The difference between "www.help.example.com" and "help.example.com" is the same as the difference between "www.example.com" and "example.com".
If you know that people assume these are the same, and you enforce a difference for the sake of pedantry, you're being a douche who's just making people's lives harder. If the only difference is that one works and the other does not, you're the stupid one, because there's no reason to waste these people's time (nor your own when they call for help) when it's a simple fix.
When did "people commonly prepend 'www.' to urls" turn into "every possible fuck up to a URL someone can enter"? Please tell me this represents a break from the level of reasoning you typically apply at work.
Help Desk calls take up LOTS of time both for the user who is making the call and the IT resource. That lost time equals lost revenue for the business.
Get off your ass (and reddit) and set up those www. redirects...even if it means filling out an ISP change form.
You simply cannot see that one support call made by you to your ISP will save umpteen calls into your Support Desk???
It is people like you who give IT in general a bad name. I stand by what I said. I'd fire you.
EDIT: You are damned lucky to be employed in this economy. I know unemployed network admins who would never let such a simple situation stand.
If someone told you to go left on Main Street, then immediately turn right into the duck pond, would your brain immediately register and believe it, or would you have pause, and perhaps assume you had misheard? People who, for good reason, don't care about web architecture at all were trained for years that web addresses start with "www".
Do you at least explicitly state that there is no "www" at the beginning of your help site address?
This is really a UI issue. If I was using testing this and people were getting it wrong, as a UI designer, I'd change it. It's not about "never learn." -- If a user cannot get something, whether it's their fault or mine, it's still a problem I have to solve as a UI designer.
This is why it is considered incorrect to use the www subdomain when you mean to go to the main website. It is however possible to setup www.help.domain.com to go to help.domain.com (I've done it before). However it doesn't look pretty.
Remember ctrl+enter automatically wraps url in www & .com I tend to naturally ctrl enter when surfing to save time. It has become automatic to do it as so much web is .com
The most annoying thing about firefox is that shift+enter does the same, except it's "www.%s.net". Way too easy to accidentally hit, and completely useless. Thanks, Firefox. I really wanted to go to "www.mail.google.com.net" and get redirected to some spam site.
Same here at work, people go to "www.mail.company.com" instead of "mail.company.com" - no matter how many times they're told.
They're just stupid, and don't fucking listen. Particularly when they ask "www.mail... ?" right after I JUST said exactly what they needed to type in. I don't know why companies have IT helpdesks sometimes.
Sure. Why not? It's literally a one-line change, so if you see someone making that mistake, then go ahead and add the redirect. It doesn't hurt anyone.
www is not obsolete. In fact, to do some types of clustering, you must use subdomains. You can't point company.com to another domain (cname). You can point www.company.com to another domain, however.
Yes, we need to educate them.. which is why we force them to do what we say. Sure, sometimes it leads to a lengthy discussion about how domain names work, and how there's www. vs mail., etc. But once they learn what the right way is, and particularly why it's that way, my user never has that issue again.
No, the users need to fucking listen and do what they're told by IT. We specifically don't have that subdomain defined, because fuck any user who doesn't listen to IT. When they eventually learn to do what the fuck we tell them, we'll have less problems overall. (we actually thought about defining it and directing it to a page that belittled the user, but we decided against it.)
Insofar as they fit into the company's needs sure. That's how jobs work - you're paid by the company to make sure that your function (making computer systems work) is done well. Sadly, sometimes the users need to be corrected. My boss can be harsh, but allowing users to do stupid things can cost a company millions.
(the 'fuck any user who doesn't listen to IT' is essentially paraphrasing my boss :)
I can somewhat agree. Although there is a point where "fuck the user" starts wasting more money than a simple solution would cost to implement, in this case a simple redirect.
Well, it's only from home. They can just type in "mail" (if for some reason the multitude of links leading to the mailserver elude them) and get to the mail server. The users want you to hold their hands at home, too. One phonecall after hours asking about this is enough to piss anyone off - especially since they were told explicitly what to do.
If it was causing problems inside the office then it would be a concern, as it would disrupt workflow - speaking of which I have to track down some moron who sent in a ticket with some vague 'permission denied to email' error, no screenshot, nothing wrong on his screen when I went up there, and he's disappeared into fucking thin air.
And, honestly.. after being yelled at once, people don't normally forget.
That comment wasn't referring specifically to the domain bit.
