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Ask HN: Do you have a “God-Mode” for your product?

2 points by sideproject ↗ HN
By "God-Mode" I mean you have a feature in your product where it allows certain users to do "admin" tasks (delete this, shadow-ban him, edit something, login-as certain user etc).

We do at work. And it's a little scary. Several people at work use this "God-Mode" to manage users, and do certain things. I understand it makes things very efficient. Often it's done so that non-tech people don't have to bug engineers. Would love to hear your thoughts or experiences? Any negative experience of having the God-Mode?

1 comment

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themodelplumber
Kinda. Not sure if this counts: One staff member asked me to wall off permissions so that he'd have god-privs in his area of the application, which he used to lock out everybody else. He said it was unfortunate but necessary due to sabotage. The rest of the staff haven't complained since it was put in, but it's pretty clear they can't go there anymore.

The manager there is really breezy and lets-move-on-ASAP with regard to personnel issues, so I can only anticipate this continuing. That's kind of the issue--a more or less frozen executive stance when it comes to this sort of people problem. When they bring on people who are cut-the-bs types, those people don't tend to last and are forced out. Still, the organization is effective in its unique way: It operates in a field where blowing smoke is the happily accepted norm. Even I wouldn't want to change it.