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Comment by shrughes | Hacker News Reader

People are hostile to that posting because it talks down to its readers by being a gigantic infographic, as if the reader was retarded, instead of being a few paragraphs of text. Also, the idea is without merit, and you don't need to read past the first character to realize that it's made by people with a preference for form over function. It is a truly revolting submission.

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>It is a truly revolting submission.

This is the problem. The MSM is full of hyperbole. One nice thing about HN is that it is rarely rewarded here.

You could have said:

People are hostile to that posting because it talks down to its readers by being a gigantic infographic. It could have been explained in a few paragraphs of text. Also, the idea appears to be made by people with a preference for form over function. Therefore it has little practical merit.

It would have made the same point, without the hostility or hyperbole.

Personally, I found the overall idea unrealistic, but it was interesting to see Wikipedia mocked up in another way. Their schematic using the color bars for languages gave me some ideas.

But to anyone who understands the dichotomy between those people and the people who get real work done, "revolting" is the right word.

IMO so readily putting people into groups of 'approval' and 'disapproval' based upon such limited information is a mistake. Quickly writing off others as those people seems close-minded, and you can miss out on a lot of opportunities with such an attitude.

The nice thing about opinions is that you can change them more often than you change your underwear.

Sure, but inconsistency of opinion isn't a very admirable trait.

I'd rather be right than consistent.

I'd rather be consistently right.

Not everyone can be tptacek.

But surely this depends on your perspective of 'real work'?

The guy that spends 13 hours a day shovelling fish heads probably thinks that my 9 hours in a chair in front of a screen doesn't really consist of 'real work'.

> The guy that spends 13 hours a day shovelling fish heads probably thinks that my 9 hours in a chair in front of a screen doesn't really consist of 'real work'.

You can't tell me that you've never wondered if he was right.

Hyperbole is part of communication and so is "tone". Hacker News does not run on Lojban.

A presentation about design that shows instead of tells is hardly condescending! This is not an infographic. An infographic is a summary, this is a point-by-point walkthrough of the meaning of each design element.

P.S. Form over function is not evil.

> Form over function is not evil.

I must disagree wholeheartedly, all the more regarding a tool as valuable as Wikipedia. As small as I try to keep my identity, this is part of it.

I suspect some of the hostility we're seeing is a delayed reaction to the prevalence of this viewpoint here. HN no longer has consensus about which of the Two Cultures is favored.

The fact that this got voted up kind of disturbs me.

So was it a test? It disturbed me too.

It wasn't a test so much as that I tend to write comments that I regret minutes later.

> people with a preference for form over function

People who keep using that phrase as an excuse to hate on anything designed that they don't like are the truly revolting people.

Stifling discussion, silencing opinions, and perpetuating engineer-elitism.

First, now you're guilty of exactly the tone the OP is complaining about. Second, youre implying design is how so,etching looks. I said it in the original thread and I'll say it again, it was really pretty how they redesigned Wikipedia but it still wasn't good because they glossed over very important critical concepts am functionality of the site. It was no different than slapping a fresh coat of paint on any "ugly" website and calling it a day. Visually appealing had nothing to do with it.

(for all its flaws) that's just how you structure a design presentation.

I kind of disagree. I think there would have been better ways to present a design. For startes it would have been nice to know why specific decisions were made instead of just "we thought it was prettier".

Maybe usability studies, A/B test results and if at all possible some form of prototype, even if it is just static.

Plus the article lacks consideration for mobile and small screen platform (i.e. considering edge cases). In fact I'd go as far as to say it actively disregards them by choosing gigantic fonts and lots of useless whitespace in favor of useful content.

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