Internet Pet Peeves

[27bored]

Let's list some online pet peeves we have. I'll start:

Hey YouTube? For ten frillionth time NO I don't want to display my real name! Stop harassing me every time I log on about which name I want to display.

And it doesn't make you a martyr because you want to have an annoying sig or avatar that everyone has to see every time you post and then a mod removed it. Have some goddamn couth and stop being an asshole.

Edited May 5, 2015 by 27bored

[methodwriter85]

 

Hey YouTube? For ten frillionth time NO I don't want to display my real name! Stop harassing me every time I log on about which name I want to display.

 

I just don't get the current obsession social media conglomerates have about everyone using their real names. It used to be considered smart not to give out any personal information about themselves.

[Joe]

Autoplaying videos. I like listening to my own music, and when I click on a link I don't always know that there's an autoplaying video embedded.

[ketchuplover]

I think everyone should have access to the DARK WEB

[Joe]

I think that pretty much everyone can, they just need the knowhow. It's not something I've investigated much. The regular internet is enough for me. Look up something called tor, I think that's a start.

[Qoass]

I respect that websites depend on advertising to pay for their content but it is so pervasive and annoying on Slate that I don't visit there as much as I used too.

[blueray]

I can't stand when people make ships or other fan videos regarding the actors. These are real people, it's just wrong. Its good to use the characters, but not the actual actors.

[AndreaK1041]

I use weather.com and the amount of advertising and click bait almost obscures the weather forecast at this point.

[Kalliste]

I can't stand when people make ships or other fan videos regarding the actors. These are real people, it's just wrong. Its good to use the characters, but not the actual actors.

I hate this in Buzzfeed videos. although they're acting they use their real names and it just seems weird.

[inkworks]

I think everyone should have access to the DARK WEB

Oooohh! What is the dark web??

[Cranberry]

Facebook, when I set my news feed to "most recent," I want it to stay that way. Stop switching back to "top stories" every few hours! And while you're at it, why don't you try putting the supposed most recent stories in reverse chronological order instead of whatever nonsense you're doing now?

[Kalliste]

Ugh that reminds me of the twitter 'while you were away' No Twitter, I wasn't away, I just looked at my feed on another device. I've seen all these things already!

[EllieH]

Websites that want you to login with Facebook and then, whether you do or not, suggest you should post something to Facebook about their website.  For example, no thanks, apartment complex, I really don't want to let all my friends/ family/ coworkers/ etc. know that I just paid my rent and water bill (though maybe I should, with additions -- #notgettingevicted #adultfinancialresponsibility).

[Kalliste]

Oh, you made me remember.. when you go to a website and try to leave a comment but they only give you the option of facebook! No!

[JTMacc99]

Oh, you made me remember.. when you go to a website and try to leave a comment but they only give you the option of facebook! No!

I have an entire phony facebook account just for that.  Facebook and Google collect WAY too much information about me as it is.

[Kalliste]

Don't get me started on Google+ ...!!!! I refuse to have it after I signed up and it made me use my full name on everything on an account which was previously an anonymous account.

 

Then I removed it and they  limit what you can do, so annoying.

[Joe]

The way that unmoderated comment threads so often turn to shit. Someone may question something, or be a bit sarcastic. Someone else will always interpret it in the worst way and jump straight into a fight. I'm thinking mostly of Youtube and IMDB here. Do people really have to be so hostile? It's terrible.

[roseha]

Websites that insist on my date of birth.  No, you are not getting it.  I recently bought a Nokia Windows cell phone as a backup after misplacing my iPhone, and Microsoft won't let you download any apps without your date of birth.  Tough, Microsoft, I guess I don't want your apps.

[Kalliste]

Windows phones in general are the worst. I have one for work and while it is fine in a professional setting I'd never have it as a personal phone. And yes, the app store on it is terrible.

 

In a similar way I hate that you have to use itunes to look up books, apps etc for apple products. The other day I was looking for a book and wanted to see if I could get it for iBooks but I didn't have my ipad on me at the time. It doesn't give you the option to browse unless you're doing it through itunes.. google on the other hand you can search for stuff through your browser and then send anything you want to any device you have remotely. So much better.

 

Where the book was concerned I ended up getting annoyed about the apple limitations and bought it in about 30 seconds through amazon.

[caitmcg]

No, a forum or comments moderator removing your post is not a violation of your First Amendment right to free speech. 

