Social media usability: Facebook, Flickr and WordPress can blow me
Fucking bastards, every goddamned one of them.
Starting a few days ago Facebook seems to have “improved” the site again. All of a sudden, when you paste the URL of an image post from a WordPress site into the status box it doesn’t want to auto-load the image. Not only that, there is no way in hell, that I can figure out, how to end-run the user experience geniuses and make it load that image.
Now I see that fucking Flickr has “improved” their interface, too. It still does all the counterintuitive user-hating stuff it used to, only now in an even less user-friendly way. I’ve dealt with these cocksuckers enough that I was able to snoop around and finally figure out where they had hidden all the simple functionality, but we’ve gone from a couple clicks to find the little drop down menu on the other side of the page and go from there. This is the second round of enhancements since I signed up and if they continue in this direction I figure two more updates and you’ll need a PhD in computer science just to put an image in an album.
So I don’t know how I’m going to continue doing the things I have been doing fairly routinely. Posting 5280 Lens Mafia stuff is doable, only it loses a little of the magic of posting photos when FB won’t, you know, show you the fucking photos!
I guess I’ll just throw up the post and ask people to click through to the WP site to see the shot.
Speaking of WordPress, some time back they rolled out a new interface. Hate to be left behind as the only user-friendly experience on social media, I guess. For a while it was possible to keep using the old “Classic” interface, which was – and I can’t stress this enough – better in every motherfucking way. They’d periodically flash up a little poll asking why you weren’t using the new interface, but “because it sucks moose ass” was never one of the options.
Finally, they decided to quit fucking around with us and make the new interface mandatory for everyone who wasn’t smart enough to figure out where they hid the old one. Fine, I’ll do the workaround, and thank you self-absorbed wanker assclowns for making the process of using your service just a little more annoying than it used to be.
I got your beep beep boop right here, bitches.
[sigh]
While I’m here, I strongly encourage everyone to join me over at Ello, where they don’t hate users at all. They actually devote a lot of energy to trying to make it easier on us. They’re still in beta so they aren’t all the way there yet, but they’re making headway. If you do come over, I’m @doc.
Meanwhile, there is a line around the block of people who can blow me. The UX teams at Flickr and WordPress, as well as … well, fucking everybody at Facebook can go to the end and wait your goddamned turn.
BTW, here’s the image I was trying to post. I’m not sure it was even worth the effort, but what the heck, I’m willing to suffer for my art….
lullaby pit 
I have a long running love-hate relationship with Flickr. I have been through the terrible throes of several interface changes, all of which I have progressively hated. I liked Flickr’s interface before Aug. 2010. Before Yahoo. Today the interface is worst and now they are AUTO TAGGING our photos, many of it wrongly and there is no global opt out. Near the end of my rope on Flickr.
I concur on every point, as I’ve had the same issues you cite. Whatever happened to this logic: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fuck with it.”
Maybe just post on your own site/server. No need to use free services and complain that way.
Wow, that was helpful, especially for everyone out there who lacks the tech savvy and resources to build their own sites. Yep, if you want basic usability, you need to shut the fuck up and do it yourself.
What do you do at Facebook, by the way?
You work for Flickr or something?
Incidentally, Scholars & Rogues and 5280 Lens Mafia, if I am not mistaken, aren’t free WordPress sites. They’re independent domains that pay for hosting but have WordPress installed on them as a blogging and content management platform. This also goes for my own two photography blogs (see links below).
So if the Suck Factor is high on a product one pays for where WordPress is a component, one has every fucking right to complain.
http://brisbanegraphicartsmuseum.com/smallstories/
http://brisbanegraphicartsmuseum.com/pictopticon/
Actually, both of these sites are currently free wp.com hosted sites, although S&R does pay for some upgrades. We used to be self-hosted running WP software a few years ago, then switched back. So the takeaway is that we know both worlds. And yes, we do pay a bit.
Oh.
Well then I’m just scandalized.
Not just social media, I’ve got an iPad from work and I finally updated the OS and man, it’s ugly, and except for one thing, not an improvement at all.
I loved Webshots for images and used them for 15 years, but then they changed direction and basically shut down for public users. I moved to Flickr but just lost heart.
Hear, hear
things were so much better in the good old days. by god back when ike was running things we didnt have ads on facebook. you can betcha ass old ike didnt tolerate such nonsense.
tom’s right and we all know it. if we arent willing to do it ourselves and pay for it ourselves, then we either tolerate endless panhandling (like NPR and PBS) or constant interruptions
Mate. I totally agree with u about FaceBook. Fuckin cunts will just steal your account (Like they did to me), at a moments notice.
Flickr was too good to be true. A wonderful place once, spent many an hour perusing there. At least we still have Shorpy, dammit…