When is it the users fault?

[sertse]

After reading countless threads where people complain that distro/DE/App ABC sucks because of XYZ, I want to have a proper discussion on this - when is it the user's fault, rather than the devs? When is it a case just being different, and not for you personally (anymore), rather than there's something wrong is it?

A few examples:

Not getting the product's purpose - Some distros are designed for for tinkers and hobbyists, and sacrifice OOTB to allow more customisation and fine tuning. DE's follow certain philosophies, and that might of changed between versions.

Demanding all apps in a class have feature foo, when that feature is every specific and/or esoteric - This is most commonly seen in browser wars, especially when people complain some browser sucks because it doesn't have some sort of extension. Yes, your it's a selling point of your browser that it has plenty of extensions to customise to every need. However *you* also need to be reasonable on how needed (really) that feature is, it's not a wrong on their part to lack it, only a "bonus" that you have it.

If I'm not spoonfed, it's not user friendly - Apps might have different ways of achieving some desired effect. One might even be easier than the other relatively, but the other method ain't hard in itself. It's ok to mention the advantages, but some people massively bawwww about it..

I suppose what I'm saying is that people should try to be more tolerant on what they consider "deal breakers". Recognise most of the time, it's a case of tradeoffs. Feel free to add and discuss

[jflaker]

Simply...If it doesn't work or is perceived to not be working and the user tried to "fix" it once or more times before asking for help....it is the user's fault.

I say that because I've seen so many users bork something, try to fix it, then try to cover their tracks then complain that stuff is broke. You can't prove it outright, but you know they stuck their paws into something they should have left to more experienced people.

[audiomick]

I always take the approach of asking myself "what did the guy who designed this think I want to do with it", and am generally fairly comfortable with most things.

This includes things like digital audio mixing desks and other devices. A lot of my colleagues tend to want to discuss "why is it like this and not like that", which doesn't interest me a great deal. It is like it is; the question is: can I use it the way it is?

I think it is the same with computers a lot of the time. People go at something expecting it to behave in a way that is logical to them, and when it doesn't, they think it is broken. That, and trying to make things work without reading the instructions first.

To answer the question, I believe that there is a certain amount of unfortunate instances where things really don't work, for instance that the live CD didn't find both of my HDs during my last install, but that there is also an awful lot of things that are "broken" because someone went at something like a bull at a gate instead of thinking about what he was doing.