This page is where you can provide feedback relating to Fifteensquared or raise issues regarding the website itself.
Comments posted before 19/1/21 can be found here.
A test area for 15squared
This page is where you can provide feedback relating to Fifteensquared or raise issues regarding the website itself.
Comments posted before 19/1/21 can be found here.
1) There is no such thing as a free lunch
New features that bring only benefit and have no drawback exist only in people’s imagination
Desirable aspects of a system are contradictory: they want the airport to be safer, so you increase bag checks; they want departure to be swift and easy, so you decrease the bag checks.
Each one of these appeared to be a great idea on its own
1) A new feature is like an invasive species.
The new feature may achieve the positive thing you intended, but it may also do some negative things that you did not foresee. Sometimes these are not easily foreseeable in advance, but more often are overlooked or trivialized in the zeal to get the “good” feature implemented. The human brain’s natural conformation bias makes it much easier to see things as supporting one’s idea than as undermining it
Like an invasive species, once introduced a new feature can be hard to get rid of. Other parts of the site start rely on it, archived blogs may become unreadable without it, once you have provided a service people do not take kindly to it being removed again.
Remember that computer programs are not human. Computers have no personal values and are immune to common sense, good intentions, community, political insensitivity etc. It makes no difference how well intentioned or mis-understood your idea was, the system will continue to ruthlessly enact it in a mindless manner, forever.
2) Less is more
More features and more information always have to be a good thing, right?
Every new feature makes the site bigger. The larger something is the less likely people are to read it. This is so common that their an aconym for it TLDR; (too long didn’t read)
Big sites have big menus and sub-menus with dozens of items. More features make the site less easy to use, not more so.
The use of desktop computers is dwindling. Mobile phones are here to stay. The bigger the site the harder to show it on a phone. Each new feature has to be designed and tested twice, once for the big screen and once for the small screen.
Big intimidating sites discourage newcomers. Regular users may love having more features, but nervous newcomers just go somewhere else.
3) A new feature is not just for Christmas
The person who wanted the new dog is often not the person who ends up having to look after it
Work does not stop once the new feature has been added, it goes on for ever.
All features become part of the ongoing testing and maintenance. A site twice as big means twice as much work.
4) The straw that breaks the camel’s back
But it is only a tiny addition! You will not even notice it! If this were true I could add straws one at a time to my handbag and carry a whole haystack in there.
Big sprawling sites are made by adding small features one at a time. One can’t look back and pinpoint one feature and say “that’s the one that broke it”. Every one of them seemed to be a good idea at the time.
6) Twitter, Facebook, Google does this, why can’t we?
Twitter, Facebook, Google can afford to pay for services and have paid employees administering their sites
Fifteensquared is mostly maintained by one volunteer, in his spare time
Children get more pocket money than fifteensuared gets to spend on maintaining this site
7) Even not doing something also takes effort
New feature requests are welcome, but not implementing them also involves work
Researching whether a feature is viable is still work for the administrator
Explaining (over and over again!) why a feature wasn’t implemented is still work for the administrator
There are many commenters to contribute to the new feature discussion, there is only one administrator to reply to them all
And remember that because users are distributed around the world, the discussion can go on 24 hours per day
And sometimes it just takes time for things to happen. Just because a feature has not been implemented now it does not mean that it will never happen.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and well done anyone actually made it to the end (TLDR;)!
1) There is no such thing as a free lunch
New features that bring only benefit and have no drawback exist only in people’s imagination
Desirable aspects of a system are contradictory: they want the airport to be safer, so you increase bag checks; they want departure to be swift and easy, so you decrease the bag checks.
Each one of these appeared to be a great idea on its own
2) A new feature is like an invasive species.
The new feature may achieve the positive thing you intended, but it may also do some negative things that you did not foresee. Sometimes these are not easily foreseeable in advance, but more often are overlooked or trivialized in the zeal to get the “good” feature implemented. The human brain’s natural conformation bias makes it much easier to see things as supporting one’s idea than as undermining it
Like an invasive species, once introduced a new feature can be hard to get rid of. Other parts of the site start rely on it, archived blogs may become unreadable without it, once you have provided a service people do not take kindly to it being removed again.
Remember that computer programs are not human. Computers have no personal values and are immune to common sense, good intentions, community, political insensitivity etc. It makes no difference how well intentioned or mis-understood your idea was, the system will continue to ruthlessly enact it in a mindless manner, forever.
3) Less is more
More features and more information always have to be a good thing, right?
Every new feature makes the site bigger. The larger something is the less likely people are to read it. This is so common that their an aconym for it TLDR; (too long didn’t read)
Big sites have big menus and sub-menus with dozens of items. More features make the site less easy to use, not more so.
