Your website is not a truck

Jeff Atwood on exactly how much attention to pay to feedback.

1. 90% of all community feedback is crap.
2. Don't get sweet talked into building a truck.
3. Be honest about what you won't do.
4. Listen to your community, but don't let them tell you what to do.
5. Be there for your community.

⟿ Follow Rob Beschizza on Twitter.

MORE: navelgazing

More at Boing Boing

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Hackers prepare for first "national holiday" in their honor

http://chicagoscooterclub.com Chicago_SC

My love for you is like a truck, Berserker
http://twitter.com/ShirtNinja K. Williams

My website is a series of tubes, though.
- niktemadur
  
  I came here looking for that old geezer senator reference and leave satisfied.
  
  Expanding it a bit further:
  Your website is not a dumptruck, it’s a series of tubes.
gerardwhelan

5. Be there for your community (who are 90% crap, see no. 1).hi to Antonius
- http://boingboing.net/ Rob Beschizza
  
  His point is that you listen to everyone, but you ignore most of it.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    So am I a parking ticket? Or an emergency brake?
    - gerardwhelan
      
      you are the repo guy. sweaty, unshaven, heartless, and on a mission.
      and to Rob, thanks! without your setting that straight for me, it was destined to go right over my head.
      that list looks like how Harper runs Canada.
    - http://boingboing.net/ Rob Beschizza
      
      The guy on the boat walking up and down the aisle, whipping the rowers.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        I’d rather be the guy in the dungeon with the Rancor.
      - niktemadur
        
        The guy doing incantations in Isengard, blocking the Pass Of Caradhras with avalanches.
        
        Or acknowledging the SW reference, the orc with the cave troll in Moria.
    - Halloween Jack
      
      You’re the guy with Darmok at Tenagra.
- niktemadur
  
  ANTONIUS, LOL! Latin version of Tony!
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Of course, that’s not actually my screen name.
http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

Well, while on the subject of feedback you should ignore…

Several times lately I’ve wondered what ever happened to several stories I’ve seen here. If you have interns/coops/groupies that want to get a front page credit here, perhaps they could sift through the archives to follow up past posts with an omnibus “where are they now?”

The one that comes first to mind is a blacksmith or metal sculptor in Tennessee who seemed to get unfairly railroaded into suspicion of planning some kind of bombing… hmmm, not finding it through search…
http://dustindriver.com dustindriver

But, but…. I run a website about trucks!
- CountSmackula
  
  What’s Atwood got against trucks?
boo

In re Rule # 1: please refer to Sturgeon’s Revelation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_Law
http://www.grebmar.net/ Grebmar

Yeah what’s the business with the truck mean?
- Hanglyman
  
  Well, 90% of a truck is crap. Wait, no. Each truck is a community of… parts… that you should pay attention to, like if there’s a flat tire, but don’t let them tell you how to drive the truck. Be honest to your truck, but don’t let it talk you into building a second truck (a mate, I guess) for it.
  
  Yeah, I have no idea either.
  
  EDIT: Okay, reading the article, it makes a little more sense… if you assume your website is a car, and everything that doesn’t really fit with its intended original purpose is truck-like and shouldn’t be added to make a car-truck hybrid. Still kind of an awkward analogy, really.
  - That_Anonymous_Coward
    
    No el caminos on da webs… check
    
    and I’ll just leave this here…
    http://blogs.cars.com/.a/6a00d83451b3c669e201156fbb0732970c-800wi
  - Halloween Jack
    
    The problem with a coupé utility is that they look cute (for certain values of “cute”, anyway) but their beds are too small for a lot of things; I think that they tend to get bought (the few people who buy them, anyway) by people who don’t need to haul stuff in a truck that often, and therefore think that they can get by with a truck bed that isn’t very big. This is rarely true, and quite often coupé utility owners end up getting the aftermarket cap for the bed, a backhanded admission that they should have ended up going with a station wagon or crossover (0r, of course, just renting a truck on the few occasions that they really needed it) in the first place.
    
    Now, I see a lot of full-size pickup drivers who don’t really need a truck, either, but that’s another rant.
Sativa Joe

Yeah, the BB post doesn’t provide context – essentially, he’s saying, you built your website to serve a purpose like a car serves a purpose – users may ask for things like power windows, or air conditioning. These are legitimate and doable requests. But when they start asking you to bolt a truck-bed onto the car, then you need to “gently” redirect them to the nearest truck dealership.