Although the responsible developer's reaction and attitude are both commendable, one element of his response annoyed me: his continued assertion that he should not have been allowed to do this thing that he did.
I think it is a truism that systems which allow users to do interesting and clever things must also allow users to do remarkably stupid and wrong things.
Rather than focusing on how to prevent a user from doing a silly thing like this, I think a well-designed tool would easily allow the user to undo the silly thing he just did.
Unfortunately, all too often when a Bad Thing happens, the discussion tends to center around how to prevent this Bad Thing from happening again. This is often why those who make mistakes end up being demonized; their mistake has now limited the actions that every other user of the system can make, because the system will be modified to prevent other users from making the same mistake.
I think it is a truism that systems which allow users to do interesting and clever things must also allow users to do remarkably stupid and wrong things.
Rather than focusing on how to prevent a user from doing a silly thing like this, I think a well-designed tool would easily allow the user to undo the silly thing he just did.
Unfortunately, all too often when a Bad Thing happens, the discussion tends to center around how to prevent this Bad Thing from happening again. This is often why those who make mistakes end up being demonized; their mistake has now limited the actions that every other user of the system can make, because the system will be modified to prevent other users from making the same mistake.