The use of desktop computers is dwindling. Mobile phones are here to stay. The bigger the site the harder to show it on a phone. Each new feature has to be designed and tested twice, once for the big screen and once for the small screen.
Big intimidating sites discourage newcomers. Regular users may love having more features, but nervous newcomers just go somewhere else.
4) A new feature is not just for Christmas
The person who wanted the new dog is often not the person who ends up having to look after it
Work does not stop once the new feature has been added, it goes on for ever.
All features become part of the ongoing testing and maintenance. A site twice as big means twice as much work.
5) The straw that breaks the camel’s back
But it is only a tiny addition! You will not even notice it! If this were true I could add straws one at a time to my handbag and carry a whole haystack in there.
Big sprawling sites are made by adding small features one at a time. One can’t look back and pinpoint one feature and say “that’s the one that broke it”. Every one of them seemed to be a good idea at the time.
6) Twitter, Facebook, Google does this, why can’t we?
Twitter, Facebook, Google can afford to pay for services and have paid employees administering their sites
Fifteensquared is mostly maintained by one volunteer, in his spare time
Children get more pocket money than fifteensuared gets to spend on maintaining this site
7) Even not doing something also takes effort
New feature requests are welcome, but not implementing them also involves work
Researching whether a feature is viable is still work for the administrator
Explaining (over and over again!) why a feature wasn’t implemented is still work for the administrator
There are many commenters to contribute to the new feature discussion, there is only one administrator to reply to them all
And remember that because users are distributed around the world, the discussion can go on 24 hours per day
And sometimes it just takes time for things to happen. Just because a feature has not been implemented now it does not mean that it will never happen.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and well done anyone actually made it to the end (TLDR;)!
NEW FEATURES
I thought it might be interesting and useful to shed a bit of light light on some of the considerations regarding the decision to implement a feature on this site.
1) There is no such thing as a free lunch
New features that bring only benefit and have no drawback exist only in people’s imagination
Desirable aspects of a system are contradictory. They want the airport to be safer, so you increase bag checks; they want departure to be swift and easy, so you decrease the bag checks. Each one of these appears a good idea on its own.
One recurring issue is that it would be nice to give users more flexibility in formatting their comments: pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts…etc. But we also want to give the site a consistent and pleasing look-and-feel. This involves preventing users from adding arbitrary pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts. You can’t have it both ways. And the more flexibility we give genuine and respectful users the more opportunities we give to spammers and fraudsters to abuse it.
2) A new feature is like an invasive species.
The new feature may achieve the positive thing you intended, but it may also do some negative things that you did not foresee. Sometimes these are not easily foreseeable in advance, but more often are overlooked or trivialized in the zeal to get the “good” feature implemented. The human brain’s natural conformation bias makes it much easier to see things as supporting one’s idea than as undermining it
Like an invasive species, once introduced a new feature can be hard to get rid of. Other parts of the site start rely on it, archived blogs may become unreadable without it, once you have provided a service people do not take kindly to it being removed again.
Remember that computer programs are not human. Computers have no personal values and are immune to common sense, good intentions, community, political insensitivity etc. It makes no difference how well intentioned or mis-understood your idea was, the system will continue to ruthlessly enact it in a mindless manner, forever.
3) Less is more
More features and more information always have to be a good thing, right?
Every new feature makes the site bigger. The larger something is the less likely people are to read it. This is so common that their an aconym for it TLDR; (too long didn’t read)
Big sites have big menus and sub-menus with dozens of items. More features make the site less easy to use, not more so.
The use of desktop computers is dwindling. Mobile phones are here to stay. The bigger the site the harder to show it on a phone. Each new feature has to be designed and tested twice, once for the big screen and once for the small screen.
Big intimidating sites discourage newcomers. Regular users may love having more features, but nervous newcomers may go somewhere else.
If there is a simple and concise way to achieve most of what we want then this is preferable to a more complex approach that achieves 100% of what we want.
But I am a programming genuis, I can write some really difficult stuff for you! Thank you for your offer, but it will have to be maintained by more ordinary folk in their spare time. Simple is better.
4) A new feature is not just for Christmas
The person who wanted the new dog is often not the person who ends up having to look after it
Work does not stop once the new feature has been added, it goes on for ever.
All features become part of the ongoing testing and maintenance. A site twice as big means twice as much work.
5) The straw that breaks the camel’s back
But it is only a tiny addition! You will not even notice it! If this were true I could add straws one at a time to my handbag and carry a whole haystack in there.
Big sprawling sites are made by adding small features one at a time. One can’t look back and pinpoint one feature and say “that’s the one that broke it”. Every one of them seemed to be a good idea at the time.
6) Twitter, Facebook, Google does this, why can’t we?
