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Comment by mikeknoop | Hacker News Reader

Yes, that sentence does seek to inform users that their new Page connections are public -- especially those you take the time to read the dialog.

However, in the last few days I've run across many Facebook users who chose to make these public connections when previously they had their interests and likes private. I suspect most of them clicked through the dialog without reading it or fully understanding the ramifications of their actions.

You could argue that the user's ignorance and lack of reading available explanation is their problem, but it just seems a little unethical (on the grounds of previously knowing average users will click through dialogs) overall.

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I don't understand how it is unethical at all. It is very clearly mentioned, in less than two lines of text, with detailed explanations one click away. What do you suggest instead?

In my personal opinion, I argue that the effort to make before-private settings now-public with user confirmation is the "unethical" part, not necessarily the implementation. I will cede a point here: calling it unethical may be a little bit too strong. But I definitely do not agree with the decision, for the following reason:

Knowing that a design change will cause a certain percentage of the user base to expose their personal information (which retroactively they did not wish to make public) while providing little added benefit to the end user is what bothers me.

Facebook is known for its perseverance in the face of user complaints, which I can respect. I thoroughly agree that at times user complaints and petitions (such as those against the various site redesigns) are unfounded, as there is a clear greater good. I do not see the greater good of the new public-pages push, and thus, do not respect the effort to push user information into a more public space.

If you could point out benefits users receive by making more of their information public, perhaps I could be convinced.

[edited for spelling]

IMO, the benefits are from having your interests represented in a structured format. For example, you can now go to Pandora, and Pandora knows what music you like [and what music your friends like]. You can start actually building up an identity and using it across the web. There are tons of possibilities for features useful to users that come from having a structured list of what you like and don't like. Hopefully you'll see Facebook make good on the promise to give you more useful things based on the structured information in the near future.

The privacy changes are a side effect of having these be connections instead of free text. Keep in mind the number of connections that an average user makes (all the Likes they attach to Pages, to Open Graph objects, friend connections) - would you have a Privacy control per connection? It's already not an easy task to keep the privacy controls so the average user can understand and use them correctly [and we can always improve this] -- just imagine the complexity we'd add to the system. What exists instead is the ability for you to control the visibility of all these connections on your own Profile. "Public" means that your association with these objects may appear elsewhere [for example, a friend may reveal that you're friends with them, or a Page may reveal you Like that Page.]. I think this is a decent balance between giving the user what they want primarily (to control whether visitors to their Profile see that they are connected to something), and managing overall complexity.

[Edit: this is my opinion, I perhaps don't know enough about the privacy decisions to represent them completely. ]

Any UI engineer worth his paycheck should know how users feel about dialog boxes that aren't manually triggered. They get in the way, users want to bypass them however possible, and they'll click wildly just to get to the other side of the fence.

It's not "unethical" in the strictest since of the word, but I'm sure you'll have a very hard time telling me it isn't an underhanded tactic just to make the user do what you want.

What would you suggest instead?

What would I suggest? I would suggest hiring UI engineers who actually perform A/B testing before rolling out another design iteration before users can even get used to them, and then I would apply those same principles of testing to things like this.

Secondly, I would give users better options what you're giving them right now. Letting FB do Link data automatically, or letting the user do it him/herself is a false choice if the user doesn't want to participate at all. The means lead to the same end, and the user is coerced into making a choice one way or another.

Thirdly: I would do a MUCH better job of designing these dialog boxes to inform users of what's about to happen. As it stands, users are simply going to think their data is simply getting reformatted, when that is not the case at all.

That's what I suggest, but honestly given the track record of Facebook actually listening to their user base, I honestly don't think any of what I said matters. Given that "what do you suggest" has been your retort on another comment very similar to mine.

Let me remind you, by the way-before you make an attempt to inform me otherwise about the 'opt-out' choice-, users are not left with much solace if they don't want their profiles linked to public places.

If you don’t want to connect to any Pages, the corresponding sections on your Profile will be empty. Connecting to Pages will now be the main way to express yourself on your profile, and you can always edit your profile to remove specific suggested Pages that you don't want to connect to.