[roseha]

Autoplaying videos. I like listening to my own music, and when I click on a link I don't always know that there's an autoplaying video embedded.

 

That's a major pet peeve of mine when I'm reading any kind of story online.   Sometimes I am on the web late at night and the last thing I want is some loud video starting up.  It's easy enough for them to just put a start button if they want to.

[Blergh]

I'm not sure if this is for providers or users but: why do so many folks using this seem unable to accept that there are others with differing points of view  . I mean, to give a somewhat hypothetical example,  it's not enough for 50 thousand folks to click that they like something but instead being grateful to those who liked it , focus and rant , because ONE person clicks  they dislike a poster's YouTube video of their uncle performing "The Star Spangled Banner" with his armpits doesn't mean that that person who didn't like it was an unpatriotic, infidel subhuman! Sheesh! 

[StatisticalOutlier]

Re: giving your birth date on web sites -- do what I do, pick a random month and day, but use the actual year (to prove I'm over 18).

 

I did that for a fake FB account, but then didn't log in in a long time and the next time I tried, it wouldn't let me and said I needed to verify my account by giving my birth date.  I have no idea what I put, so I can't use that account any more.  So if you do make up a birth date for a website, write it down. 

 

I am beyond pissed that Google is no longer a boolean search engine.  No matter how carefully I craft my search terms, I get all sorts of garbage that has nothing to do with what I'm looking for because it's reshaping my search terms into some sort of context search.  It's become basically useless to me now.

[random chance]

Use a holiday for your fake birthday and the actual year - that way you only have to remember the holiday.  I use April 1.  (If you don't want to use the real year -- 4-1-1941.) 

[AuntiePam]

Unmoderated forums!  Amazon is the worst.  Occasionally you'll see a "Post Deleted by Amazon" but that's rare, and only if the post is heavily reported as Abuse.

 

Posters are allowed to edit and delete their posts at any time, days or weeks later.  Allowing an edit is fine -- who doesn't want to leave an embarrassing typo?  But these people routinely start arguments, then go back and change their posts. 

 

Trolling posters frequently change their posting names, and socks are everywhere. 

[StatisticalOutlier]

I was bitching upthread about Google no longer working for me, and I've found that I'm not imagining things.  If you're frustrated with Google results not being what you're really asking for, you can try using this for your search (I don't see a way to make the "search" box in my toolbar use this instead of regular google, so I have this one as a bookmark in my toolbar):

 

https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=li:1

 

It goes to a "verbatim" search rather than the "fuzzy" searches that google does now.  (Like, it won't ignore quotation marks you use to search for a phrase; one of my biggest annoyances with regular google is that it stopped letting you search for a phrase.)  It's nowhere near perfect, but it's better than regular google, although that's really not that hard to do. 

 

If you're interested, here's an intelligent and insightful discussion about the whole thing (although I'll note that some of the information is bogus, like telling people to use + because that hasn't worked in google for a long time).  If you're frustrated and want some validation, it's a real good read.

 

https://ask.slashdot.org/story/15/06/18/1227238/ask-slashdot-are-there-any-search-engines-left-that-dont-try-to-think-for-me

[NutMeg]

I was bitching upthread about Google no longer working for me, and I've found that I'm not imagining things.  If you're frustrated with Google results not being what you're really asking for, you can try using this for your search (I don't see a way to make the "search" box in my toolbar use this instead of regular google, so I have this one as a bookmark in my toolbar):

 

https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=li:1

 

It goes to a "verbatim" search rather than the "fuzzy" searches that google does now.  (Like, it won't ignore quotation marks you use to search for a phrase; one of my biggest annoyances with regular google is that it stopped letting you search for a phrase.)  It's nowhere near perfect, but it's better than regular google, although that's really not that hard to do. 

 

Good to know, thanks, I've bookmarked it and will give it a try.

 

So far, when I don't want a "fuzzy", I use Ixquick, which isn't bad, but doesn't have as big a database, it seems. Or Qwant, but mostly because I like how it looks :)  

[StatisticalOutlier]

Both of those are aimed more at keeping google from tracking you, which I endorse.  I tried ixquick a while back (when it was still called startpage) because it said it used google, but in a way that made your searches private.  But I wasn't getting anywhere near the results I should have been getting, and I didn't see any way it had to do with not knowing my previous search history.  So I'm not sure exactly how their searches happen,and it was ineffective enough that I quit using it.

