antennapedia

Yeah, the anon memes are all freaking out right now...

Yeah, anything that depends on subject lines for organization (kink memes, anon discussion memes, any large comms) is hosed without recourse. Also, the removal of the preview button is simply surprising.

I think SUP, like AVOS/Delicious, simply lacks a broad understanding of how its user base uses its product. They might, individually, understand how they personally use the product, but they seem unable to widen their view to all of the user base. This isn't Facebook. People are still here because it isn't Facebook. If LJ wants to be a really awful Facebook clone, we all might as well use Facebook instead. It's free.

Meh. I'm not the only one who's been turned off by the constant DW prosyletizing. I'm sticking with LJ.

I am also sick to my back teeth of DW proselytizing, especially because it comes with a dose of moral lecturing most of the time. But it *is* at least the familiar, old-fashioned LJ code base with some decent improvements, and that's what people are going to want. Now, can it stand up under the load of a herd of fans thundering onto it? I dunno.

New icon picker: nice. No preview button: not nice. Sigh.

Huh? Removal of preview button?

Well, last week (or was it two?), the preview button disappeared, but when I clicked my mouse on its last-known location, the preview function was activated. Now the button is no more, Instead there's an underlined preview link. Still w.rks for me.

But I certainly get the frustrating nebulousness of LJ driving us crazy, one aspect at a time. For a while, I couldn't see/read the font it was IMPOSING on me (meaning I had to type my posts in word, then C&P), but now my readable font is back.

Is it possible they have clueless geeks on staff rather than socially-adept geeks??? Arrgghh.

I have no preview button when I write comments. And no subject field. Instead I have this giant new Facebook-style comment typing widget that wastes a huge amount of space on my tiny screen. Sigh. The new icon picker is nice, though since I am a programmer with a programmer's memory I had my icon keyword list memorized. I miss being able to type ahead to get an icon by keyword. I wanted my "glare" icon here, for instance, and I got bored scrolling through the unsorted icon list looking for it.

You'd think when updating your site design it would be important for you to ask "What functionality that my users liked will this change make impossible or more difficult?"

Why get rid of comment subjects... I expect because they want productive conversations to be carried out in top-level posts, not in comments. That's worse for the way people use Livejournal now, and I don't really see what it gets them, but I understand the impulse to worry about that.

I think they said something like only 1% of comments have a fresh subject line added to them. Also, I think they're attempting to imitate Facebook, seeking to duplicate its success by imitating unimportant aspects of its functionality.

Their lead designer seems to have a huge arrogance & contempt for his users problem, which I just don't get. The best designers I've worked with in my career have loved and cherished their users. And sought to get inside their heads, however difficult that might be, so as to give them more of what they wanted and keep them happy. Happy users give you money. Unhappy ones give money to somebody else. You'd think this would be basic.