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When People Cause Technology Problems

By Charles McKeever, on October 15th, 2010

Is it really possible to leave a Facebook group without an admin? Yes it is, but the real question is, who’s fault is it when it happens? It’s not the technology that’s the problem, it’s the people who build AND use the technology that cause the problems.

When you build something and put it out there for the world to use, they generally find a way to abuse it. As a programmer you never expected your gadget or widget to be used as a hydraulic jack on a chicken farm. Because you never expected it, you didn’t put in a feather fail-safe device attachment. Was this really a failure on your part for not planning on every potential misuse or abuse of your product? Absolutely!!!

At least that’s the expectation for computer software. Even FREE software that gives no guarantees or warranties in any way, shape or form will cause people to tell the programmer how crappy his product is or how he totally missed out on how he should have built it. I am a programmer and I still do this to other programmers. It has somehow become accepted to pummel those who spend hundreds and thousands of hours on something that users don’t even understand.

I expect more from myself and I’m sorry I let me down.

So when Facebook never programmed a Group to stop an admin from leaving that Group (and therefore leave the Group without any admin at all), my heart went out to the programmer who probably looked up from his computer screen upon hearing the news to say, “the moron did WHAT?!?” (the politically correct word is “user”, but many other more colorful words are generally used).

Yes, it is possible to create a Facebook group, grow it to 60,000 users, and then leave the group with no admin, and no way to update, change, or allow more people into the group. It’s evidently so common that they now have a Facebook Unable To Become Admin form to deal with the issue.

Maybe it was an oversight on Facebook’s part, maybe no one thought that people would actually do something like that. Maybe, just maybe, people cause more problems than technology. After all, computers are fairly new in our history, but humans have been screwing up for thousands of years.

Who do you blame when technology issues arise?

Toff Ward
OpenSourceMarketer.com

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  • Craig

    Seems that we all try to point a finger at the programmer for the way the software didn’t live up to the expectations of the user.

    And especially so when the user never even read the notes on how to use the software in the first place!!

    You raise a great point here, many “Users” go out of their way to find the FREE SOFTWARE and then try to use it for something it wasn’t designed for.

    When that doesn’t work they just complain, what can ya do?

  • http://OpenSourceMarketer.com Charles McKeever

    Craig, I think it has more to do with human nature than technology. We tend to take for granted what we don’t have to put effort into. Whether it’s family, friends, work, or technology, if we don’t have to work for it, somehow we expect things to fit out demands perfectly. The flip side is, if we have to pay for something or put some sweat into it, then we have a greater appreciation for how it came to be.

    From a strictly technology perspective, we forget that there is a person behind the monitor that developed the software. That person has fears and worries, bills and dreams just like everyone else. We might not be so trigger happy to blast them if the person was standing in front of us. Also, technology problems tend to make us feel like we are somewhat helpless. This feeling makes people rebel because we feel it rubs against our freedom and we don’t like it.

    It’s the culture of the company that makes it better or makes it worse for everyone involved.

    • http://www.7thdwarf.co.uk/ Craig – The 7thDwarf

      I agree, chalk another one up for the cubical. People tend to get very brave from behind the monitor, like you say. Take away the Free Price-tag and you’ll be labeled a money grabbin’ #@’t!

      It never ceases to amaze me the amount of folks who don’t ever try more than to click the button and then if it doesn’t work properly in their perception, then it’s broke.