 

When I searched for Mr. Outlier's name (unique when spelled like he does, much more common with variations) on qwant, the top of the results page was "shopping" and a bunch of wallpaper samples.  Definitely not what I was looking for.

 

It's such a shame.  Back in the early days of Google, it was SOOOO nice to have such a simple, effective search engine that looked for what you asked for, using a pretty darn good algorithm, and displayed the results in a list of text.  Even when they started doing advertising, it was bearable because was possible, with a little thinking, to separate the wheat from the chaff.  But now with advertising so integrated into all of google, including its search results ranking system, you just can't.  

[NutMeg]

I undersand your points about ixquick and qwant. Might be worth giving them another try, I've found they have much improved in the last couple of years, though it could be because I'm mostly using the French versions to look up press articles on specific topics I'm doing work on in French (both are European search engine, maybe this explains that...

 

And that reminds me that having saved "Google old style", I haven't used it much yet, so I'll have to come back and report in a few weeks.

[FanOfDorks]

I like to join a forum where I can escape the real world at my own pace.

But as soon I get told I must post everyday or lose my membership there that puts me off & I have deleted myslef from boards in the past for this.

Thankfully the ones I'm on ATM are good :)

[random chance]

1 hour ago, FanOfDorks said:

I like to join a forum where I can escape the real world at my own pace.

But as soon I get told I must post everyday or lose my membership there that puts me off & I have deleted myslef from boards in the past for this.

Thankfully the ones I'm on ATM are good :)

Wow boards are actually making that rule these days? I know it's tough times for forums but that seems like it would just drive people away.

[Joe]

I've never heard of a forum that does that. And frankly, I don't have something to say every day.

However, I do know of a couple of forums that kind of died because people stopped coming. So maybe they're on to something.

[GaT]

I've never heard of this either, but it doesn't make any sense to me. In order to have lots of people posting, you remove people who only post occasionally? I'm guessing that the number of posts somehow determines ad revenue, so even if people post only occasionally, it's still more than if they didn't post at all. 

[StatisticalOutlier]

Here's a specific internet peeve--some sites are discontinuing having comments.  I know that for news sites, the comments are generally nothing I want to go anywhere near, so no loss there.

But the NPR interview show Fresh Air has discontinued comments.  They say you can "discuss" the show on Facebook or Twitter or whatever.  But I'm way behind on listening, so how am I supposed to find what people said about an interview from last March on Facebook or Twitter (not to mention that I'm not ON Facebook or Twitter)?

And even if it was a recent show, the comments would be all mixed in with other recent shows, or even other topics, and I want to read what people thought about a particular interview, not everything else under the sun. 

The comments for Fresh Air shows, in particular, tended to be thoughtful and enlightening.  Sometimes I'll think, "Are other people reacting to this the same way I am?"  I used to be able to find out.  Not any more.

[StatisticalOutlier]

Well, not the internet per se, but the people on the internet (it's always the people):

Product reviews like this:  "The package was received in good condition. Item looks sturdy. I look forward to trying this item."  I get peeved enough at people who post glowing reviews after using something a couple of minutes.  But not having used it at all??  Sheeesh.

Or this actual Q&A on a water bottle on Amazon:

Quote

Q:  Is this BPA-free?
 
A:  I no longer have the packaging, so I can't say for sure.
By Mokabean on January 12, 2014

Yet Mokabean answered another question on the same item with this:

Quote

 

Q:  How much does this item weigh? I know several people who would be VERY interested in it for backpacking if the weight is right.

Very light weight.
By Cindy on October 16, 2014

13.2 ounces according my postal scale.
By Mokabean on October 17, 2014

 

So Mokabean saw the not-all-that-helpful answer from Cindy, and went to the trouble to weigh the damn thing to the tenth of an ounce.  Maybe Mokabean regretted that stupid answer to the BPA question, to the extent that 9 months later s/he was looking for a way to make amends.  

Let's hope Cindy has the same transformation--"very lightweight" to a backpacker is no better than "I don't know."

Or, I saw a Yelp review of a hotel the other day.  There was a photo of the room, and I noticed the bedclothes were all mussed up, which I didn't think was all that appropriate for a review of a hotel room, especially when there are already a million other photos of people's rooms.  But okay.  Then I noticed there were people in the photo sleeping!  They were lying (one on each bed) so you couldn't see their faces, but still!

