If a "type your repository name to confirm" box still doesn't make you double check that you picked the right repository, what else can they even do?
> I didn’t realize at the moment there’s an inconsistency in the naming of this special repo containing profile READMEs and that it differs for users and organizations: name/name vs. name/.github.
It's not unreasonable for the author to have taken the action they did given what they were trying to do. The inconsistent UX for User vs Organization READMEs is a major factor in how the error happened.
And given the number of single-repo orgs where the org's main product repo name == the org's name, well, it's not as surprising I'd say.
They could show you the number of stars, follows, commits, creation date, the number of files, all sorts of things.
Also, note that github themselves accidentally set one of their repos to private, but restored it to a previous state through backups. If the move is so boneheaded, why did github make it themselves?
A better question might be why, after making the mistake(which was big enough for the CEO to tweet about), and restoring from backups, they didn't just fix the glitch and prevent this sort of behavior.
Whether you agree with the tone of that article or not, the UI suggestions made are sensible. Showing the contents of the repo you’re about to change is a lot more useful than asking someone to type the name of it.
>>"To paraphrase, the box tells you “You’re about to demolish a house. If there are any people inside, they will all die”. But it doesn’t include anything specific to break you out of your auto-pilot mode if you’ve confused the address and think you’re looking at an empty house."
>>"The dialog should be more contextual and, paraphrasing again, it should say “You’re about to kill 55,000 people.” That would’ve certainly made me pause."
Theres something about the juxtaposition that makes it feel like it should have been obvious. I think its because in those examples you would blame whoever didn't put whatever guard rail was necessary to prevent those outcomes. My suspicion is that it wasn't the authors intent and they were probably just upset, but thats an opinion I formed after reading the rest.
Do you agree that, hyperbolic metaphors aside, the UI improvement suggestion is a good one?
It makes you type user/repo, which is different in a serious way. It's easy for the difference between ".github" and "httpie" to set off alarm bells. But the difference between "httpie/.github" and "httpie/httpie" can slip through.
> "It's their fault, they only showed 5 warning banners. A 6th one would have totally stopped me from doing this."
The request is for the warning to say how much will be deleted, not to add another step.
“They warned me but because I didn’t read the dialog box because it was too boring!
He accepts responsibility for what he did, but points out the very real opportunity to improve the UI/UX of a very destructive operation with real contextual data about what is about to be destroyed.
I hope others are less judgmental of you than you are of them next you make a mistake in life.
You can be compassionate for a mistake and still insist someone take ownership over this own careless error instead of blaming others. You mistake compassion for “let them do or say whatever they want because they are a victim”.
The main takeway that I took from that article was the seemingly low effort improvement that could be made to the UI/UX of that action, which could help other people not make the same mistake.
That's not about blaming Github vs. themselves, it's a reasonable critique of an existing system and looking for ways to make it better for everyone.
Unless you think there is no room for improvement in that system at all.
You must focus a lot on blaming in your life if that's what you mostly noticed when reading that article.
There's no way for either us to really know the author's intent or what he thinks - beyond the words on the page - but you seem convinced that "where the blame lies" was a major motivation, even thought it's all between the lines even by your own admission.
I read it differently, so as I said earlier, let's agree to disagree.