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0 pointsgrannyg00se12y ago0 comments

If "the internet" is suddenly breaking left and right after you've disabled certain features wouldn't you try re-enabling the features?

0 comments

tomschlick12y ago

You give people way too much credit. Keep in mind most people still blatantly deny changing anything when something goes wrong for whatever reason. "I didn't even do anything, it just broke."

vacri12y ago

I remember a user flat out lying about what an error box said over the phone. I asked her to read it out, she gave be what was in her head, not on the screen. I asked her to read it word-by-word, she did the same. I asked her to read it out letter-by-letter ("I've never seen that error there before, I want to get it exactly right so I can ask the programmers...") and then she actually looked at what it said.

vidarh12y ago

Oh the dread that phone support brings back to me... The number of "tricks" we had to use to get users to tell us what they actually saw, and do what we actually told them, rather then what they thought they were looking at or thought they should do...

Anyone interested in psychology should do phone support for a few weeks...

1 more reply

pessimizer12y ago

I still don't understand why people do this. They get so frustrated (or defensive or something else) that they refuse to tell you what is on the screen and/or make something up.

My guess is that they dismiss error boxes too quickly, or work ahead of you and are afraid that you'll figure it out if they tell you what their error box actually says, and they'll get an F on the test and will have to go to summer school.

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dllthomas12y ago

On the flip side, I remember playing "Windows XP: The Roleplaying Game" with AT&T support, when they wouldn't give some very simple network config information without me checking a bunch of things on Windows with IE first.

kunil12y ago

I am pretty sure putting "disable js" option into advanced tab would be enough.

There are plenty options that can bug your browser or leave you unable to surf, why remove this particular one?

fpgeek12y ago

From what I understand, the ultimate goal is to remove them all (i.e. exile them to about:config, add-ons and the like).

rmc12y ago

You're presuming people know what they're doing. If someone clicks a bunch of boxes and things break, they might not know what boxes they checked/unchecked, they might not know how to get back to that window again (which menu item was it again? ).

If you think users aren't that stupid, you're wrong, they are that stupid. If you think people should not use the Internet if they don't understand that much, then you're suggesting kicking a large chunk of the population off the Internet. If you work in IT, kicking a lot of people off the Internet is a surefire way to reduce your industry's size.

jessriedel12y ago

Not if you disabled it while fiddling with a bunch of firefox options late at night, and then didn't notice anything broken until the next morning.

Not if someone borrowing your computer for 5 minutes disables it.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

tomschlick12y ago

You give people way too much credit. Keep in mind most people still blatantly deny changing anything when something goes wrong for whatever reason. "I didn't even do anything, it just broke."

vacri12y ago

vidarh12y ago

Anyone interested in psychology should do phone support for a few weeks...

1 more reply

pessimizer12y ago

I still don't understand why people do this. They get so frustrated (or defensive or something else) that they refuse to tell you what is on the screen and/or make something up.

1 more reply

dllthomas12y ago

kunil12y ago

I am pretty sure putting "disable js" option into advanced tab would be enough.

There are plenty options that can bug your browser or leave you unable to surf, why remove this particular one?

fpgeek12y ago

From what I understand, the ultimate goal is to remove them all (i.e. exile them to about:config, add-ons and the like).

rmc12y ago

jessriedel12y ago

Not if you disabled it while fiddling with a bunch of firefox options late at night, and then didn't notice anything broken until the next morning.

Not if someone borrowing your computer for 5 minutes disables it.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse