Redirect "friends" page to correct url

[jbanana]

Title:
Redirect "friends" page to correct url

Area:
usability

Summary:
There is no "/friends" page on DW, but if someone tries to go there it seems obvious that they meant "/read", so autiomatically redirecting them is helpful and won't cause any harm.

Description:
A redirect from "/friends" to "/read" would help some apps (and manual url typers) that assume there is a "/friends" page. For example, Semagic has a "what are my friends doing" option that assumes this.

The current response is a 404 page, which isn't very helpful: if I'm looking at http://exampleusername.dreamwidth.org/friends there is no link to the user's reading page

Poll #1185 Redirect "friends" page to correct url

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 50

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
22 (44.0%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
21 (42.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
4 (8.0%)

(I have no opinion)
3 (6.0%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[melannen]

I think it's a good idea to keep the DW "reading" concept well separated from old-style friendslists, and a simple redirect would make it too easy for people to migrate but keep ignoring the distinction.

I do think something more than the standard 404 page might be a good idea, though. Maybe a link but not an automatic redirect.

[ratcreature]

+1

[cesy]

+1

[ninetydegrees]

+1

[kyrielle]

I don't know that it matters if people ignore the distinction. Even on LJ, /friends may not contain everyone you list as a "friend" since you may have a Default View group. To me, /friends means "the people what I read here" basically. That said, I could live with a link. The current 404 is misleading to new users and frustrating to existing ones whose habits still lead them to type it, tho. (Especially if, say, we're also still using LJ / LJ clones and thus do routinely use /friends on sites that don't have /read at all.)

[Edited because "description" and "distinction" are two different words and wow does this make less sense with the wrong one.]

Edited again to add: and the point about existing apps designed for LJ but working with DW not knowing about /read is good too. An extra click every time would get old.

[melannen]

I would like to agree, except a large part of the reason why the name was changed in the first place is that the term "friends" really does make a difference to a lot of people - names matter, and some people can't stop thinking that friendslist means actual friends you have pinky-sworn with, just because of the word.

The tons of drama that word generated on LJ is, I believe, why they've gone to so much trouble to scrub the friends terminology from DW, and why it might be a bad idea to let it drift back in through redirects.

(also, I've been almost dw-exclusive since beta, and I keep typing "read" on LJ instead, and getting frustrated because I can't subscribe without trusting unless I want to mess with filters. It doesn't take that long to reprogram.)

I'd be willing to support an auto-redirect that only works for clients (if that's possible), except that a lot of the flist functionality in clients is *never* going to work with DW, because of the fundamentally different architecture (things like flist management) and it might almost be more confusing if only one or two of them worked than if none of them did.

[kyrielle]

But I'm not suggesting you remove /read and add /friends or even link /friends anywhere. I'm suggesting you add a straight redirect to /friends because people are used to it. Presumably with a delay (because instant redirects are Evil - page-traps are bad), so perhaps we could compromise with an intermediary page that says "Dreamwidth does not have a 'friends' page; we have access lists and reading lists. You will be redirected to (name)'s 'reading' page in 5 seconds."?

What I hear when people say things like you are saying, in the subtext, is "our way is better" (true, I agree) "and so you are bad for having habits / wanting it your way" - that last may not be what you mean but it is what I get every time I hear this argument. Because I fail to see how adding a /friends page that NO ONE will see UNLESS they have that habit (or that client), and which will always change to /read in the address bar, is going to cause any new drama that didn't already exist. But I can see how an irritating 404 or a link-click required every time would cause drama; it's irritating me even now (and I have gotten irritated every time someone has defended it), and I haven't even screwed that up in a while. (Okay, actually, I got annoyed enough at my mishaps, and convinced enough that Dreamwidth cared more about Its Theories than about actually usability for people, to give up and bookmark the darned thing. On all three relevant systems, in multiple browsers per in some cases.)

Semagic posts pretty well here, or did last time I checked. These days I use the web interface since a) I'm interested in crossposting and b) I often access from my iPhone anyway.

