= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
SilasBarta comments on I can't see comments anymore -- what was recently changed? - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (45)
If I had the option to use a different browser from where I'm trying to access LW, do you think I would be posting the issue in the first place?
Nor was "Silas is too stupid to try a different, non-MS browser when one won't render LW correctly."
That LW doesn't work in IE7 is an important issue irrespective of whether you can use a different browser, as it affects other users, not just yourself. So maybe you wouldn't be posting it, but you'd ought to.
Well, yes, so that would be a second reason why your initial reply was unhelpful, sorry for not mentioning it in my first response.
Btw, it's not just that "IE7 won't show comments"; it's that, "IE7 was showing comments just fine a few days ago, so did anything change on the site to break that functionality?"
Simple things get overlooked all the time; don't form an ugh field around the hypothesis that something stupid was overlooked, by yourself or any other smart person you know. The low-hanging fruit is often in not making stupid mistakes, so the priority should be ensuring they are not made, rather than signaling improbability of making them and punishing others for signaling that it's conceivable that you made one.
(And thus surgeons don't use checklists, I'm guessing.)
Why is this getting modded up? Can someone explain to me which "stupid thing" could have been overlooked, and which would result in me reporting that IE7 rendered comments correctly yesterday but not today, and which is rectified by me being told to stop using IE7? That's a completely different approach from "let's check everything that could go wrong, even those involving stupid errors", and so is not justified by Vladimir's lecture about ugh fields and overconfidence.
"don't form an ugh field around the hypothesis that something stupid was overlooked"
That's why I upvoted. I can't speak for others, but my prior for p(site issue) is pretty low. You do not seem to have exhausted the possibility that something was changed on your end without your knowledge.
Good point, so remember to phrase your brilliant insight next time as, "Does it work in other browsers?", and be sure to pay attention to such details as "It was working a day ago, but not now" so that you know it's not merely a problem of using the wrong browser.
Great troubleshooting advice there, let's make sure to follow it in the future.
Also -- I'd advise against flipping between, "use a different browser" and "wait! It might matter for other people if a specific browser doesn't work, so don't dismiss the problem just because you can avoid it that way."
Sarcastic responses aren't generally very productive. (I may be misreading this, but I don't think I am.)
And you're leaping to the conclusion that it's something on LW's end. I'd be surprised if anything changed at all - it seems more likely to me that something changed on your end without your knowledge, in terms of the security settings at your work.
Furthermore, information on other browsers is relevant. P(Site issue|Broken on other browsers) > P(Site issue|Not broken on other browsers).
I didn't leap to conclusions: I noted that the site worked fine on IE7 until very recently, which suggests that IE7 is not the problem. It's a datapoint that you still don't seem to have accounted for, considering that you're taking its performance on other browsers to be relevant to the matter of why LW stopped working at a specific time on (at least) one browser.
(Note: as I am involved in this exchange, I'm not modding down anyone's comments, including yours.)
And if you're not downvoting my posts (and this isn't meant as an accusation of lying) I'd like to know why other people are, I don't see anything fallacious about them.
Edit: Perhaps it's because I started writing a sentence, went off to write something else, and forgot to come back and finish it. I'll go change that. :-)
I voted some of your comments down (as well as some of Silas') because you seemed unnecessarily confrontational, and to a lesser extent because I disagree with your priors.
Ah, thanks for explaining. I don't feel I was especially confrontational though, especially given Silas's tone. Could you point out what made you feel that way?
No, for the time being you should probably stick with the hypothesis that it was because you were writing Nesov-style unhelpful comments.
No, for the time being, I'll develop my own hypotheses, and not be told what to think.
But you're just being rude at this point. I started out posting what information I had, in an attempt to be helpful. As Nesov did. And now you're just insulting both of us. I have no intention of continuing this further.
Well obviously IE7 didn't change - I'm not suggesting that it did. But it's possible that something changed with the security settings on your work computer(s), which would cause strange things. Maybe security software was added to the computers or something.
Sure, and it's possible something in LW's software or dependencies changed. Both are low-probability. I'm seeking answers on my end. I'm also asking here if there were any changes on this end so that I can distinguish which one is more likely.
You have no evidence to offer that would favor one possibility over another, and yet you post anyway, and rather confidently. Why?
Well, as I've said, my prior for p(site issue) is fairly low. Especially given that several other people have suggested (in other browsers) that they're seeing things fine. And I don't mean to imply certainty. You're correct - the only evidence I have is what has been posted in the comments here. I'm just trying to propose an alternative hypothesis, that you hadn't seemed to consider. If you had, then I apologize for the redundancy, but you made no mention of this possibility in your OP.
The issue is the strength of your emotional reaction, not quality of the advice. We both agree advice is useless, but it looks like we disagree about your reaction.
(The useful content of my comment was mostly presenting the results of trying IE6, generalizing to other IEs, and concluding that it's probably not the security restrictions specific to your setup that are at fault, but lack of maintenance for the whole browser lineage.)
What would have been the appropriate reaction for me in the blank?
Me: Comments used to be visible on IE7, but not anymore. What changed?
You: Don't use IE7.
Me: I wouldn't be asking if had that option.
You: That doesn't matter, it means there's a problem even if you had an option, because other people might use IE7!
Me: ____
So what's the story? I describe the parameters of a problem the site is having, and you knowingly post unhelpful comments that aren't even consistent? Sorry if I'm not optimally prepared for people who are just going to troll bug reports.
My answer is unhelpful, and would be even more so if there was nothing else in my comment.
You used words "posting the issue". I think that you should've posted even if you had that option, posted for an entirely different reason, which becomes relevant specifically in the hypothetical where you have that option (being located in the hypothetical, this reason can easily be "inconsistent" with ones relevant in reality, in our case perhaps in the sense of not sharing relevance with them). I agree that this consideration has nothing to do with (1) helpfulness of "use a different browser" (we both agree it's unhelpful), and (2) strength of emotional reaction to "use a different browser" (we disagree, as I believe it's useful to not have a strong reaction in such cases, so as not to miss other low-hanging fruit that might be perceptually similar). As such, it's a completely unrelated point, and shouldn't be taken as acting on other elements of this conversation. (But it's a valid point, I think we both agree on that as well.)
Good point, that edit I made was a rationalization.