Don't Give Your Users Shit Work • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#101

Post by scott_s » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 1:31 PM UTC

tensor wrote: post #90

scott_s wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Shit work" is a common enough phrase that it seemed appropriate to me.

A phrase is not deemed appropriate solely because it is common. There are and have been many inappropriate common phrases in use over the years. The author had an interesting point, but I found his use of "shit work" over and over to be distasteful enough to not want to read his blog again. It is an overloaded and crass term that only served to hurt his otherwise interesting argument.

I felt it was appropriate because the phrase, even if it was crass, exactly captured what he was talking about. I like it when people use the best word or phrase to describe something, even if it's a crass phrase.

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#102

Post by drblast » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 1:55 PM UTC

Maybe I'm getting old, but I don't understand the compulsion to post potentially embarassing information about yourself on the Internet.

I can't believe people are arguing about the right way to do this.

Twenty years ago, it was rare for someone to call everyone they ever knew and scream into the phone how drunk they were. I might have done that only once or twice in my life. (If I called you by mistake and woke you up at 2AM, I apologize.)

But today, if you can't provide a web-based service that not only allows you to do that very thing but protects you from the consequences of it, people will complain.

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#103

Post by Torn » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 2:00 PM UTC

Timothee wrote: post #33

danso wrote: post #17

The author seems to be missing a gigantic point of order here. The reason why Facebook is algorithmically able to determine groups for you is because you, the user, have already entered in fields for Work, School, Location, etc. So the user has had to do a small amount of shit work for Facebook to do its magic. Of course, that's a very small amount of work relative to manually placing friends into circles. But G+ doe…

I think that the part where entering your info into Facebook appears less like shit work is that it's typically factual and structured: I worked there, I studied here, these people are family members. Google +'s circles are completely up-to-you, for better or for worse, and you hit ambiguous parts more quickly: is that guy a friend or an acquaintance? Should I put him in "Tech", "Ruby", both? But of course, as you go…

> But of course, as you go deeper in either product, you'll soon find the same ambiguities and amount of shit work.

The point here is that for facebook when your contacts change their details, changes to their inclusion in your groups are automatically cascaded.

It's orders of magnitude less shitwork than Google+ where you have to manually curate / update circles.

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#104

Post by tszming » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 2:16 PM UTC

(Sorry for hijacking)

In the new GitHub project page (e.g. https://github.com/cocos2d/cocos2d-iphone), it really took me some times to figure out where is the DOWNLOAD button..Please put the download button back to the top right area (next to the watch/fork buttons), and don't give your users shit work... Thank you!

(Btw, I agree what you said in your article!)

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#105

Post by Skillset » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 3:03 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #101

tensor wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A phrase is not deemed appropriate solely because it is common. There are and have been many inappropriate common phrases in use over the years. The author had an interesting point, but I found his use of "shit work" over and over to be distasteful enough to not want to read his blog again. It is an overloaded and crass term that only served to hurt his otherwise interesting argument.

I felt it was appropriate because the phrase, even if it was crass, exactly captured what he was talking about. I like it when people use the best word or phrase to describe something, even if it's a crass phrase.

Perhaps "poo work" or "feces work" would have been more apropos.

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#106

Post by scott_s » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 3:39 PM UTC

Skillset wrote: post #105

scott_s wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt it was appropriate because the phrase, even if it was crass, exactly captured what he was talking about. I like it when people use the best word or phrase to describe something, even if it's a crass phrase.

Perhaps "poo work" or "feces work" would have been more apropos.

But those are not well known phrases. If you mean "shit work," say "shit work." To do otherwise is bad writing.

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#107

Post by gvr » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 5:30 PM UTC

Peter Drucker said something along the lines of "there's no greater form of waste than doing that which shouldn't be done at all with great efficiency."

Google Circles is an elegant solution to the wrong problem.

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#108

Post by drcube » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 5:46 PM UTC

Funny, how soon we forget that shit work is what Myspace was all about. That was the use case. Typing in a giant, unstructured list of your favorite artists or installing some way-too-busy image as your profile background in order to impress your friends was the highlight of the "social network" as it existed in 2004.

People, mostly women in my experience, loved that "shit work" the same way they loved putting on makeup or shopping for uncomfortable clothes.

Some work is enjoyable. People do it for fun. Like gardening, or knitting, or cooking. I believe social networks are kind of like that, for at least some subset of the population. Privacy probably shouldn't be that way, but sadly, I think we all know how scarce people are who actually care about their privacy.

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#109

Post by dgabriel » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 6:07 PM UTC

drcube wrote: post #108

Funny, how soon we forget that shit work is what Myspace was all about. That was the use case. Typing in a giant, unstructured list of your favorite artists or installing some way-too-busy image as your profile background in order to impress your friends was the highlight of the "social network" as it existed in 2004. People, mostly women in my experience, loved that "shit work" the same way they loved putting on mak…

> People, mostly women in my experience, loved that "shit work" the same way they loved putting on makeup or shopping for uncomfortable clothes.

Really?

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#110

Post by ebzlo » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 6:08 PM UTC

aprescott wrote: post #32

ebzlo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I find the use case relevant, I think ultimately, the point is that a post like that simply does not belong on Facebook. Sure one could argue that you should be able to post whatever you want, but the reason it seems so convoluted and confusing is because you've made it that way. A post like that belongs on a blog. I like to think of a blog a place for people to learn about a specific topic. Facebook is for peo…

What about the case where it isn't a long-form post, but something more casual like a retweet or a link to some website? I can see the blog solution working out there, too (cf. Daring Fireball), but you might not want to have that full setup for more ephemeral (yet interesting) stuff. There also might not be one specific topic. I'm not disagreeing with you, I just wonder if there is a way to use a social network like…

If you really just think about what you're sharing, it's likely going to fall into one of three categories.

1. I want to share this with my friends and family, it's ephemeral, will interest them, and expresses more about who I am.

2. I want to share this with my coworkers and colleagues, it is relevant to our professional interests. This category also happens to be the "Public" category for me in a lot of cases, because anything I share professionally, doesn't need to remain private.

3. Anything off topic here. Something that lands in this category (while interesting and relevant to you) is, for the most part, uninteresting to the audiences you've made yourself available to.