[random chance]

Maybe you know this but in case you don't - that is one of the options on the form when Amazon sends you a question, a button you can click for "I don't know." Personally I wish they also had an option for "read the product description and/or previous answers! Jeez!" I still get questions for something I bought two years ago that has over a hundred questions and answers, many of them repeated, and many of the answers are right there in the product description.

Also I think a lot of people don't realize they aren't asking the manufacturer (because they don't bother to read that part). I don't mind helping someone out, but I'm not going to be on the phone all day for them finding out if something is BPA free.

[StatisticalOutlier]

Wait, Amazon sends these questions to people?  I thought people posted them and other people just answered. 

But why would they have an "I don't know" option?  Do people get incentives for answering questions, and an "I'm sorry, I don't know" counts as an answer?  Because it's beyond useless, as in useless and annoying.

[Qoass]

When Amazon offers a movie that will be coming out on DVD or digital in the coming weeks, I get irritated by people who review the movie itself.  There are a few billion ways to find out if the movie is any good.  What I want to know is whether the extras are any good or if the transfer is of poor quality.  But you helpful little reviewers don't know that yet because you haven't bought it yet either!

[random chance]

10 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

Wait, Amazon sends these questions to people?  I thought people posted them and other people just answered. 

But why would they have an "I don't know" option?  Do people get incentives for answering questions, and an "I'm sorry, I don't know" counts as an answer?  Because it's beyond useless, as in useless and annoying.

No, if you bought the item you'll get an email when someone asks a question.* I assume the don't-know option is in case you don't know and don't want to bother going to the site to say that. There is no incentive that I know of beyond just being helpful if you do know the answer. When I've known the answer I've been happy to post it, and I did ask a question once myself and I was grateful someone saved me money by answering it.

*Although I do think you can comment on or add to an answer if you want to.

Edited December 19, 2016 by random chance
clarify

[StatisticalOutlier]

6 hours ago, Qoass said:

When Amazon offers a movie that will be coming out on DVD or digital in the coming weeks, I get irritated by people who review the movie itself.  There are a few billion ways to find out if the movie is any good.  What I want to know is whether the extras are any good or if the transfer is of poor quality.  But you helpful little reviewers don't know that yet because you haven't bought it yet either!

How about the people who review movie theaters on Yelp and talk about how they liked the movie they saw there?  Who cares if you liked X movie?  Unless you're relating it to something in the theater itself, it's irrelevant in a review of the theater. 

 

5 hours ago, random chance said:

No, if you bought the item you'll get an email when someone asks a question.* I assume the don't-know option is in case you don't know and don't want to bother going to the site to say that. There is no incentive that I know of beyond just being helpful if you do know the answer.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the "I don't know" option.  Seems to me if you don't know, you just ignore the question and go on with your life.  That's why I wondered if there was an incentive to "answering" in one form or another.

I still can't figure out why someone would bother to go to the site to specifically "answer" the question with, "I no longer have the packaging, so I can't say for sure."  If every single person who doesn't know answered something like that, it would be a nightmare.  So what leads these individuals to think their not knowing is worthy of the time it's going to take every person to see their comment?

And, is there a way to answer these questions without actually looking at how others have answered them?  Like by just replying to the email?  Because sometimes the series of answers just makes no logical sense, and it seems like people are just answering in a vacuum.

All that said, I've greatly in favor of people answering questions, but as with almost everything with the internet, the signal-to-noise ratio is deteriorating rapidly.

[GaT]

33 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the "I don't know" option.  Seems to me if you don't know, you just ignore the question and go on with your life.  That's why I wondered if there was an incentive to "answering" in one form or another.

This is what I call "Twitter thinking" I don't do social media, but it seems to me that Twitter is filled with lots of people who are under the mistaken impression that what they have to say is important or relevant, so they feel they have to tweet out their opinion no matter what. Instead of ignoring the question, they must let everyone know what they think about the question, even if the answer is "I don't know"

Talking about Amazon leads me to one of my internet pet peeves, when places let people review things (especially books) months before the release date, I'm looking at you Barnes & Noble. Seeing a five star review 6 months before a book comes out that says 'I love this author & I can't wait to read this book!" fills me with rage. So do reviews that are anonymous, or are just a rating with no write up. 

[theredhead77]

How about reviews that say "didn't like it" or "worst product ever" without any elaboration. Why is it the worst product ever?!

Lone 5 star reviews among a sea of 1 star immediately make me think it's someone affiliated with the business.