Twitter, Facebook, Google can afford to pay for services and have paid employees administering their sites
Fifteensquared is mostly maintained by one volunteer, in his spare time
Children get more pocket money than fifteensuared spends on maintaining this site
7) Even not doing something also takes effort
New feature requests are welcome, but not implementing them also involves work
Researching whether a feature is viable is still work for the administrator
Explaining (over and over again!) why a feature wasn’t implemented is still work for the administrator
There are many helpful comments that contribute to the new feature discussion, but there is still only one administrator to reply to them all
And remember that because users are distributed around the world, the discussion can go on 24 hours per day
And sometimes it just takes time for things to happen. Just because a feature has not been implemented now it does not mean that it will never happen.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and well done anyone actually made it to the end (TLDR;)!
NEW FEATURES
I thought it might be interesting and useful to shed a bit of light light on some of the considerations regarding the decision to implement a feature on this site.
1) There is no such thing as a free lunch
New features that bring only benefit and have no drawback exist only in people’s imagination
Desirable aspects of a system are contradictory. They want the airport to be safer, so you increase bag checks; they want departure to be swift and easy, so you decrease the bag checks. Each one of these appears a good idea on its own.
One recurring issue is that it would be nice to give users more flexibility in formatting their comments: pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts…etc. But we also want to give the site a consistent and pleasing look-and-feel. This involves preventing users from adding arbitrary pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts. You can’t have it both ways. And the more flexibility we give genuine and respectful users the more opportunities we give to spammers and fraudsters to abuse it.
2) A new feature is like an invasive species.
The new feature may achieve the positive thing you intended, but it may also do some negative things that you did not foresee. Sometimes these are not easily foreseeable in advance, but more often are overlooked or trivialized in the zeal to get the “good” feature implemented. The human brain’s natural conformation bias makes it much easier to see things as supporting one’s idea than as undermining it
Like an invasive species, once introduced a new feature can be hard to get rid of. Other parts of the site start rely on it, archived blogs may become unreadable without it, once you have provided a service people do not take kindly to it being removed again.
Remember that computer programs are not human. Computers have no personal values and are immune to common sense, good intentions, community, political insensitivity etc. It makes no difference how well intentioned or mis-understood your idea was, the system will continue to ruthlessly enact it in a mindless manner, forever.
3) Less is more
More features and more information always have to be a good thing, right?
Every new feature makes the site bigger. The larger something is the less likely people are to read it. This is so common that their an aconym for it TLDR; (too long didn’t read)
Big sites have big menus and sub-menus with dozens of items. More features make the site less easy to use, not more so.
The use of desktop computers is dwindling. Mobile phones are here to stay. The bigger the site the harder to show it on a phone. Each new feature has to be designed and tested twice, once for the big screen and once for the small screen.
Big intimidating sites discourage newcomers. Regular users may love having more features, but nervous newcomers may go somewhere else.
If there is a simple and concise way to achieve most of what we want then this is preferable to a more complex approach that achieves 100% of what we want.
But I am a programming genuis, I can write some really difficult stuff for you! Thank you for your offer, but it will have to be maintained by more ordinary folk in their spare time. Simple is better.
4) A new feature is not just for Christmas
The person who wanted the new dog is often not the person who ends up having to look after it
Work does not stop once the new feature has been added, it goes on for ever.
All features become part of the ongoing testing and maintenance. A site twice as big means twice as much work.
5) The straw that breaks the camel’s back
But it is only a tiny addition! You will not even notice it! If this were true I could add straws one at a time to my handbag and carry a whole haystack in there.
Big sprawling sites are made by adding small features one at a time. One can’t look back and pinpoint one feature and say “that’s the one that broke it”. Every one of them seemed to be a good idea at the time.
6) Twitter, Facebook, Google does this, why can’t we?
Twitter, Facebook, Google can afford to pay for services and have paid employees administering their sites
Fifteensquared is mostly maintained by one volunteer, in his spare time
Children get more pocket money than fifteensuared spends on maintaining this site
7) Even not doing something also takes effort
New feature requests are welcome, but not implementing them also involves work
Researching whether a feature is viable is still work for the administrator
Explaining (over and over again!) why a feature wasn’t implemented is still work for the administrator
There are many helpful comments that contribute to the new feature discussion, but there is still only one administrator to reply to them all
And remember that because users are distributed around the world, the discussion can go on 24 hours per day
And sometimes it just takes time for things to happen. Just because a feature has not been implemented now it does not mean that it will never happen.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and well done anyone actually made it to the end (TLDR;)!
NEW FEATURES
I thought it might be interesting and useful to shed a bit of light light on some of the considerations regarding the decision to implement a feature on this site.
1) There is no such thing as a free lunch
New features that bring only benefit and have no drawback exist only in people’s imagination
Desirable aspects of a system are contradictory. They want the airport to be safer, so you increase bag checks; they want departure to be swift and easy, so you decrease the bag checks. Each one of these appears a good idea on its own.
