
Ask Edward Tufte: Moderating internet forums: What's smart, not what's new - graywh
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0000fT
======
pavlov
Looking around on Edward Tufte's site, I was a bit surprised to find pixel
fonts with hideous kerning on his front page:
<http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/index>

(I'm talking about the captions on the smaller images below the motion blur
dog; they basically read as "16 new pr ints by ed ward t ufte", etc.)

I'm not suggesting Tufte is a bad designer for having a couple of ugly
captions, or anything like that (presumably he has someone else doing the
actual Photoshop work for stuff like this). Rather my point is simply that
when the expectations are very high -- he has a NYT quote on that same page
calling him "the Leonardo da Vinci of data" -- this kind of tiny detail leaps
out because poor typography is an example of how design mistakes can make it
more difficult to convey information.

------
ojbyrne
"Philip Greenspun constructed a filter at photo.net which bounced all those
who misspelled the word "aperture," on the grounds that they did not know much
about photography."

Bouncing someone for a single typo, or maybe because English isn't their first
language, seems a little extreme.

~~~
ntoshev
Yeah, but I think it may be useful to collect such metrics (and e.g. get it to
cost karma).

For the record, English is not my first language and I do make mistakes, but I
strive to write correctly.

~~~
ojbyrne
Sure, I was even going to suggest something like that. A "cumulative bozo
filter" basically.

------
mhb
Notwithstanding his eminence, someone snarkily commenting on other people's
misuse of "it's" should not be misusing "myself" non-reflexively.

Viz. _Five people are involved in the part-time (very part-time) management of
this forum: Dariane Hunt (web designer), Elaine Morse (my design assistant),
David Rodriguez (programmer), a very wise anonymous external reviewer, and
myself._

------
jlouis
I don't think it is entirely wrong to be harsh on comments. What Tufte is
trying to achieve is value on his site. Every comment that do not provide
value is then removed.

The alternative option can give a worse signal-to-noise ratio. Bad signal-to-
noise ratio will make all intelligent beings with little time on hand go to
other places, because wading through all the noise is too expensive. In that
respect, it might be worth being harsh on comments to keep certain commentors
on the site.

I don't see it as censorship. You are free to make your own blog post
condemning the view, start a comment-stream, use well-argued points, etcetera.
In fact if the discussion is so vastly different it would probably be better
served as a post of its own, laid out with good argumentation.

------
dpeq
His approach verges on being arrogant and probably only works when you already
have fanatic followers.

~~~
niels_olson
which follows along with pg's observation nicely: don't implement controls
until they're necessary.

------
ahoyhere
Just because the guy's everyone's favorite visual information guy, why would
we rely on his opinion for user interface? Especially social interaction?

His "better" iPhone interface was godawful.

This post on forums is also totally missing the point.

I see somebody already re-submitted Clay Shirky's _good_ , thoughtful essay on
the subject (Clay Shirky: A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy).

I wouldn't waste your time on this one. Read that one instead.