Edited December 20, 2016 by theredhead77

[random chance]

It's no actual trouble to answer the question - you get a link in the email that takes you straight to the form.

[dusang]

Maybe the "I don't know" option is so the algorithm won't think the customer ignores questions and stop sending questions to that customer. Although why that would display as an actual response is beyond my rationalization.

[StatisticalOutlier]

Does anybody else remember the internet back in the mid- to late-1990s, when it was such a great place for information?  At that time, there were far fewer users than now, and they had to have sought out the internet.  So it was a select group to begin with, which always help.  But there were Usenet group for just about everything, and people generally didn't contribute if they didn't have something useful to add or didn't really know what they were talking about.

I remember wanting to find some double-knit fabric that wasn't what you find in a Jo Ann-type store, probably in 1996 or 1997.  Via Usenet, I got a lead on a place that made speed-skating suits, and called them and they sent me a little xeroxed "catalog" and some samples, and it was exactly what I wanted.  I thought it was a miracle.

But I noticed a decline a few years after that.  Anything you were trying to find, someone would say, "Try Walmart."  A million years ago I got this thing that had something like 15 colors of thread, all braided together, about 8" long.  It was a way to have a bunch of colors of thread without buying whole spools of individual colors--it was loosely braided so you could easily pull out just one thread to sew on a button or something.

So I went to Usenet to see if anybody knew where to get one of those, and got only one answer:  Walmart.  I never went to Walmart but knew they had sewing departments, so I made the trek and...they didn't have it.  For a couple of years I'd check every time I was near a Walmart, because this person had said they had it.

I finally figured out this person hadn't actually seen this thing at Walmart, but I guess thought they might have it.  Without actually saying so, which would have been VERY helpful. 

And now we're at the point where people post "I don't know" when someone asks a question.  At least it doesn't have me driving to Walmart, but that's about the only good thing I can say about it.

[StatisticalOutlier]

I don't know if I'm more peevish about the internet lately, or just taking advantage of a place to vent, but the hits just keep coming.

Yelp reviews.  Why do I torture myself with them?  The one good thing I can say is that it's sometimes possible to find out if a restaurant has waiter service in the Yelp listing. 

But I've noticed that people use words they don't know the meaning of.  I don't know if they're trying to be clever, or sound smart, but they so often get it wrong.  These are from two reviews of the same place:

"We noticed table after table kept getting bread, but nothing came to us. To our demise we found out we needed to ask for it (after we got our check)." 

"Let me be specific before whomever is reading this gawks at my seemingly judgmental review." 

[dusang]

27 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

I don't know if I'm more peevish about the internet lately, or just taking advantage of a place to vent, but the hits just keep coming.

Yelp reviews.  Why do I torture myself with them?  The one good thing I can say is that it's sometimes possible to find out if a restaurant has waiter service in the Yelp listing. 

But I've noticed that people use words they don't know the meaning of.  I don't know if they're trying to be clever, or sound smart, but they so often get it wrong.  These are from two reviews of the same place:

"We noticed table after table kept getting bread, but nothing came to us. To our demise we found out we needed to ask for it (after we got our check)." 

"Let me be specific before whomever is reading this gawks at my seemingly judgmental review." 

That is totally one of my pet peeves everywhere on the Internet, even in these forums.  Sometimes it's excusable typos or auto-corrects but often it amazes me that, despite the fact that we use text-based communication so much, overall vocabulary and spelling are on the decline.

[GaT]

This annoys the hell out of me. Going to a web site & immediately getting hit with a pop up asking to sign up for updates from that site. A lot of the times it's the first time I've ever been to that site. I don't even know what it's like yet, I'm not signing up for anything.  I am also NOT going to like you on facebook or anywhere else.

[Joe]

Her's something new. Sites that require you to disable adblock to get their content. So you do, and they hit you with two popups and an autoplaying video, just the things you're trying to avoid! I hope whoever is responsible for this abomination dies of a particularly embarassing disease. Hanging is too good for them.

[theredhead77]

On 12/20/2016 at 10:13 AM, StatisticalOutlier said:

But I noticed a decline a few years after that.  Anything you were trying to find, someone would say, "Try Walmart."  A million years ago I got this thing that had something like 15 colors of thread, all braided together, about 8" long.  It was a way to have a bunch of colors of thread without buying whole spools of individual colors--it was loosely braided so you could easily pull out just one thread to sew on a button or something.

Is this what you're looking for? http://www.nancysnotions.com/product/rainbow+braid.do