One recurring issue is that it would be nice to give users more flexibility in formatting their comments: pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts…etc. But we also want to give the site a consistent and pleasing look-and-feel. This involves preventing users from adding arbitrary pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts. We can’t have it both ways. And the more flexibility we give genuine and respectful users the more opportunities we give to spammers and fraudsters to abuse it.
2) A new feature is like an invasive species.
The new feature may achieve the positive thing you intended, but it may also do some negative things that you did not foresee. Sometimes these are not easily foreseeable in advance, but more often are overlooked or trivialized in the zeal to get the “good” feature implemented. The human brain’s natural conformation bias makes it much easier to see things as supporting one’s idea than as undermining it
Like an invasive species, once introduced a new feature can be hard to get rid of. Typically the problems do not manifest themselves immediately by which time other parts of the site have started rely on it, archived blogs may become unreadable without it, once you have provided a service people do not take kindly to it being removed again.
Remember that computer programs are not human. Computers have no personal values and are immune to common sense, good intentions, community, political insensitivity etc. It makes no difference how well intentioned or mis-understood your idea was, the system will continue to ruthlessly enact it in a mindless manner, forever.
3) Less is more
More features and more information always have to be a good thing, right?
Every new feature makes the site bigger. The larger something is the less likely people are to read it. This is so common that their an aconym for it TLDR; (too long didn’t read)
Big sites have big menus and sub-menus with dozens of items. More features make the site less easy to use, not more so.
The use of desktop computers is dwindling. Mobile phones are here to stay. The bigger the site the harder to show it on a phone. Each new feature has to be designed and tested twice, once for the big screen and once for the small screen.
Big intimidating sites discourage newcomers. Regular users may love having more features, but nervous newcomers may go somewhere else.
If there is a simple and concise way to achieve most of what we want then this is preferable to a more complex approach that achieves 100% of what we want.
But I am a programming genuis, I can write some really difficult stuff for you! Thank you for your offer, but it will have to be maintained by more ordinary folk in their spare time. Simple is better.
4) A new feature is not just for Christmas
The person who wanted the new dog is often not the person who ends up having to look after it
Work does not stop once the new feature has been added, it goes on for ever.
All features become part of the ongoing testing and maintenance. A site twice as big means twice as much work.
5) The straw that breaks the camel’s back
But it is only a tiny addition! You will not even notice it! If this were true I could add straws one at a time to my handbag and carry a whole haystack in there.
Big sprawling sites are made by adding small features one at a time. One can’t look back and pinpoint one feature and say “that’s the one that broke it”. Every one of them seemed to be a good idea at the time.
6) Twitter, Facebook, Google does this, why can’t we?
Twitter, Facebook, Google can afford to pay for services and have paid employees administering their sites
Fifteensquared is mostly maintained by one volunteer, in his spare time
Children get more pocket money than fifteensuared spends on maintaining this site
7) Even not doing something also takes effort
New feature requests are welcome, but not implementing them also involves work
Researching whether a feature is viable is still work for the administrator
Explaining (over and over again!) why a feature wasn’t implemented is still work for the administrator
There are many helpful comments that contribute to the new feature discussion, but there is still only one administrator to reply to them all
And remember that because users are distributed around the world, the discussion can go on 24 hours per day
And sometimes it just takes time for things to happen. Just because a feature has not been implemented now it does not mean that it will never happen.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and well done anyone actually made it to the end (TLDR;)!
NEW FEATURES
I thought it might be interesting and useful to shed a bit of light light on some of the considerations regarding the decision to implement a feature on this site.
1) There is no such thing as a free lunch
New features that bring only benefit and have no drawback exist only in people’s imagination
Desirable aspects of a system are contradictory. Passengers want the airport to be safer, so you increase bag checks; they want departure to be swift and easy, so you decrease the bag checks. Each one of these appears a good idea on its own.
One recurring issue is that it would be nice to give users more flexibility in formatting their comments: pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts…etc. But we also want to give the site a consistent and pleasing look-and-feel. This involves preventing users from adding arbitrary pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts. We can’t have it both ways. And the more flexibility we give genuine and respectful users the more opportunities we give to spammers and fraudsters to abuse it.
2) A new feature is like an invasive species.
The new feature may achieve the positive thing you intended, but it may also do some negative things that you did not foresee. Sometimes these are not easily foreseeable in advance, but more often are overlooked or trivialized in the zeal to get the “good” feature implemented. The human brain’s natural conformation bias makes it much easier to see things as supporting one’s idea than as undermining it
Like an invasive species, once introduced a new feature can be hard to get rid of. Typically the problems do not manifest themselves immediately by which time other parts of the site have started rely on it, archived blogs may become unreadable without it, once you have provided a service people do not take kindly to it being removed again.
