About the truth that the user should not know

Hello.

In Gorky's play “At the Bottom”, one of the key moments is the dialogue of the heroes about the truth, whether the truth is needed, in what quantities and under what sauce it should be served. Today I also want to talk about the truth, about which the administrators and creators of the site speak or hide from the user.

In no case do I urge my users to lie, there is an opinion that any lie will be revealed sooner or later, so it’s better to use the old proven method - not to tell the whole truth.

So, a list of what the user should not know about:

Users should not see who voted like.From my own experience I know what a user is, who knows who puts what ratings. In my first project, I allowed to see the estimates (they so much asked about it).

After that, events developed as follows: at first the holy war was raging, those offended by low ratings went and avenged their offenders with the same unreasonable understatements, sometimes accompanying their assessments with justifications sucked from the finger. After several high-profile scandals, I closed the site until, through joint efforts, we worked out rules that would suit everyone.

The rules are pretty tough. One of them said that if you give a bad mark, then be kind, justify intelligibly. This led to the fact that bad grades just stopped appearing. And if they did appear, then they were put by beginners.

Users should not be aware of upcoming changes. Especially if these changes are global, such as a complete site update. Remember Habr and a noisy story with Super Habr. The fact that Superhabr will be said almost a year ago. The date of its discovery was revealed with pathos. And when the time came, it turned out that people were given closed alpha. It was insulting, but you can’t offend the user, he’s getting wild from this and starts doing stupid things. Now it’s somehow subsided, reconciled, but the imprint remained. This I write from the perspective of the user.

And on the other hand, it looks like this - half a year ago I announced the release of the Seven project, which, by design, should be a logical continuation and an improved version of my first project. At that time, I had a ToR, layout (which, incidentally, had to be redone later from the beginning) and a programmer who had not even begun to implement the project. It is quite natural that the development, as it happens, was delayed, and now the second promised term is coming to an end, and only the programmer and I saw alpha. What this led to - on my first project, a sharp decline in the number of works began. Everyone cherished the best work for Seven.

The user should not be familiar with the administrator.This rule is most likely needed by the administrator himself, for his peace of mind and sometimes security. This, of course, is a double-edged sword, on the one hand, how else to promote your startup, without having friends on the network, who would go to the resource at first precisely because they simply know the creator.

And on the other hand, there is a problem that I wrote about in a previous post . The administrator must be an invisible, mysterious and ephemeral creature. On the aforementioned Habré, they tried to achieve this by inventing the notorious UFO. In my opinion, they did very badly. No less well-known creators of Bashorg cope with this task brilliantly.

Naturally, dissatisfaction with the administration has been and will always be, whatever this administration may be. But when there is no reaction to attacks, sometimes not quite adequate users, the rebels choke in their own anger. And rare flashes do not grow. Otherwise, if the administration reacts sharply, the rebels get a second wind.

The user should not see "unwanted" comments. The degree of “objectionability” for each resource is determined individually. It should work very well moderators. Unwanted comments are those that theoretically lead most users in one direction or another in a communication style.

If you want on the site of cultural communication - cut obscene comments and "other" vocabulary. Just cut it in the bud, with all the subsequent “where did my comment go?”. And don't be afraid that users will leave. The most inadequate will leave, but how many doubters you hold should block this outflow.

In principle, such a selection can achieve almost any result, but just remember that abuse should not be abused. And if on a site with obscene jokes, 99% of the comments contain obscenities, then it’s unlikely that you can help with anything other than changing the content.

The list was compiled on the basis of personal experience and if you have something to add, I will only be glad to read about it in the comments.