Tapioca Straitjacket

From Jon Evans’ epic rant about Facebook Comments:

God forbid that they even pay lip service to the notion that users might perhaps be given options—for then they might start to use them, and then where would we be? Sheer anarchy! Far better to reduce everything to a single dumbed-down inescapable standard, relentlessly mediocre and devoid of any color or possibility, like a tapioca straitjacket.

I haven’t used Facebook Comments, but every day I wrestle with whether or not ThinkUp should have yet another configurable user setting, or if the software should just decide what’s best by default. The next time that comes up, I’m going to think about that tapioca straitjacket. (Worth noting that Evans does admit Facebook Comments reduced trolling at TechCrunch, and that if he were setting up a new site he’d use it again.)