My head hurts

Over at US News they have a poll about video games, a subject near to my heart and wallet, and whether or not kids should be able to purchase violent ones. I wanted to vote and say that children should not be able to purchase violent games, no more than they should be able to see violent movies or TV shows. Personally I feel that parents and retailers should be keeping violent games out of the hands of children but that it should be handled like movies and not regulated like a controlled substance.

Obviously a simple yes/no poll doesn’t offer much of a chance to articulate this view; by voting that kids shouldn’t be able to buy them I’m putting myself in the same camp as someone who doesn't think that anyone should buy violent games. Still, I was curious and wanted to see how the poll would work itself out. Then I saw the question:

“Should Kids Not Be Sold Violent Video Games?”

Wait, what? This may be a legitimate english  sentence but it is goddamn confusing. It’s even more confusing because it’s a poll question that asks you to affirm a negative. Would it have been hard to rephrase the question as “should violent video games not be sold to kids” or even better (although it changes the answers) “should violent video games be sold to kids”? No, it wouldn’t. Part of me wants to rail against US News for creating a question that shapes the results towards a desired outcome but I don’t think they have any desire to do so with this poll. It’s just awkward and poor writing.

Would you like to not have a beer? – A Poorly Worded Dialog

Do you want to view only the webpage content that was delivered securely? <Yes> <No>

This is the dialog that greets me in Internet Explorer 8 when I attempt to view images in Gmail or look at Google Reader items. It happens because I often check my email in coffee shops and other public networks and have told Google to sign me in securely. The issue is that the text content of an email is secure since it is hosted on Google’s servers while the images are hotlinked from another site. In principle it’s good practice to warn users when the supposedly secure site they are visiting has mixed content, but the wording is particularly awful.

Take a look at it again. It’s not asking you if you would like to view the insecure content, it’s asking you if you would like to not view it. That’s like a bartender asking me if I would like to not have a beer; it makes no sense, of course I would like to have a beer, but to get one I have to answer in the negative. In previous versions the choice that would do what you wanted and display the content was “no” and now the opposite is true. And there is the other sticking point: the default answer is “yes”.

I understand what Microsoft is trying to do here. They trying to stop users from blindly clicking yes and opening themselves up to a world of credit card fraud and identity theft. It’s an admirable goal but awkwardly worded (or cleverly worded, as someone at Microsoft must think) questions are not the best way of doing this. I’d much rather have multiple affirmations required to proceed (are you really sure you want to do this?) followed by an option to not warn me for the particular site again.

There is a way to remove the mixed content warnings altogether, but that just brings us back to a world where the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is the internet is free to trick you into believing that a site is wholly secure when it isn’t. There is a chance the Trusted Sites options may approximate the desired behavior but I’ve been met with only limited success. Until I get it worked out I’m left telling the bartender “no, I don’t want to not have a beer,” and that’s just wrong. 

(Edit: It turns out that I would need to place both Gmail and the site supplying the images on my Trusted Sites list. This is more work than I am currently willing to go through.)