You'd end up with pages of options, especially once people realize they can get on the bandwagon.

Disable swears, alcohol, smoking, marijuana, gambling, child abuse and neglect, sensitive East Asian politics, sensitive Middle Eastern politics, WWII politics, Late Ottoman genocides, LGB issues, T issues, global warming, nuclear power, HOA issues, vegetarian issues, vegan issues...

▲

11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

▲

hnlmorg 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That’s a silly exaggeration. You’re literally just saying “there shouldn’t be a user toggle because developers have no self-control for stopping at one toggle”.

To which the obvious counterargument is just “well of course they can stop at just one toggle. That’s not an excuse to have zero toggles”.

▲

sam1714 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You write "developers have no self control." This isn't a technical problem as much as it is a political/social problem, and it's what will happen in the social/governmental relations part of the business, not what the developers want.

Look what happened to geographical names. Windows still doesn't implement flag emojis because they can't sort out countries.

	▲	hnlmorg 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This sounds more like the exact opposite of your Windows example (I don't run Windows so have to take your word on this). The opposite because Apple have implemented different rules for different countries already whereas your example is about how Microsoft was scared to. So, if anything, your example demonstrates my point about the need for a single toggle to disable everything ;) It's insane to me that people would argue "we don't know when to stop so lets not implement it at all" when you can literally just stop at one toggle if you wanted. It honestly feels like sometimes people look for problems where problems don't exist.

▲

Arnt 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There's a story about the Microsoft Word team. I'm not sure it's true, but here goes:

The team had heard that most customers only use 5% of Word's copious feature set, and as part of some rewrite the team set about finding out what the 5% were.

And it was most of the feature set. Customer A used these 5%, B these others...

It's easy to say just one option without describing exactly what that should do. L10n raises some questions, for example. Or just two options, or three. Much harder if you want to be specific.

▲

hnlmorg 7 hours ago | parent [-]

We aren’t talking about completely disparate types of functionality. We are talking about enabling or disabling very narrow categories of words from literally one feature.

The story you mentioned wasn’t about exclusions from each and every dictionary. It was about tools that do entirely unique things.

I know HN has a long history of struggling with nuance, but surely people must understand that it’s entirely possible to have a toggle to enable/disable the autocomplete adult filter without needing to then have options for every…single…minor…variation of that filter.

▲

Arnt 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I think you're saying that it's possible that Apple can add the option you want and go on stonewalling other people's requests for other options. Right?

	▲	hnlmorg 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm saying the opposition against having an option because "what if people want more options?" is silly and unproductive. Do you make the same argument for everything? "You shouldn't treat yourself to a takeaway because what if you want more takeaways?" "You shouldn't buy a car because what if you want more cars?" etc.