[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is suppo

[Adam Wiggins]

> On 21 Sep 97 at 18:44, Adam Wiggins wrote:
> > Yes; this is the part of the 'point' of posting to the list.  It's putting
> > your idea up on the auction block - everybody who cares to can poke it,
> > prod it, stare at it straight in the teeth, and examine it from angles you
> > never even thought of.  The idea being that any idea which is less than
> > robust will be ripped to shreds and re-assembled in a better form.  If
> > you idea manages to stand up to the virtual shake-down from the list
> > members, you can be pretty sure that it's rock solid.
> 
> I strongly disagree with both of these views. There's a point where 
> playing the other side of issue becomes both an irritant and wholly 
> unproductive.  It may lead one down a convulated avenue of reasoning 
> that "common sense" dictated you shouldn't explore in the first 
> place.  This could be especially damaging if you are new to a given 
> area and find yourself agreeing with the one playing a particularly 
> devious devil's advocate.  This could be a source of misinformation, 
> embarassment or even ill-feeling if one is led logically step-by-step 
> into an indefensible position or unproductive design decision.  It's 
> also a waste of list members' time to lead them into reading a 
> particularly engaging argument that the poster merely meant as an 
> illustration of a dumb position or satirization a valid position.   

Yes, there is 'a point'.  This is an extreme, though.  Without presenting
'opposing' views or situations that will 'break' your system, how in
the world are you supposed to discover the flaws in it?  The normal
process being something like:

Creator: "I have an idea, X.  Comments?"
Responder: "What about situation Y?  Situation Z?  Situation 123?"

These may or may not have been situations that the creator has thought of;
at any rate, they are forced to think about them once the responder has
mentioned them.  They can, of course, choose to dismiss some as being
irrelevant, but I find that this is the best way to shake down new ideas.
I'm lucky enough to have a partner to bounce ideas off of, but others here
don't have that option.  Besides which, a large number of ears is always
better (assuming, of course, that those ears are attached to semi-intelligent
brains that understand what you're getting at to begin with).

So I don't mean that the responses should be nasty, not at all.  I just mean
that posts of 'Yeah, that's a great idea man' aren't nearly as useful, even
if they are more satisfying to read.