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

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#31

Post by dylangs1030 » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 9:17 PM UTC

lukev wrote: post #28

But, but... I like putting my friends into Venn diagrams. Seriously. The 1 click it takes to put someone is a circle isn't really "work", and if it saves me awkward calls from my mom because she read a post intended for my drinking buddies, then it was well worth it.

I agree. But the author is making a point about how justified these features are and how arbitrary they can be for users. Personally, I never distinguish who I publish statuses too. But I can understand why that's a useful feature. And he DID praise that feature for Facebook.

What he isn't praising is when a user compulsively uses a feature which is superfluous. A huge assortment of different tags and labels in email isn't really justified. Sure, you can find a use for it. But most users arguably organize their entire mailbox into these neat categories, and thereafter, half of them are never used again.

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#32

Post by aprescott » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 9:19 PM UTC

ebzlo wrote: post #29

aprescott wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading your three situations, I have another one which I've been thinking about: a post which is informative and in some way beneficial to the public, but which a significant portion of the people you know simply do not care about. For example, you may have an excellent piece of commentary about the history of Unix and the state of X, Y, Z in modern operating system design. Most of your non-technical friends, along…

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 Google+ for Everyone, as they market it, which is sensible. Maybe not.

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#33

Post by Timothee » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 9:21 PM UTC

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 deeper in either product, you'll soon find the same ambiguities and amount of shit work.

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#34

Post by dylangs1030 » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 9:22 PM UTC

aprescott wrote: post #24

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #10

He's right in that Facebook was helpful by auto-creating certain "groups" of friends for you based on profile information. Where this completely breaks down is once you move past the trivial task of auto-populating categories for your location, school, and work. As I see it there are three modes of sharing: The first is where my post is quite innocent and generic, so I just want to declare it to the world. This goes…

Reading your three situations, I have another one which I've been thinking about: a post which is informative and in some way beneficial to the public, but which a significant portion of the people you know simply do not care about. For example, you may have an excellent piece of commentary about the history of Unix and the state of X, Y, Z in modern operating system design. Most of your non-technical friends, along…

I see statuses all the time I really don't care about. It's not necessary for someone to restrict me from the group able to see it for that reason - if your friends dislike seeing posts they don't care for, why are they browsing the newsfeed?

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#35

Post by dylangs1030 » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 9:24 PM UTC

dos1 wrote: post #21

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook also supports my "neuroses" [sic] too. And thankfully. I have tech friends, family, and high school friends that don't know what "linux" is. I like to share articles, a lot, for discussion. I'm "neurotic" because I like to target who I share that stuff with?

I just checked and the wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosis uses the word "neuroses" as a plural several times. What is the correct way to spell this word if not the way I spelled it? (I'm genuinely curious)

It's "neuroses," it's like crisis and crises.

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#36

Post by Timothee » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 9:28 PM UTC

aprescott wrote: post #24

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #10

He's right in that Facebook was helpful by auto-creating certain "groups" of friends for you based on profile information. Where this completely breaks down is once you move past the trivial task of auto-populating categories for your location, school, and work. As I see it there are three modes of sharing: The first is where my post is quite innocent and generic, so I just want to declare it to the world. This goes…

Reading your three situations, I have another one which I've been thinking about: a post which is informative and in some way beneficial to the public, but which a significant portion of the people you know simply do not care about. For example, you may have an excellent piece of commentary about the history of Unix and the state of X, Y, Z in modern operating system design. Most of your non-technical friends, along…

I see what you mean.

My personal "solution" is that I typically share personal stuff exclusively on Facebook (non-public posts) and what is more "technical" (comments or questions on tech, products, etc.) on Twitter. (and HN)

For example, I didn't announce the birth of my daughter on Twitter, because I've known the people who follow me in mostly professional settings. Some of those might be friends too, but if they are, they're probably on Facebook too.

Works well for the most part, except when I'd be interested in the opinion of Facebook friends that are not on Twitter… But it won't work for everyone either.

I realize that it's possible that I am missing out on opportunities to create stronger personal relationships with people on Twitter by not discussing personal matters there, but that's honestly getting too complicated. :)

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#37

Post by dylangs1030 » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 9:28 PM UTC

dos1 wrote: post #12

For one, I don't really feel like the expletive in the title helped his cause at all. A better title would have been "Facebook suggests groupings of your friends for you!" I also thought his example was contrived. I mean, is there anyone who's so worried about their social networks that they will hem and haw over whether someone is a coworker or drinking buddy or whatever? And if there is someone like that, well than…

Some of the author's point was precisely that being neurotic - and by extension, highly organized - itn't in of itself completing any work. Up to a point it's efficient, but then it becomes very unefficient. It's like someone continually micromanaging folders on the desk instead of actually completing the paperwork.

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#38

Post by ajpatel » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 9:29 PM UTC

I think there are 2 camps of users - I'd rather organize my own lists than trust Facebook to do it for me. I honestly don't trust Facebook to do it...

The author of the article hasn't completely thought this through though. He's saying it's shit work which Facebook automates for you but then he goes on to say relationships are complicated and some people are in overlapping "circles."

He shoots himself in the foot right there. Facebook's auto-populated groups can't figure out the complicated nature of our relationships with people. I have many shades of friends and people who have varied interests even within those shades of friends. It's too hard for an algorithm to be able to deduce this very human aspect of relationships.

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#39

Post by lukev » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 9:32 PM UTC

dylangs1030 wrote: post #31

lukev wrote: post #28

But, but... I like putting my friends into Venn diagrams. Seriously. The 1 click it takes to put someone is a circle isn't really "work", and if it saves me awkward calls from my mom because she read a post intended for my drinking buddies, then it was well worth it.

I agree. But the author is making a point about how justified these features are and how arbitrary they can be for users. Personally, I never distinguish who I publish statuses too. But I can understand why that's a useful feature. And he DID praise that feature for Facebook. What he isn't praising is when a user compulsively uses a feature which is superfluous. A huge assortment of different tags and labels in email…

I know people who are compulsive about having a clean Gmail inbox, and who derive lots of value from tags. I also know people (like me) who are perfectly ok having 10k messages in their inbox, and searching for stuff as required.

The nice thing is, Gmail supports both of these use patterns equally well.

Ideally, that's how every product should treat it's more advanced features. If a user spends the time creating taxonomies they'll never use, well, that's more the user's fault than the software's...

Re: Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

#40

Post by dylangs1030 » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 9:34 PM UTC

Timothee wrote: post #36

aprescott wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading your three situations, I have another one which I've been thinking about: a post which is informative and in some way beneficial to the public, but which a significant portion of the people you know simply do not care about. For example, you may have an excellent piece of commentary about the history of Unix and the state of X, Y, Z in modern operating system design. Most of your non-technical friends, along…

I see what you mean. My personal "solution" is that I typically share personal stuff exclusively on Facebook (non-public posts) and what is more "technical" (comments or questions on tech, products, etc.) on Twitter. (and HN) For example, I didn't announce the birth of my daughter on Twitter, because I've known the people who follow me in mostly professional settings. Some of those might be friends too, but if they a…

I think that's the easiest solution. Twitter and Facebook have two different atmospheres - you don't get 20,000 followers because you have 20,000 friends, but because you have 20,000 people interested in your role as a professional authority and your posts about product trends, etc. Similarly, Facebook isn't tailored to disseminating a lot of information to a lot of people quickly and consistently - the number of people who'd really care about your personal life is almost always much lower than the number of people interested in new product information from your company (presuming they have a professional stake in it).