It doesn't take long to reprogram your habits if you're not still using other systems...and, for that matter, if you don't have any cognitive disabilites, so this might actually be an accessibility issue in a few cases. (Then again, I don't have any diagnosed disabilities, and I still got horribly frustrated. There have also been reports of people who didn't think DW had anything LIKE the concept because they tried /friends and got a 404, though I grant a page with a link would at least clue them in. It'd just get really old for people who kept getting back to it and having to click through.) It's actually kind of a b**** if you have to remember /friends there and /read here and you use both regularly, in my opinion.

Backwards compatability (even with habits, never mind clients) is a good thing.

[syderia]

This.

[melannen]

The intermediate page with the delay redirect would work for me as a compromise, though I'd prefer the clickthrough - I just don't want the invisible redirect, because that leads to people not noticing there's a difference at all.

I do get your point about the annoyance, though. I guess for me, it's about emphasizing that DW *is* different, and the subscribing system *is* different - you wouldn't get annoyed at having to use a different URL to get to your twitter feeds or your facebook wall, would you? The reading page isn't a friends page, and a lot of people at DW want that viewpoint shift to happen. (For people who don't want it to shift or don't care it probably seems overly stubborn, but changing things is part of what DW is *for*.)

Semagic posts fine, but if you want to use it for things like changing friends colors or adding friends it chokes horribly. Although now that I've checked, the "friends view" option in Semagic does already go to a DW read page, so this whole part of the discussion is already over and you won. :D

The bit about people not knowing, or having extra trouble remembering, is important, though, which is why, yes, I think there should at least be a link.

Backwards compatibility is good, but sometimes you want to *change* the habits.

[susanreads]

I'd prefer a page with a link: "Did you mean /read?"

Wouldn't a redirect break the Back button? If it has a delay it could be too tedious for some people and still not give enough time to navigate past it for others.

[kyrielle]

But a new habit breaks my use of LJ (as you noted you sometimes type /read there). And if I had to pick between the two sites and absolutely couldn't use the other, Dreamwidth would get tossed immediately. I love the concept and I hope it goes great places but the vast majority of the people I want to read are on LJ. As it is, I'll use both because the difference is an annoyance and bookmarks mostly get me around it. But I don't want my use of LJ broken by DW's desire to force new habits on me.

And Twitter and Facebook aren't blogs or journaling sites, they are microblogs...and they don't look like LJ. Dreamwidth, for all that it is different, is based on and therefore looks and feels a lot like LJ. It has a navbar, it has the same type of styling, same mix of entries by multiple people on one page. I get that the label of that page on LJ is problematic and poorly-chosen, but even renamed and split into two pieces (something that, IMO, badly needed to happen) it's still a concept I haven't seen on a full-fledged blog or journal software other than an LJ clone or derivative.

DW trips my years of LJ habits just by how it looks. It tells me, by its visuals, that is what it is. I realize you also want it to tell me it's different, but I'd like it to do that without clubbing me over the head with a brick every time. The headache gets old and, while I realize the distinction is important to some people? I honestly don't care. I just want to go read the stupid posts without so much hassle.

I'm glad to know that Semagic does work for the friends view, though. That gets rid of concern for that client and maybe for all clients, and just leaves the question of when I type the page manually (or select the wrongly-typed friends page from a list of things I have typed before). I suppose a link would do for that although I still think it is annoying to add an extra manual step.

[cheyinka]

Yes, I like the idea of a "Did you mean?" page, possibly with an explanation (especially for logged-out users).

[turlough]

+1

[existence]

This.

[kerravonsen]

+1

[instantramen]

+1

[zvi]

+1

[slybrarian]

+1

[musyc]

+1

[msilverstar]

I like the auto-redirect, I don't think people need to be taught the Dreamwidth Way every single time. And anyone who types into the location bar is likely to catch on to the change to /read very quickly. Why make things difficult for people? One of the email RFPs says it very nicely: be strict about what you send out and liberal about what you receive.