ACCount0's recent activity
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Comment on Identity politics may divide us. But ultimately we can’t unite without it. in ~misc
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Comment on MGM sues more than 1,000 victims of Las Vegas shooting, denying liability for the massacre in ~news
ACCount0 LinkI honestly don't see how a company is liable for a mass shooting that occurred on its territory. It just isn't something you can prevent with any kind of reliability.I honestly don't see how a company is liable for a mass shooting that occurred on its territory. It just isn't something you can prevent with any kind of reliability.
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Comment on Using icons vs using words in ~tildes
ACCount0 (edited )Link ParentPop-up text labels on icons have an advantage over simple text: they have no chance of wrecking your templates or creating visual imbalance when the text length is not what you expected it to be....Pop-up text labels on icons have an advantage over simple text: they have no chance of wrecking your templates or creating visual imbalance when the text length is not what you expected it to be. And that's a pretty common issue I'm seeing, especially when you translate to a language that tends to use longer words. UIs translated from Japanese, Korean, Chinese are the worst offenders, but it's pretty common in English -> Russian (my first), for example.
Cultural/language background doesn't matter all that much in my opinion, especially if you are relying on pre-estabilished icons. For example, take the "Save" icon, always using an image of a floppy disc. It's used to be a disk because most of the first PCs had no HDD, and even the ones that had one had no network connectivity, so "Save" operation naturally involved writing to a floppy disk. Now floppy disks aren't used at all, but the "Save" icon is still a disk, simply because "disk" icon is what is familiar to the user.
Most formatting editor icons are pre-estabilished, so it's okay to use them. Even if the user is confused by "link" icon once (and I remember that I was confused by it once!), they quickly realize what it means and then apply that knowledge to any UI that uses it. Which is an awful lot of UIs, so it's totally worth it.
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Comment on Using icons vs using words in ~tildes
ACCount0 Link ParentShould have used an icon to indicate sarcasm!Should have used an icon to indicate sarcasm!
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Comment on Using icons vs using words in ~tildes
ACCount0 Link ParentI agree that designing an intuitive icon is hard. But you don't have to design it if there is already an established one. Just look at any editor with formatting support: B/I/U icons look the same...I agree that designing an intuitive icon is hard. But you don't have to design it if there is already an established one.
Just look at any editor with formatting support: B/I/U icons look the same in anything from Word 97 to GitHub, and it works because it's consistent. By the time the user sees your use of those icons, he is likely to already know what those mean. That's the power of established UI elements.
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Comment on Using icons vs using words in ~tildes
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Using icons vs using words
I noticed that Tildes docs make a point out of using words instead of labels. The stated reason is that icons may be difficult to understand, and I honestly don't get how is this the case. Icons,...
I noticed that Tildes docs make a point out of using words instead of labels. The stated reason is that icons may be difficult to understand, and I honestly don't get how is this the case.
Icons, when used right, are much more usable and intuitive than any text labels. They are small, distinct, they draw attention and you can tell what they do just by looking at them instead of reading them.
Take the classic upvote/downvote scrollers used on Reddit, Imgur, etc. It uses icons for upvotes and downvotes, but there isn't a single person I know who doesn't know what those mean. It's intuitive and usable. It doesn't require localization. It just works.
In contrast, the "Vote (10)" button on Tildes. It uses text, on a page full of text. It's an important UI element, one of the most used UI elements really, but it's not visually highlighted in any way. The amount of votes, which is an important metric, isn't distinct, making it hard to read. The "text button" style it uses is usually reserved for buttons that are used rarely, such as "Edit" or "Delete", or buttons that open more menus, such as "Edit" or "Reply". It's not intuitive.
Yes, this is a minor thing, but it's minor things that make the overall experience pleasant or unpleasant. And it shows how icons (and highlights), when used right, make user experience better.
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Comment on Putting the name on the bottom of the comment in ~tildes
ACCount0 Link ParentI remember that functionality from many messaging board engines. Not once it was useful. It's merely an artifact from the days of e-mail, which in itself is an artifact from written business...I remember that functionality from many messaging board engines. Not once it was useful. It's merely an artifact from the days of e-mail, which in itself is an artifact from written business letters.
Having a potential of being used for something good once in forever doesn't justify adding this feature and dragging it around.
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Comment on Is Dwayne Johnson's disabled role in Skyscraper 'offensive'? in ~talk
ACCount0 Link ParentIf you need someone to play a role of disabled, any professional actor would do. But you can't get a disabled actor to play a healthy person. As for casting disabled people for disabled roles -...If you need someone to play a role of disabled, any professional actor would do. But you can't get a disabled actor to play a healthy person. As for casting disabled people for disabled roles - just doing that cuts your hiring pool twenty times, not to mention that the disabled actors would have less experience and less recognition, for the reason I already mentioned above.
I think this is one of the problems that isn't worth doing anything about.
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Comment on Casual talk thread in ~talk
ACCount0 Link ParentEven if the coworkers don't care much, you are still self-improving. There is no better way to get a hang of a language than to build something functional with it.Even if the coworkers don't care much, you are still self-improving. There is no better way to get a hang of a language than to build something functional with it.
Politics are never simple. And I'd rather not redefine words. I'm going to talk idpol as it is nowadays, as this term is recognized by the mass.
In idpol, we have a mess of divides by gender, race, socioeconomic classes and whatever else, and focusing on those divides is the focus of idpol. It always is. Never about "what we have in common", always about "what we are different in". Focus on divides, feed into divides, group people up by their features. Equality isn't in the picture, it's tribalism. We have things like "positive discrimination" already, and it's easy to see how they go against the idea of true equality. And yet, idpol groups pushing for them are not even the fringe ones, it's a rather mainstream take. We have groups of people believing to be discriminated against because their fathers were discriminated against, and then we have groups of people believing to be discriminated against because policies like "affirmative action" and "diversity hiring" discriminate against them here and now, and both believe they are doing the right thing when they clash. We have opportunistic fringe groups capitalizing on those tensions and divides to push their radical ideology. We have movements that claim to have the solutions to problems of idpol, but if a problem ever comes close to being solved, they redefine what "problem" is because they need those problems to exist. Because they need an enemy, and if there isn't any, they'll make one. We have zealous, pseudo-religious groups forming on the ends of idpol spectrums. We have fighting and infighting and radicalization and tribalization and "justified" discrimination and many other wrongs, all bound together into a tight mess people call "identity politics" today.
I fail to see a single good thing to come out of all this. I fail to see a single good thing that possibly can.