Remember that computer programs are not human. Computers have no personal values and are immune to common sense, good intentions, community, political insensitivity etc. It makes no difference how well intentioned or mis-understood your idea was, the system will continue to ruthlessly enact it in a mindless manner, forever.
3) Less is more
More features and more information always have to be a good thing, right?
Every new feature makes the site bigger. The larger something is the less likely people are to read it. This is so common that their an aconym for it TLDR; (too long didn’t read)
Big sites have big menus and sub-menus with dozens of items. More features make the site less easy to use, not more so.
The use of desktop computers is dwindling. Mobile phones are here to stay. The bigger the site the harder to show it on a phone. Each new feature has to be designed and tested twice, once for the big screen and once for the small screen.
Big intimidating sites discourage newcomers. Regular users may love having more features, but nervous newcomers may go somewhere else.
If there is a simple and concise way to achieve most of what we want then this is preferable to a more complex approach that achieves 100% of what we want.
But I am a programming genuis, I can write some really difficult stuff for you! Thank you for your offer, but it will have to be maintained by more ordinary folk in their spare time. Simple is better.
4) A new feature is not just for Christmas
The person who wanted the new dog is often not the person who ends up having to look after it
Work does not stop once the new feature has been added, it goes on for ever.
All features become part of the ongoing testing and maintenance. A site twice as big means twice as much work.
5) The straw that breaks the camel’s back
But it is only a tiny addition! You will not even notice it! If this were true I could add straws one at a time to my handbag and carry a whole haystack in there.
Big sprawling sites are made by adding small features one at a time. One can’t look back and pinpoint one feature and say “that’s the one that broke it”. Every one of them seemed to be a good idea at the time.
6) Twitter, Facebook, Google does this, why can’t we?
Twitter, Facebook, Google can afford to pay for services and have paid employees administering their sites
Fifteensquared is mostly maintained by one volunteer, in his spare time
Children get more pocket money than fifteensuared spends on maintaining this site
7) Even not doing something also takes effort
New feature requests are welcome, but not implementing them also involves work
Researching whether a feature is viable is still work for the administrator
Explaining (over and over again!) why a feature wasn’t implemented is still work for the administrator
There are many helpful comments that contribute to the new feature discussion, but there is still only one administrator to reply to them all
And remember that because users are distributed around the world, the discussion can go on 24 hours per day
And sometimes it just takes time for things to happen. Just because a feature has not been implemented now it does not mean that it will never happen.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and well done anyone actually made it to the end (TLDR;)!
NEW FEATURES
I thought it might be interesting and useful to shed a bit of light light on some of the considerations regarding the decision to implement a feature on this site.
1) There is no such thing as a free lunch
New features that bring only benefit and have no drawback exist only in people’s imagination
Desirable aspects of a system are contradictory. Passengers want the airport to be safer, so you increase bag checks; they want departure to be swift and easy, so you decrease the bag checks. Each one of these appears a good idea on its own.
One recurring issue is that it would be nice to give users more flexibility in formatting their comments: pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts…etc. But we also want to give the site a consistent and pleasing look-and-feel. This involves preventing users from adding arbitrary pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts. We can’t have it both ways. And the more flexibility we give genuine and respectful users the more opportunities we give to spammers and fraudsters to abuse it.
2) A new feature is like an invasive species.
The new feature may achieve the positive thing you intended, but it may also do some negative things that you did not foresee. Sometimes these are not easily foreseeable in advance, but more often are overlooked or trivialized in the zeal to get the “good” feature implemented. The human brain’s natural conformation bias makes it much easier to see things as supporting one’s idea than as undermining it
Like an invasive species, once introduced a new feature can be hard to get rid of. Often the problems do not manifest themselves immediately by which time other parts of the site have started to rely on it, archived blogs may become unreadable without it, once you have provided a service people do not take kindly to it being removed again.
Remember that computer programs are not human. Computers have no personal values and are immune to common sense, good intentions, community, political insensitivity etc. It makes no difference how well intentioned or mis-understood your idea was, the system will continue to ruthlessly enact it in a mindless manner, forever.
3) Less is more
More features and more information always have to be a good thing, right?
Every new feature makes the site bigger. The larger something is the less likely people are to read it. This is so common that their an aconym for it TLDR; (too long didn’t read)
Big sites have big menus and sub-menus with dozens of items. More features make the site less easy to use, not more so.
The use of desktop computers is dwindling. Mobile phones are here to stay. The bigger the site the harder to show it on a phone. Each new feature has to be tested twice, once for the big screen and once for the small screen.
Big intimidating sites discourage newcomers. Regular users may love having more features, but nervous newcomers may go somewhere else.
