Re: My Perl-ish Neo-Gavinist Manifesto

[shmem]

I personally believe that this meditation would fit better in Perl Monks Discussion.

A few people sent me messages via the Message Inbox that I could see under the 'Chatterbox' heading. More than once I admit to not using this messaging feature (even when I saw messages in there for me) because I sort of hate looking at that screen.

Not responding to private messages on pretext of interface ugliness reminds me of that old joke about a professor rejecting a thesis because the ink is ugly and the paper is from the wrong type of tree.

And well yes, this screen probably is ugly, but it is meant for archiving/managing messages, not primarily for reading or sending them.

All messages you get are displayed in the 'Chatterbox' nodelet, and replying to any of them is as easy as clicking into the talkbox, type e.g.

/msg InfiniteSilence you should consider the age of this site

and click 'talk'. Private message done.

Another way of sending private messages is Message Outbox which sports a very streamlined interface.

That being said, yes:

Agree that UIs must subscribe to the philosophy of constant experimentation and rework for improvement

I do agree. But it is all a matter of priorities. This site has limited resources, and each resource is limited in one or another way.