Forums General Discussion User Friendly: Sometimes bad

Weird post subject, admittedly, but maybe something to think about.

I try my best to be tolerant of people, but have you noticed that the more user friendly things become the more overrun the internet becomes with porn (and not real porn, but links to sites that have links to sites that have links to sites that link back to the first site, all promising porn.... probably. I don't know personally *cough*) and warez and people running around yelling '1 4m 73h 1337 h4xx0r j0' (Its only funny when I say it).
The easier things become, the more illegal content, the more flagrantly ANNOYING content, you will find on the internet. The easier things become, the more you will have to deal with complete and utter lamers on your forums, networks, and channels.

...just an observation. And meanwhile, everyone is talking about how Khaled should make mIRCscript easier with things like dialog studios and such.

I'm not saying that newbies are bad.. we've all been one, right? But even at my noobiest, I wasn't completely and utterly baffled about how to use the /nick command or why Nickserv said my nick was registered.

----If I've offended anyone with this... umm... I probably won't care unless you go get your 1337 700lz and h4xx0r me (another example of what happens when things get easy: script kiddies)

Actually, the illegal content has always been there. More-so before newbies out numbered the warriors & hackers & general misfits... and it has been on a steady decline since (in relative terms). Newbies are solely responsible for bridging the gap between illegal content and right holders / law enforcement, which is why it appears (in your eyes, the public's eyes) to be on an increase.

As for the Dialog Studio discussion, I think both newbies and real oldskool hackers alike will agree that designing a graphical UI by hand without any visual reference is one of the most daunting tasks out there. Drag & Drop placement of dialog elements doesn't make you any less "leet" or more of a newbie. Yes, it would bring new blood into the realm of Dialog Making, and yes there will be an onslaught of newbies... and I welcome this new blood, as it makes me that much more oldskool.

And no, you haven't offended anyone yet. If you did, there would probably be no post (and no poster) for me to reply to. * hugs the moderators *

- Raccoon

I was all prepared to be flamed and all, too...

Anyway, I think you're wrong, at least partially. The influx of new users HAS put more of a spotlight on the illegal and less favorable aspects of the internet, true. But it has also caused both aspects to grow I'd think.

The spotlight being placed on filesharing using utilities like KaZaA is basically spreading the word to people that, given the chance would be more than happy to break the law but previously had no idea it was possible.

Beyond that, we now find an increasing number of high school jockboys and other assorted varities and flavors of idiot getting on IRC for the sole purpose of either filesharing or joining random channels to inform everyone that they are "gay" and should "get a life" etc etc. Don't try to tell me that if we were all using some old-ass terminal system where everything had to be typed out via keyboard rather than a point-and-click system the same problem would still exist.

I am not saying that user friendliness is bad... I am not claiming to be a computer genius or anything: without a degree of ease I would be unable to do much. And I am not saying that mIRC should be less friendly. I am simply trying to point out something that I find somewhat funny and very annoying: essentially, with progress come idiots.

I dont know that we can blame user friendly, unless we back up to the fact that puters have become more user friendly as we left DOSland and entered Windowsville. I think its more that they are considerably more affordable and we have tons of RAM and huge HDs. I remember when ppl first started talking about mp3s. My response was well whoopyding, do i want to spend 3 days d/l one not to mention gee, lets see, i would have room for one mp3 or the proggies i have. Now ppl say wheeee, tons of room, i gotta fill it with something.

The % of the easily confuzzled/unknowing/interested in questionable activities really hasnt changed, its just that the volume of puter users has increased dramatically (including the ones who delight in exploiting others just cause they can). As that masked critter said, illegal stuffs and the self proclaimed "l33t" have always been around. Since demand leads to supply, there no doubt is more around and about now simply because there are more puters taking up residence and luring ppl under their spell. Curious teens dont have to sneak a copy of a girlie mag under their mattress, they just boot up the puter they got for their b'day.

Altho forums like this means we see more users and their probs than we would sitting in one help channel on one network, there was about the same % back in 96 as now of users who are easily confuzzled/puter illiterate/have no clue help files exist/refuse to RTFM etc. The big diff now is that rather than all the "how do i find wavs" and "how do i find/load/work popups" its gone to "how do i find movies/music/porn" and the resulting probs. More available and affordable routers/networking/broadband contributes to the dcc probs.

I think one thing we have to remember is that HOW we explain is as important as that we give an answer. Anything can be considered user friendly to experienced users, but if we forget that ppl may not know the basics, it isnt so user friendly after all. If we explain how to access the help file, how to find services commands, dangers in d/l etc then we educate them and help them to help themselves in the future. Our wording is important too.
Examples:
-the first time someone told me to type alt+o, i did exactly as they said.... i clicked the alt key, then the + key, then the o key. Y'all may have noticed i always say hold down your alt key and click the o key.... thats why :tongue:

-the first time i tried to load a popup/ascii file, it took several ppl 2 weeks. They thought i was dumber than dirt. All their instructions to find the blasted file started out with "click on start". Problem? They were having tons of fun with win95. I was using win3.11. In spite of me insisting i didnt HAVE start in the lower left corner, i went thru lots of ppl who thought i was clueless until someone thought to ask me what OS i was using.

Yes, there will always be lamers but its up to us to weed out the lamers from the newbies and take the time to explain. And yes, there were then, are still, and prolly always will be, ppl coming in who insist nickserv is a person and either stalking them or sending them mean msgs because they dont know where to find out or no one takes the time to explain services to them. The things i think of today as being user friendly prolly would have made my eyes cross many years ago when i got first puter.

You make an excellent set of points, ParaBrat. I guess the thing is that, like you say, even though there are more people the overall percentage of idiots online is about the same. Popular IRC channels probably also have more people than before, on average. (Maybe a popular channel a few years ago would have had 5 people, now it has 11, that sort of thing)

Now I'm not quite sure what point I was trying to make..

The dialog stuido idea and such is something I actually like the idea of. I think I'm just saying that I don't want mIRC to evolve kind of like AOL did... that is, in version 2.5 (I stopped using AOL at version 4) it was easier for me to use.. it was specifically made to be fast to navigate. By 4.0, AOL had actually disabled the ability to use the ALT key to navigate their menus, probably because the average user doesn't know or at least doesn't use such shortcuts.

I just hope that mIRC will always have a certain blend of ease-of-use along with features that keep it oriented to the people who actually use it and enjoy it the most-- namely people like the majority I see on these forums that don't just post 6 questions and then leave.

I am not saying that I foresee any danger of that happening, simply stating my hope that it never does. The day mIRC has a button to change your nick built into it, I'll move to Antarctica where I won't have to worry about the Internet.

I think Khaled works hard to keep mIRC not only progressing for the more advanced users, but also easy to use for those that dont have any interest in advanced features. Not an easy line to walk. Seems like with each new release there are ppl who applaud new features and some that decry them. Guess its impossible to make everyone happy. I do agree with you tho, i hope mIRC will always support the advanced user, while combining ease of use for those who just want to connect and chat and i trust Khaled to do just that

(AOL disabled the ALT key menu accessing ability, to debunk all the VB4/5 programmers that were writing AOHELL Toolz which usually used simple SendKeys. Fortunately GetMenu is an easy command too. )