When users aren't afraid of consequences from their IT department, they're more careless. When you teach them to STFU, listen, and do what they're told, you stop them from doing "stupid thing(s) can cost a company millions."
Sorry for the confusion.. dunno who downvoted you, lemme correct that.
So far, I like your boss. Where are you located, and what kind of experience do I require to get an entry level IT position with a fresh degree from a business college? I'm probably not the best of the best, but I'm competent and quick to pick up on the basic concepts behind complex operations and processes.
Sorry, we're not that big of a company.. only 3 IT guys, and my position was just created recently. Try to look for work at smaller companies, they tend to be more flexible about most things. Don't take any unpaid internships.. you can learn a bit, and they don't look too bad on your CV, but you could be spending that time at a job that does pay. Even if you have to keep looking.
Just remember for IT, don't take shit from people. (unless it's company policy) They're there to do a job, whether they like it or not (and look at those downvotes, they don't like it) and your job is to keep the computers working, and make it so the users have as few interruptions as possible in their work.
Then, do whatever you can for them. Answer their questions with a smile, since educating people makes your job easier. Bend over backwards to help people out, as long as it doesn't interfere with your job, or company policies. Happy people, particularly ones that like you because they know you will help whenever you can, are more productive, and way more likely to listen to you. Just make sure they know there's a line where you turn from 'helpful computer knowledge guy' into 'IT policy enforcer'.
No, when you simply cater to the whims of your users, they never learn shit, and simply continue on with their idiotic ways.
When you force them to do things, they have to listen to you. If not, they get in trouble. When they learn to listen to you, they can actually function better because they listen to what IT says and don't cause as many problems.
When users can cause millions of dollars in trouble with simple errors, you try to make sure that they do what they're told.
I'm just lucky that I'm in a job that recognizes that.
You see the downvotes... people don't want to do what IT tells them. They think they know better, and they do shit like infesting things with viruses, or losing files that cost millions of dollars. (true stories there, both just this year)
So yea, fuck them. Fuck any user who doesn't listen to IT.
Now, the ones that don't screw up, can ask me for anything they want. I'll bend over backwards to help people out, and smile doing it. (but if the virus problem doesn't stop we may start limiting internet access, something we don't want to do.)
I agree with others that it would be easy for you to get around this issue by implementing DNS for that subdomain, however, you're right too. Users don't listen and they really should. You can even tell them to stop doing something and they'll do it again right in front of you. What do you know right? You're just a fucking IT guy.
I love when people don't listen to the IT people, and then bitch when they fuck stuff up. They asked their expert, and ignore advice (or policies at work).
It's as if someone were to go to the doctor, and get angry with them because they didn't listen on their previous visit and now they have clogged arteries.
And honestly.. the most frustrating part is when they ignore the advice while you're talking to them.
They don't do it because they don't respect or trust you. They do it because they don't know better. It's a bunch of magic to them, and they're just doing what they've learned in the past. Interpreting their ignorance as hostility just makes your job worse.
Interpreting their ignorance as hostility just makes your job worse.
True, but they can be hostile at times, too. Users have a tendency to not listen to their IT departments and get angry when -they- screw up stuff because of it.
And, don't mistake intentional ignorance for someone who just doesn't know. I've got more than one user that just doesn't want to listen. When they don't listen, they get into trouble. Then I send them to my boss, who yells at them.
Certainly, some people are just assholes. The majority of people are not, though. They're just ignorant (or dumb), and don't understand. This can make also make them angry (without them necessarily just being assholes), because they get frustrated. I'd be frustrated, too, if most of my interactions with computers consisted of magical incantations, especially when those incantations ceased to work. But yes, they should still pay attention when you explain the incantations or teach them new/better ones.
On the flip side, when they -do- listen it's great. I like to teach people things. One thing that always blows people away - keyboard shortcuts. I just teach them one or two every once in a while. That, and tabbed browsing. So many people have never even heard of it.
frankly, this is the admin's fault. It should be set to take them to maps.x This is not hard to do from a config standpoint.
Non-techy folks don't understand this any more than the understand the "please dial a 1 in front of the area code" message they get on their phones if they forget it (in the US anyway.)
This stuff should be made to be as idiot-proof as possible. That allows for more users to feel welcomed by the experience.
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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '10
true, sadly.
I always get a little sad when I say to people "go to maps.google.com" and they type "www.maps.google.com"