Re: Why googlers never quote and never will (Was: Re: Universal (g)libc)


Kenny McCormack wrote:
> In article <0sqv03xls8.ln2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> Flash Gordon <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >Roger wrote:
> >> That was a good link, didn't know about that!
> >> Thanks.
> >
> >What was? Provide context. There is at least one post almost every day
> >about providing context and giving instructions (I know there was both
> >yesterday and today) so you have no excuse for not knowing to provide
> >context or how to do it through Google.
>
> You're (and others, such as Keith) wasting your breath. They'll never get
> it. And I'll tell you why.
>
> Imagine that there's a mouse - and the mouse is the Usenet. You and I can
> see that it is a mouse and we behave accordingly. But now there is a class
> of users (we'll call them "googlers") that are wearing these funny weird
> glasses that make them see not a mouse, but an elephant. Seeing an
> elephant (i.e., the Usenet as a web page), they also behave accordingly.
> And no amount of verbiage from us is going to convince them that it's not
> an elephant - that it is only a mouse.
>
> To make this more clear, to a googler, it doesn't make any sense to "quote"
> (whatever the heck that is...), in fact, to do would be absurd, when all
> the rest of the articles in the thread are right there in front of their
> faces (just as clear as the trunk on that mouse, er, elephant). And no
> amount of verbiage from us is going to convince them not to believe what
> they see.

I put the blame squarely on the Google interface. The Reply link at
the bottom of the article, which is the one 99% of the users are going
to click on (because, after all, they want to reply to the message)
doesn't quote the article being replied to.

Meanwhile, the *other* Reply link, the one I'm using to compose this
message, which is also the one that properly quotes the article, is
*hidden* behind the Show Options link (?!), which damn few people are
going to bother looking for when they already have a perfectly good
Reply link visible on the page.

The problem is the Google Groups interface (which blows goat chunks,
frankly), not the people using it. Google's web designers need to be
slapped repeatedly with large heavy binders of interface guidelines.

.