Sitefinder II, the sequel...

Thu Jul 13 15:48:55 UTC 2006

On Jul 13, 2006, at 11:35 AM, Larry Smith wrote:

>> Is it?  If you type "fobar" and the domain does not exist, is it rude
>> to return foobar?  Or is it helpful?
>
> Hmmm, while a "good" question - how about another example,
> someone mistypes whitehouse.gov - do you return the "real"  
> whitehouse.gov or
> the whitehouse.com site ???

Note: "and the domain does not exist".  Whitehouse.gov absolutely  
exists.

>> As a purist, I can see saying that's wrong.  As a user, they like
>> easy.  Hell, most of them us Windows & Outlook, so they clearly don't
>> care about things like "standards".  Since they pay our bills, should
>> we listen to them?
>
> Also true, and while I agree in "principle", if you transpose only  
> two numbers
> on your next deposit ticket - is it the banks responsibility to put  
> the money
> in the correct account - or is it simply your mistake??

Does the other account exist?  And should the bank be checking the  
name <-> account # association?  I would argue they should.  (But  
know they do not.)

Either way, not really the same thing, IMHO.

>> Can someone show the Internet is going to collapse, or at least be
>> harmed, by being "rude" in this way?
>
> I don't think the "net" is going to collapse, but I do think that  
> many of the
> "things" being done are simply "making" (allowing/enabling/ 
> supporting) end
> users to be more and more lazy or what-ever term you want to  
> apply.  In
> school if you spell the word tree as tre - hopefully your teacher  
> corrects
> this.  What we seem to be doing is saying it is ok to not know how  
> to spell
> or even know what or where you want to go on the net - and I am not  
> certain
> that in the long term we are not doing more "harm" than good  -  
> just as your
> teacher would by allowing you to mis-spell words instead of  
> learning the
> correct way....

I think that's going a bit far.

By that token, we should lobby Microsoft to take spel chickers out of  
MS Word.

-- 
TTFN,
patrick