Can I offer a perspective here? I don't believe he was a troll. I believe he felt humiliated by his inability to make sense of the process of customizing your journal and then lashed out. By the time he got an answer that he could comprehend, he was too embarrassed to even listen.
I read through that discussion, and I think the problem was that the user was not coming from a livejournal history, and you were answering him in a "livejournal-based" way that just fed his frustration. I completely understand his frustration, because it's similar to the frustration I felt as an older user first coming to livejournal (and sometimes even feel now, after three years at lj and now here).
It's incredibly irritating to see other journals doing something that looks quite simple and being told that you have to learn html and css to do that. Now, I'm a very compulsive person, and so I learned how to do those things...in about a year (and I'm still learning)! But most people my age (late 40s) would not. And they'd leave. And they'd probably go somewhere where those things are easier to accomplish, someplace like Wordpress.
So I guess my point is: is that really our goal, to send those people away? I know Dreamwidth can't hold the hand of every newbie who comes here. But I think it might be valuable to look at the exchange a little differently from how everyone seems to be regarding it, i.e., what are the expectations of different types of endusers that come to the site, and how can we keep them as users. For example, most of my contemporaries have no idea what "in beta" means, and the limitations that phrase connotes.
We old farts have something to contribute, but we are coming from a completely different mindset, and it feels humiliating to be told to wade through a hundred FAQs. You guys are used to that kind of learning curve, but my contemporaries are not, and our breaking point—where we just give up and leave—is a lot lower than most younger people.
I can tell you that I certainly would never have been able to figure out how to customize a journal if I hadn't had a job in the 80s that was basically typesetting (high-level wordprocessing) and used a computer language that was incredibly similar to html. I have another friend who is ten years younger than me, and she gave up on customizing her journal; I'm doing it for her. You don't realize how different it is for people who did not grow up on the Internet. And I'm pretty sure that Dreamwidth's business model includes users who aren't coming from Livejournal or any other blogging service, who are brand new to the wild and wooly world of journaling.
Maybe I need to make a comm called "old farts" for people to ask questions in a different way: hand-holding for people who are new to blogging.
Now, I could be completely wrong, and the guy was really a troll, but what I'm hearing from you guys is that you don't understand him. And what I saw from him was that he didn't understand you. You certainly do need to keep control of the community and people should try not to be rude when they're asking for help, but I don't think it hurts to look at the exchange and see what we could do better.
You guys'll all probably flame me now. Get off my lawn, durned kids.
no subject
I read through that discussion, and I think the problem was that the user was not coming from a livejournal history, and you were answering him in a "livejournal-based" way that just fed his frustration. I completely understand his frustration, because it's similar to the frustration I felt as an older user first coming to livejournal (and sometimes even feel now, after three years at lj and now here).
It's incredibly irritating to see other journals doing something that looks quite simple and being told that you have to learn html and css to do that. Now, I'm a very compulsive person, and so I learned how to do those things...in about a year (and I'm still learning)! But most people my age (late 40s) would not. And they'd leave. And they'd probably go somewhere where those things are easier to accomplish, someplace like Wordpress.
So I guess my point is: is that really our goal, to send those people away? I know Dreamwidth can't hold the hand of every newbie who comes here. But I think it might be valuable to look at the exchange a little differently from how everyone seems to be regarding it, i.e., what are the expectations of different types of endusers that come to the site, and how can we keep them as users. For example, most of my contemporaries have no idea what "in beta" means, and the limitations that phrase connotes.
We old farts have something to contribute, but we are coming from a completely different mindset, and it feels humiliating to be told to wade through a hundred FAQs. You guys are used to that kind of learning curve, but my contemporaries are not, and our breaking point—where we just give up and leave—is a lot lower than most younger people.
I can tell you that I certainly would never have been able to figure out how to customize a journal if I hadn't had a job in the 80s that was basically typesetting (high-level wordprocessing) and used a computer language that was incredibly similar to html. I have another friend who is ten years younger than me, and she gave up on customizing her journal; I'm doing it for her. You don't realize how different it is for people who did not grow up on the Internet. And I'm pretty sure that Dreamwidth's business model includes users who aren't coming from Livejournal or any other blogging service, who are brand new to the wild and wooly world of journaling.
Maybe I need to make a comm called "old farts" for people to ask questions in a different way: hand-holding for people who are new to blogging.
Now, I could be completely wrong, and the guy was really a troll, but what I'm hearing from you guys is that you don't understand him. And what I saw from him was that he didn't understand you. You certainly do need to keep control of the community and people should try not to be rude when they're asking for help, but I don't think it hurts to look at the exchange and see what we could do better.
You guys'll all probably flame me now. Get off my lawn, durned kids.