If there is a simple and concise way to achieve most of what we want then this is preferable to a more complex approach that achieves 100% of what we want.
But I am a programming genuis, I can write some really difficult stuff for you! Thank you for your offer, but it will have to be maintained by more ordinary folk in their spare time. Simple is better.
4) A new feature is not just for Christmas
The person who wanted the new dog is often not the person who ends up having to look after it
Work does not stop once the new feature has been added, it goes on for ever.
All features become part of the ongoing testing and maintenance. A site twice as big means twice as much work.
5) The straw that breaks the camel’s back
But it is only a tiny addition! You will not even notice it! If this were true I could add straws one at a time to my handbag and carry a whole haystack in there.
Big sprawling sites are made by adding small features one at a time. One can’t look back and pinpoint one feature and say “that’s the one that broke it”. Every one of them seemed to be a good idea at the time.
6) Twitter, Facebook, Google does this, why can’t we?
Twitter, Facebook, Google can afford to pay for services and have paid employees administering their sites
Fifteensquared is mostly maintained by one volunteer, in his spare time
Children get more pocket money than fifteensuared spends on maintaining this site
7) Even not doing something also takes effort
New feature requests are welcome, but not implementing them also involves work
Researching whether a feature is viable is still work for the administrator
Explaining (over and over again!) why a feature wasn’t implemented is still work for the administrator
There are many helpful comments that contribute to the new feature discussion, but there is still only one administrator to reply to them all
And remember that because users are distributed around the world, the discussion can go on 24 hours per day
And sometimes it just takes time for things to happen. Just because a feature has not been implemented now it does not mean that it will never happen.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and well done anyone actually made it to the end (TLDR;)!
NEW FEATURES
I thought it might be interesting and useful to shed a bit of light light on some of the considerations regarding the decision to implement a feature on this site. Just because a nifty-looking feature is possible to implement doesn’t necessarily make it desirable to do so.
1) There is no such thing as a free lunch
New features that bring only benefit and have no drawback exist only in people’s imagination
Desirable aspects of a system are contradictory. Passengers want the airport to be safer, so you increase bag checks; they want departure to be swift and easy, so you decrease the bag checks. Each one of these appears a good idea on its own.
One recurring issue is that it would be nice to give users more flexibility in formatting their comments: pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts…etc. But we also want to give the site a consistent and pleasing look-and-feel. This involves preventing users from adding arbitrary pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts. We can’t have it both ways. And the more flexibility we give genuine and respectful users the more opportunities we give to spammers and fraudsters to abuse it.
2) A new feature is like an invasive species.
The new feature may achieve the positive thing you intended, but it may also do some negative things that you did not foresee. Sometimes these are not easily foreseeable in advance, but more often are overlooked or trivialized in the zeal to get the “good” feature implemented. The human brain’s natural conformation bias makes it much easier to see things as supporting one’s idea than as undermining it
Like an invasive species, once introduced a new feature can be hard to get rid of. Often the problems do not manifest themselves immediately by which time other parts of the site have started to rely on it, archived blogs may become unreadable without it, once you have provided a service people do not take kindly to it being removed again.
Remember that computer programs are not human. Computers have no personal values and are immune to common sense, good intentions, community, political insensitivity etc. It makes no difference how well intentioned or mis-understood your idea was, the system will continue to ruthlessly enact it in a mindless manner, forever.
3) Less is more
More features and more information always have to be a good thing, right?
Every new feature makes the site bigger. The larger something is the less likely people are to read it. This is so common that their an aconym for it TLDR; (too long didn’t read)
Big sites have big menus and sub-menus with dozens of items. More features make the site less easy to use, not more so.
The use of desktop computers is dwindling. Mobile phones are here to stay. The bigger the site the harder to show it on a phone. Each new feature has to be tested twice, once for the big screen and once for the small screen.
Big intimidating sites discourage newcomers. Regular users may love having more features, but nervous newcomers may go somewhere else.
If there is a simple and concise way to achieve most of what we want then this is preferable to a more complex approach that achieves 100% of what we want.
But I am a programming genuis, I can write some really difficult stuff for you! Thank you for your offer, but it will have to be maintained by more ordinary folk in their spare time. Simple is better.
4) A new feature is not just for Christmas
The person who wanted the new dog is often not the person who ends up having to look after it
Work does not stop once the new feature has been added, it goes on for ever.
All features become part of the ongoing testing and maintenance. A site twice as big means twice as much work.
5) The straw that breaks the camel’s back
But it is only a tiny addition! You will not even notice it! If this were true I could add straws one at a time to my handbag and carry a whole haystack in there.
Big sprawling sites are made by adding small features one at a time. One can’t look back and pinpoint one feature and say “that’s the one that broke it”. Every one of them seemed to be a good idea at the time.
