Bad user interface

A bad user interface is one that makes implementation easier, not the user's experience easier. Most good programmers doing their best to design a user interface will produce a very bad user interface. User interfaces should never be designed by programmers - one of the major problems of free software and open source models is that programmers do what they themselves want, not what the end users want. This is just another example of overtrust in one's own judgement, systemic bias and groupthink leading to bad decisions. For example User:Juxo writes:

"I really want a separate Opinion Wiki simply because we can aggregate data (votes on campaigns etc.) via SQL queries so we don't need to mess up MediaWiki "

Notice the various bad assumptions:

• edits, votes and bets can be managed through "SQL queries", which assumes that bad wiki code that actually relies on SQL is in use in all these wikis
• creating a separate visible user interface entity to force users to decide to move things around collectively, causing fights, instead of using a neutral or objective method to do it within one interface, as politics as usual demands
• MediaWiki, instead of being cloned or scrapped, is somehow always in use

It's obvious that belief in the use of MediaWiki itself is creating bad user interface decisions. Perhaps it is time to consider MoinMoin or Tikiwiki again.