a web page that looks like hot trash.
notacoward 13y ago
In general I have the same reaction as you, but in this specific case I think there's a connection. Both the cummings-esque lack of capitals and the general GNOME decision-making process seem to have their roots in a mindset that values "style" over respect for others - users, quoted authors, whoever is deemed "outside" with respect to the post author's own small circle. While comments that focus only on the unfortunate orthography without making that connection might be a waste of time, I think using the visual representation as a symbol of the underlying problem has some validity. Maybe if we all talked about gNOme (as in "NO" to every user request) it would make the point more clearly.
emhart 13y ago
I rarely join in the sideline / distracting conversations on HN comment threads, but I do genuinely believe in this case it acts as a mirror to the content. Absolutely not going to downvote you for pointing out the disconnect, though, hopefully no one else did, either.
chris_wot 13y ago
I really think it shows a disconnect between what the author thinks is good design and what IS good design. But speaking of substance, there wasn't really much there. He talked about users like they were an inconvenience and were unreasonable, and that they had some odd psychological issue that needed correcting. Yet he never addressed the genuinely useful features that were removed, or the feeling by users that if they used features in Gnome they might one day lose them, even if the need them.
RyanMcGreal 13y ago
I voted you up because I think your comment is honest and written in good faith. The author's lack of capitalization is not important enough to me to write an article about it and post it to HN, but it was important enough to me to point it out in a comment on the forum page discussing the article. It seems to me to exemplify exactly what is wrong with the author's approach to features... and by extension, with the GNOME development team's approach to the same.
PhasmaFelis 13y ago
Sure! What he says is essentially "I used to be confused and hurt by users' complaints and desires. Then I devised a pop-psych theory for why users have desires, and having done that, I can confidently tell them to go to hell." This is terrible, terrible design philosophy and no one should ever listen to it. The end.

by noptic 13y ago

TylerE 13y ago

Nonsense! They create social pressure to not make a web page that looks like hot trash.

notacoward 13y ago

In general I have the same reaction as you, but in this specific case I think there's a connection. Both the cummings-esque lack of capitals and the general GNOME decision-making process seem to have their roots in a mindset that values "style" over respect for others - users, quoted authors, whoever is deemed "outside" with respect to the post author's own small circle. While comments that focus only on the unfortunate orthography without making that connection might be a waste of time, I think using the visual representation as a symbol of the underlying problem has some validity. Maybe if we all talked about gNOme (as in "NO" to every user request) it would make the point more clearly.

emhart 13y ago

I rarely join in the sideline / distracting conversations on HN comment threads, but I do genuinely believe in this case it acts as a mirror to the content. Absolutely not going to downvote you for pointing out the disconnect, though, hopefully no one else did, either.

chris_wot 13y ago

I really think it shows a disconnect between what the author thinks is good design and what IS good design. But speaking of substance, there wasn't really much there. He talked about users like they were an inconvenience and were unreasonable, and that they had some odd psychological issue that needed correcting. Yet he never addressed the genuinely useful features that were removed, or the feeling by users that if they used features in Gnome they might one day lose them, even if the need them.

RyanMcGreal 13y ago

I voted you up because I think your comment is honest and written in good faith. The author's lack of capitalization is not important enough to me to write an article about it and post it to HN, but it was important enough to me to point it out in a comment on the forum page discussing the article. It seems to me to exemplify exactly what is wrong with the author's approach to features... and by extension, with the GNOME development team's approach to the same.

PhasmaFelis 13y ago

Sure! What he says is essentially "I used to be confused and hurt by users' complaints and desires. Then I devised a pop-psych theory for why users have desires, and having done that, I can confidently tell them to go to hell." This is terrible, terrible design philosophy and no one should ever listen to it. The end.