6) Twitter, Facebook, Google does this, why can’t we?
Twitter, Facebook, Google can afford to pay for services and have paid employees administering their sites
Fifteensquared is mostly maintained by one volunteer, in his spare time
Children get more pocket money than fifteensuared spends on maintaining this site
7) Even not doing something also takes effort
New feature requests are welcome, but not implementing them also involves work
Researching whether a feature is viable is still work for the administrator
Explaining (over and over again!) why a feature wasn’t implemented is still work for the administrator
There are many helpful comments that contribute to the new feature discussion, but there is still only one administrator to reply to them all
And remember that because users are distributed around the world, the discussion can go on 24 hours per day
And sometimes it just takes time for things to happen. Just because a feature has not been implemented now it does not mean that it will never happen.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and well done anyone actually made it to the end (TLDR;)!
NEW FEATURES
I thought it might be interesting and useful to shed a bit of light light on some of the considerations regarding decisions to implement features on this site. Just because a nifty-looking feature is possible to implement doesn’t necessarily make it desirable to do so.
1) There is no such thing as a free lunch
New features that bring only benefit and have no drawback exist only in people’s imagination
Desirable aspects of a system are contradictory. Passengers want the airport to be safer, so you increase bag checks; they want departure to be swift and easy, so you decrease the bag checks. Each one of these appears a good idea on its own.
One recurring issue is that it would be nice to give users more flexibility in formatting their comments: pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts…etc. But we also want to give the site a consistent and pleasing look-and-feel. This involves preventing users from adding arbitrary pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts. We can’t have it both ways. And the more flexibility we give genuine and respectful users the more opportunities we give to spammers and fraudsters to abuse it.
2) A new feature is like an invasive species.
The new feature may achieve the positive thing you intended, but it may also do some negative things that you did not foresee. Sometimes these are not easily foreseeable in advance, but more often are overlooked or trivialized in the zeal to get the “good” feature implemented. The human brain’s natural conformation bias makes it much easier to see things as supporting one’s idea than as undermining it
Like an invasive species, once introduced a new feature can be hard to get rid of. Often the problems do not manifest themselves immediately by which time other parts of the site have started to rely on it, archived blogs may become unreadable without it, once you have provided a service people do not take kindly to it being removed again.
Remember that computer programs are not human. Computers have no personal values and are immune to common sense, good intentions, community, political insensitivity etc. It makes no difference how well intentioned or mis-understood your idea was, the system will continue to ruthlessly enact it in a mindless manner, forever.
3) Less is more
More features and more information have to be a good thing, right?
Every new feature makes the site bigger. The larger something is the less likely people are to read it. This is so common that their an aconym for it TLDR; (too long didn’t read)
Big sites have big menus and sub-menus with dozens of items. More features make the site less easy to use, not more so.
The use of desktop computers is dwindling. Mobile phones are here to stay. The bigger the site the harder to show it on a phone. Each new feature has to be tested twice, once for the big screen and once for the small screen.
Big intimidating sites discourage newcomers. Regular users may love having more features, but nervous newcomers may go somewhere else.
If there is a simple and concise way to achieve most of what we want then this is preferable to a more complex approach that achieves 100% of what we want.
But I am a programming genuis, I can write some really difficult stuff for you!
Thank you for your offer, but it will have to be maintained by more ordinary folk in their spare time. Simple is better.
4) A new feature is not just for Christmas
The person who wanted the new dog is often not the person who ends up having to look after it
Work does not stop once the new feature has been added, it goes on for ever.
All features become part of the ongoing testing and maintenance. A site twice as big means twice as much work.
5) The straw that breaks the camel’s back
But it is only a tiny addition! You will not even notice it!
If this were true I could add straws one at a time to my handbag and carry a whole haystack in there.
Big sprawling sites are made by adding small features one at a time. One can’t look back and pinpoint one feature and say “that’s the one that broke it”. Every one of them seemed to be a good idea at the time.
6) Twitter, Facebook, Google does this, why can’t we?
Twitter, Facebook, Google can afford to pay for services and have paid employees administering their sites
Fifteensquared is mostly maintained by one volunteer, in his spare time
Children get more pocket money than fifteensuared spends on maintaining this site
7) Even not doing something also takes effort
New feature requests are welcome, but not implementing them also involves work
Researching whether a feature is viable is still work for the administrator
Explaining (over and over again!) why a feature wasn’t implemented is still work for the administrator
There are many helpful comments that contribute to the new feature discussion, but there is still only one administrator to reply to them all
And remember that because users are distributed around the world, the discussion can go on 24 hours per day
And sometimes it just takes time for things to happen. Just because a feature has not been implemented now it does not mean that it will never happen.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and well done anyone actually made it to the end (TLDR;)!
