One of the tools I use a lot on my current project is ClearCase – fine version control overall, but its Windows client sometimes drives me nuts. The problem is that it is unnecessarily complicated, it exposes all functionality it got in very obnoxious way. For example, you’ll get dialog with two check boxes and, if try to select one of them you’ll get an error: “you can’t select this because so-and-so”. Really? If you know I can’t use this – why I’m getting this as an option? Why not show me only what I am able to use? And “features” like this is all over the product, you always get menus loaded with options some of which you will never use and some you can’t use even if you try. Very annoying. May be this is why when I started on comment administration for BlogEngine I was extra sensitive in trying to avoid this behavior. After several different approaches I decided that simplest pyramid-like flow will work best. It starts really simple.
As you can see, if comments not enabled, nothing else shows up on the page. It tells you right away that, no matter what other setting you might have, they will be ignored. Only when you enable comments, you’ll see that additional settings.
Now it is clear that all these values will be taken into account. Still, not a whole lot there if you not enable moderation. When you do, you can select what type of moderation you want. It can be just “block them all” if you want to moderate comments himself. Again, nothing irrelevant shows up on the page.
If you go ahead and enable auto-moderation, only then rules and filters sections become visible, because otherwise they don’t make much sense and only add complexity and confusion. If all controls were always visible, you would wander do rules work if I use manual moderation? Are filters still blocking when I turn moderation off? With visual confirmation you getting this way, answer should be pretty obvious.
Now, will that work for everyone? Nope, I’m sure it won’t. But if it’ll spare frustration for most of the users, I’ll declare mission accomplished. And it is still work in progress – let me know if you see something that for sure will drive nuts you. May be we can reach some kind of a compromise.