I saw the notification for this site come in and was reading the latest BOFH column so in the comments for that article put a link to this site so hopefully all the old readers will come over….
Thanks Giles for posting the link, as not even a farewell article and if you would like to follow I am here for poor old Dabbsy. Honestly, what is happening to the old Reg, next they will take our BOFH from us and then what will do for Friday downtime.
My pet peeve is Web forms that tell me my email address is incorrect -- in bright red letters and extra asterisks -- before I've even got to the @ part.
How delightful. The form for login to this page when trying to post is a fixed size which is incompatible with the screen size on my iPad, so much lost white space and a need to go into portrait mode to see the buttons.
All of this is about as bad as the forms that say ‘Once you’ve saved your freeform input (max 4,000 characters) on this page you won’t be able to view/edit/remember this statement by the time you’ve got to page 6 of this form where we ask a similar but less obvious question so good luck trying not to make a mistake between your answers’.
Work is really bad for that in your submissions to it’s promotions board - enter once, forever fail to find the form or have the form builder receive an update and find the previous saved drafts rejected for not being in the latest version of the form.
Forget postcodes. I’ve got a much of an issue with forms that don’t give you enough space for the double-barrelled street name you need to give but they won’t accept it due to length or their input data source doesn’t even have it in their dropdown list so assume your postcode means a specific street. A shared postcode with two different streets is no good if you can’t identify the right house or street and their website does one thing and their printed delivery form does something different even with added delivery instructions that say ‘It’s the other street, get it right first time there’ll be tea and biscuits.’
Ah yes - phonenumbers and zip codes. But there is no way that they will ever try to contact you by phone or postal mail, so you can enter anything there. I usually go with the zip-code and phonenumber of the form owner contry's president/king/dictator residence.
Wandered over here from ElReg. Sorry to hear you've been told to FUCK OFF. Glad to know it's just a URL change. (and I share your dislike for coders of poor forms -- they'll be first against the wall when the Revolution comes)
My pet (pedantic) peeve is being asked for my nationality yet being presented with a drop-down list of countries, not nationalities.
But my favourite oddity was where the list of countries was written in German but ordered alphabetically according to their English names, so Großbritannien was down near the bottom where you’d expect “United Kingdom” to be 😀
Thank you, Dabbsy, for continuing to write. I recall El Reg dropping you previously a few years ago but they came back to their senses. With luck they will realize their mistake and SFTW can resume its rightful place. Until then, I shall continue to enjoy your writing here. Keep up the good work
The last couple of years has had folk talking about which existential crisis may end human "civilization". Climate; disease; war; all the old classics.
For some time though I've mused that it may be something simpler, related to the old adage of malice versus stupidity.
Whilst webforms are mostly only a minor annoyance, related carelessness could prove to be the cause ...
(and PS yes here too now due to folk asking and redirecting from BOFH comments)
if you think the French forms are bad you should try the Spanish ones. Then you would realize how lucky you are.
Sorry to hear about the demise of SFTW. Hope you keep up the good work here.
I saw the notification for this site come in and was reading the latest BOFH column so in the comments for that article put a link to this site so hopefully all the old readers will come over….
Thanks Giles for posting the link, as not even a farewell article and if you would like to follow I am here for poor old Dabbsy. Honestly, what is happening to the old Reg, next they will take our BOFH from us and then what will do for Friday downtime.
El Reg is losing its irreverence; maybe all the oldish IT dudes have moved on..
Yeah, was reading BOFH too, sadly, I think El Reg is slipping quietly into the same void Dabbsy lost his TIC code
It does seem like the Register is being 'improved' for future sale or suchlike.
Maybe SFTW was just too difficult to translate into American-ese ?
Giles, you saved my Friday!
My pet peeve is Web forms that tell me my email address is incorrect -- in bright red letters and extra asterisks -- before I've even got to the @ part.
Me too
(Crikey, I can’t drive the commentariat properly)
How delightful. The form for login to this page when trying to post is a fixed size which is incompatible with the screen size on my iPad, so much lost white space and a need to go into portrait mode to see the buttons.
All of this is about as bad as the forms that say ‘Once you’ve saved your freeform input (max 4,000 characters) on this page you won’t be able to view/edit/remember this statement by the time you’ve got to page 6 of this form where we ask a similar but less obvious question so good luck trying not to make a mistake between your answers’.
Work is really bad for that in your submissions to it’s promotions board - enter once, forever fail to find the form or have the form builder receive an update and find the previous saved drafts rejected for not being in the latest version of the form.
Forget postcodes. I’ve got a much of an issue with forms that don’t give you enough space for the double-barrelled street name you need to give but they won’t accept it due to length or their input data source doesn’t even have it in their dropdown list so assume your postcode means a specific street. A shared postcode with two different streets is no good if you can’t identify the right house or street and their website does one thing and their printed delivery form does something different even with added delivery instructions that say ‘It’s the other street, get it right first time there’ll be tea and biscuits.’
Ah yes - phonenumbers and zip codes. But there is no way that they will ever try to contact you by phone or postal mail, so you can enter anything there. I usually go with the zip-code and phonenumber of the form owner contry's president/king/dictator residence.
Wandered over here from ElReg. Sorry to hear you've been told to FUCK OFF. Glad to know it's just a URL change. (and I share your dislike for coders of poor forms -- they'll be first against the wall when the Revolution comes)
It's not Friday without "Shed of the Week" and Dabbsy
My pet (pedantic) peeve is being asked for my nationality yet being presented with a drop-down list of countries, not nationalities.
But my favourite oddity was where the list of countries was written in German but ordered alphabetically according to their English names, so Großbritannien was down near the bottom where you’d expect “United Kingdom” to be 😀
Thank you, Dabbsy, for continuing to write. I recall El Reg dropping you previously a few years ago but they came back to their senses. With luck they will realize their mistake and SFTW can resume its rightful place. Until then, I shall continue to enjoy your writing here. Keep up the good work
The last couple of years has had folk talking about which existential crisis may end human "civilization". Climate; disease; war; all the old classics.
For some time though I've mused that it may be something simpler, related to the old adage of malice versus stupidity.
Whilst webforms are mostly only a minor annoyance, related carelessness could prove to be the cause ...
(and PS yes here too now due to folk asking and redirecting from BOFH comments)