NEW FEATURES
I thought it might be interesting and useful to shed a bit of light light on some of the considerations regarding decisions to implement features on this site. The sad fact is that just because some nifty-looking feature is possible to implement doesn’t necessarily make it desirable to do so.
1) There is no such thing as a free lunch
New features that bring only benefit and have no drawback exist only in people’s imagination
Desirable aspects of a system are contradictory. Passengers want the airport to be safer, so you increase bag checks; they want departure to be swift and easy, so you decrease the bag checks. Each one of these appears a good idea on its own.
One recurring issue is that it would be nice to give users more flexibility in formatting their comments: pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts…etc. But we also want to give the site a consistent and pleasing look-and-feel. This involves preventing users from adding arbitrary pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts. We can’t have it both ways. And the more flexibility we give genuine and respectful users the more opportunities we give to spammers and fraudsters to abuse it.
2) A new feature is like an invasive species.
The new feature may achieve the positive thing you intended, but it may also do some negative things that you did not foresee. Sometimes these are not easily foreseeable in advance, but more often are overlooked or trivialized in the zeal to get the “good” feature implemented. The human brain’s natural conformation bias makes it much easier to see things as supporting one’s idea than as undermining it
Like an invasive species, once introduced a new feature can be hard to get rid of. Often the problems do not manifest themselves immediately by which time other parts of the site have started to rely on it, archived blogs may become unreadable without it, once you have provided a service people do not take kindly to it being removed again.
Remember that computer programs are not human. Computers have no personal values and are immune to common sense, good intentions, community, political insensitivity etc. It makes no difference how well intentioned or mis-understood your idea was, the system will continue to ruthlessly enact it in a mindless manner, forever.
3) Less is more
More features and more information have to be a good thing, right?
Every new feature makes the site bigger. The larger something is the less likely people are to read it. This is so common that their an aconym for it TLDR; (too long didn’t read)
Big sites have big menus and sub-menus with dozens of items. More features make the site less easy to use, not more so.
The use of desktop computers is dwindling. Mobile phones are here to stay. The bigger the site the harder to show it on a phone. Each new feature has to be tested twice, once for the big screen and once for the small screen.
Big intimidating sites discourage newcomers. Regular users may love having more features, but nervous newcomers may go somewhere else.
If there is a simple and concise way to achieve most of what we want then this is preferable to a more complex approach that achieves 100% of what we want.
But I am a programming genuis, I can write some really difficult stuff for you!
Thank you for your offer, but it will have to be maintained by more ordinary folk in their spare time. Simple is better.
4) A new feature is not just for Christmas
The person who wanted the new dog is often not the person who ends up having to look after it
Work does not stop once the new feature has been added, it goes on for ever.
All features become part of the ongoing testing and maintenance. A site twice as big means twice as much work.
5) The straw that breaks the camel’s back
But it is only a tiny addition! You will not even notice it!
If this were true I could add straws one at a time to my handbag and carry a whole haystack in there.
Big sprawling sites are made by adding small features one at a time. One can’t look back and pinpoint one feature and say “that’s the one that broke it”. Every one of them seemed to be a good idea at the time.
6) Twitter, Facebook, Google does this, why can’t we?
Twitter, Facebook, Google can afford to pay for services and have paid employees administering their sites
Fifteensquared is mostly maintained by one volunteer, in his spare time
Children get more pocket money than fifteensuared spends on maintaining this site
7) Even not doing something also takes effort
New feature requests are welcome, but not implementing them also involves work
Researching whether a feature is viable is still work for the administrator
Explaining (over and over again!) why a feature wasn’t implemented is still work for the administrator
There are many helpful comments that contribute to the new feature discussion, but there is still only one administrator to reply to them all
And remember that because users are distributed around the world, the discussion can go on 24 hours per day
And sometimes it just takes time for things to happen. Just because a feature has not been implemented now it does not mean that it will never happen.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and well done anyone actually made it to the end (TLDR;)!
this is &
this is &
Hi Tony – quite right about Miriam Webster and TL;DR
I like to use TLDR; myself because
1) I’m an ancient computer programmer who has been adding semicolons to the end of everything all my life. In C, C++, Java, Javascript, C# and other languages a semicolon is what you terminate a statement with. It pleases me to have a semicolon at the end, it makes me feel at home.
2) I’m an ancient web developer who has been typing > (displays as the > symbol) & (an ampersand) and (a non-breaking white space) for so long that I can’t remember
It pleases me immensely that there might be a whimsical character &tldr; that would display as “to long didn’t read”.
It might not be in the dictionary, but I see a dictionary as a catalogue of the English language, not a definition of the language nor a commandment on how it must be used. The real-life English language is a living being, constantly changing, and gets used in all sorts of colourful ways that are not recorded the dictionary. I like to write English the living language, not English the dictionary.