we are aware that there are UX issues that stem from growth. more people posting means some things that worked OK back when we were smaller kind of don't anymore. we only just now have the UX design capacity available to start fixing these, and even then our ability to do things is extremely limited by how many of us are available.
disclaimer: i am not trying to speak for anyone else on staff here, the rest of this is entirely about me and my thoughts/feelings. it is also probably the most personal thing i will ever post on this account, as we're getting to the point where i have to be A Member Of Staff and not just Some Guy. i have spent my entire life on social media as Some Guy so this is a difficult change for me.
for the most part, i've been implementing the larger UX changes1 while colin has been tackling new features that include heavy backend work. this obviously isn't a cut-and-dry division (we each do both), it's just how things shake out for the most part.
i have for the last month been dealing with way worse chronic fatigue and a new flareup in my mystery still-undiagnosed-despite-spending-countless-hours-seeing-specialists-about-this-shit hand problems2. i spent most of this week out sick with what's probaby, if i'm being honest with myself, knock-on effects of said chronic fatigue. when you see a patch notes with only a couple things in it, it means someone was sick and so we couldn't ship.
it is weird to have to post about health problems to try and justify why things are still unfixed, but the reality is that we are a small team and we are disproportionately affected by health problems. i got lucky that (beyond being out with covid for two weeks in july) my health has been Relatively Fine for most of the site's public life. it feels like that luck is starting to run out (the constant stress almost certainly isn't helping) which unfortunately impacts everything.
when you have to prioritize work in the limited amounts of time you have available, things fall to the side. you have to prioritize based on what you think you can actually get done. it's hard and i have no idea if we've been getting it right.
realistically, i should not be taking it personally when people get frustrated about aspects of how cohost works, especially when they're things we Want To Improve but haven't been able to yet. when it's something that i know i personally would be fixing but haven't yet, it feels like a personal failure to see people upset about it. i could be doing better, but i'm not, and the platform is hurting as a result, etc etc etc you get the gist. this isn't to say "don't share feedback," because we need feedback to know what to fix; it's entirely a personal problem3.
i know this is rambling and somewhat incoherent. i am so fucking tired all the time and that makes any sort of coherent writing difficult and makes everything (physically and emotionally) hurt more that it should. just how it is. thanks for reading if you read this far. and, genuinely actually, thanks for using cohost. it's nice having you all here even if it is also the single largest source of stress i have ever had.
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jess has been fixing UX papercuts, but a lot of things that an end-user might consider a papercut are actually large technical undertakings or just more complicated than you might think once you really start digging into it
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realistically, i shouldn't be typing this, but Feelings about this have been rattling around in my skull for a bit and i kind of need to get it out
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this is part of why twitter's sudden collapse is hitting me so hard. i needed a platform that wasn't mine, because i still like using social media outside of work but with cohost i am constantly risking stepping on a landmine of "why hasn't staff done this yet" at 11pm on a saturday and just bumming myself out. granted this happened sometimes on twitter too but less frequently.