This comes from your own FAQ on Facebook.com. What you're in essence saying, is that the only way users can tell their friends about where they've worked, where they've gone to school, what they are interested in, is to subject themselves to the public atmosphere that is Facebook Pages 2.0.

No. Absolutely not. I'm not buying that at all.

Re the second point:

IMO, Facebook isn't a finished product. The product changes in ways that are hopefully useful to the majority of users over time. It isn't always possible [and it isn't simple, and it adds complexity, and bugs, and it doesn't make sense] to maintain every feature that once existed -- the product would stagnate if we tried to do that.

The latter part of what you said is absolutely right. You can't continue to support old features and expect to thrive.

BUT what it seems that Facebook is lacking is a clear sense of direction when it comes to providing a platform that is accessible yet robust, interactive yet intuitive.

Your conjecture that the product changes in ways that are useful to the majority is a conjecture I refuse to buy because if you were to actually give your user base a chance, give them a voice and poll them, I'll bet my salary for the year 80% of them (techies and non-techies alike) will agree that Facebook has degraded to the point of being almost useless.

It's an evolution, and we're figuring things out as we go. This isn't territory that anyone has ever explored in the past.

As for your bet, the obvious counterargument is that 400 million users still visit the site every month, and I haven't seen any signs that that graph is even slowing down. Isn't that a more convincing statement than a poll or a forum with very vocal techies?

No.

Convincing is when you're able to build a platform and assimilate naturally evolving elements of what makes that platform great, and the community that exists on top of that platform to enhance the experience.

Interestingly enough: your prime competitor has done this exceptionally well.

Do you know who I'm talking about? Of course you do. I'm talking about Twitter. In fact, they've done it one hundred times better than your employer has.

It was an honest question, in the comment you responded to. You didn't actually include any suggestions, so I was curious.

All I can say in response to your answers is that Facebook engineers and designers are some of the smartest people I know.

I tend to think that if you're unsatisfied with what they're producing, (and assuming you're willing to accept that malice isn't the reason) then either

(a) the problems they're solving are really hard and you're underestimating these problems or

(b) you're much smarter than them - perhaps you can help us do a better job [drop me a line].

Mr Violet, listen. I don't doubt that you have some talented people, in fact I've seen it. Facebook has done things no Social Networking site before it has done, but that's how technology works. MySpace was the king of it's day, doing things Friendster didn't do and Facebook is doing things MySpace didn't do.

You don't have to tell me that the engineers and designers are smart and talented, however I need to make a rebuttal here.

(a) I have no idea what the problems Facebook are [trying] to solve. As far as I, as a user am concerned they haven't solved anything. They created problems when the design committee decided they will "test" a new iteration of how Facebook looks and operates every winter solstice. That is an issue for me because not only do I have to figure out where something I, and other users use on a daily basis, I now have to sit through another (n)weeks of users complaining about it because they don't have the technical fortitude to learn new technology.

That should be a wakeup call to Facebook. Not all users are made equal, not everyone can look at a UI and make an educated guess what elements to click in order to upload a new image. That is what prompted my comment that "any UI engineer worth his paycheck" should understand how vital it is not to assume users know everything.

Yet that is exactly what is crippling Facebook right now. By not assuming your users can do the things your development staff does, you've taken it too far and assumed they need to be guided by the hand and told what they want and what's best for them. The downvotes will come in two fold for me making this comment, but you're acting a lot like Apple is acting when it comes to the AppStore. Apple constantly gets frustrated blog posts from well meaning developers who have their applications rejected because it's not best for the user.

Let the user decide that.

Secondly.

(b) I dream for the day when technology plays as much a role role in developing social capital that money does, and I think it's great that Facebook came along and started doing things that really got people's heads to turn. The opportunity to be in the arena to participate in the endeavor to bring a technological approach to the development and longevity of social capital is an opportunity I would rarely turn down.

But if it's all the same, and no offense to you sir, I would never in my life work a day for Facebook.

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