RE: Acceptable synonym needed

Subject: RE: Acceptable synonym needed
From: KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 14:38:18 -0400



Joyce was saying:
> We want to move these limited-use properties to another tab.
> Question is,
> what do we call that new tab? I prefer to stay away from "Advanced"
> properties, because I don't want users getting interested and
> poking around
> in there, getting themselves in trouble. "Custom" properties
> doesn't quite
> fit either, although that's the best alternate I have right
> now. Given a
> choice, I'd call them PITA options, because they really are a
> pain in...
> well, you know. But our Marketing people won't go for that. I
> need a name
> that identifies these properties without encouraging people
> to try them!

I don't suppose... "Dangerous" would go over well with Marketing
either, would it?

I liked Bob Domaschuk's suggestions.

So words like: Incendiary, Breakables, Regret... probably won't fly?

Here's one that absolutely WILL work, if only you can use more
than one word on the tab. It's the (are you ready for this?):

"Extra Hard Work"
tab.

There. Nobody who doesn't really, really hafta, will poke into
THAT one. Guaranteed.
(Suggested by John Rose, PV-person who inhabits the cube next to me.)

Or, if only a single word will work, use "Drudgery".

Does it need to be a word? How about a nice skull'n'cross-bones icon?
Or the bio-hazard symbol? Or the ever-popular bomb-with-lit-fuse?

Anecdote:

Several years ago, when I worked for Ericsson TAC in Montreal as
BBS SysOp (and then as whatever they called webmaster before it
became an employment category), I blatantly stole a feature that
I loved when I met it on somebody else's BBS. Among all the other
menu items and buttons was "Don't Touch This".

If you selected it, you got an "error" message overlaid on your
screen saying "Don't do that."

If you selected it again, the message was "Don't DO that!"
Then, on subsequent selections:
"I asked you not to DO that!"
"Stop it!"
"I mean it! Quit doing that, right now!"
"If you keep doing that, you'll go blind."
"I'm warning you..."
"This isn't funny any more."

Anyway, it kept escalating. It asked if your Mom knew what you were doing.
It tried cajoling. I think it might even have tried bribery.
Finally, at the seventy-fifth selection (I know, I know... and I had to
write them all...) it said:
"All right. That's it. You're outa here!" and the caller was booted out
and had to call/e-mail the SysOp to get re-instated.

You wouldn't believe how many people had to make that call.
Well, maybe you would. <g>

The moral of the tale is that you need to make your
tab repellent, or at least boring. Not intriguing or enticing;
it shouldn't even have the lure of the illicit.

Good luck.

/kevin

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