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Posts: 11,700 | Thanked: 10,045 times | Joined on Jun 2006 @ North Texas, USA
#131
Originally Posted by danramos View Post
Your opinion sucks.

Heh, that aside.. it might help things if constructive criticism was rewarded rather than ignored. Carrot and stick, boys. Carrot and stick.
That's what Thanks is for.
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#132
Originally Posted by Texrat View Post
That's what Thanks is for.
The value of 'thanks' isn't quite what it seems it should be--but more importantly, it pales in comparison to taking constructive criticism seriously.
 
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#133
Understood. We do what we can with what we have.
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#134
Originally Posted by Texrat View Post
Understood. We do what we can with what we have.
I don't think you're taking me seriously.
 
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#135
Originally Posted by RevdKathy View Post
That would be fine, except for the possible suggestions of underhand war allies... Makes me want to start quoting from 'Allo Allo' (Brit comedy setin wartime France).
"Listen very carefully, I shall say zis only once... Everyone will stop feeding ze trolls or we will hand you over to ze Communist Resistance; who will shoot you.

And I will run off with ze picture of ze fallen Madonna with ze big boobies."
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#136
Originally Posted by danramos View Post
I don't think you're taking me seriously.
Haha don't worry about it. Texrat takes few things seriously.
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Originally Posted by ysss View Post
They're maemo and MeeGo...

"Meamo!" sounds like what Zorro would say to catherine zeta jones... after she slaps him for looking at her dirtily...
 

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#137
Originally Posted by Laughing Man View Post
Haha don't worry about it. Texrat takes few things seriously.


I took him half seriously.
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#138
Originally Posted by Jaffa View Post
"Listen very carefully, I shall say zis only once... Everyone will stop feeding ze trolls or we will hand you over to ze Communist Resistance; who will shoot you.

And I will run off with ze picture of ze fallen Madonna with ze big boobies."
Needs picture(s).


 

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#139
Originally Posted by RevdKathy View Post
If I bought a car and the radio didn't work, I'd take it back to the supplier, not go to a forum at all.
But a forum is a good place to find out whether a problem is real, widespread, and whether others have fixed or worked around it, without implying any wholesale comment about the total worth of the device, the forum, the manufacturer, or the developers, or implying any relationship or support agreement between parties.

A lot of people are DIYers, and go to community forums first. How could PC overclocking forums even survive, for example, if everyone said "contact the manufacturer" or "that's not supported by Intel -- you're on your own" when an overclocking experiment failed? A lot of us approach our phones the same way, as DIYers. We depend on each other for support, even if it's not officially sanctioned by any group.

If I have a problem with a new car, I don't necessarily immediately take it back to the dealer -- I search car forums and see whether my problem is really a user error, whether it warrants taking it back, whether I can fix it myself, or whether a buddy mechanic of mine can fix it better than the dealer can without ending the warranty.

Whining and angry posts, even if undirected or misdirected at first, can be turned into constructive action. For example:

Poster: "Although I loved it at first, I now hate the N900. It's got an awful email client."

Bad replies: "You should have better informed yourself before buying it." "Go buy an iPhone, Nokia-hater." "This is not a Nokia support forum -- go contact them." "The mail client is what it is -- live with it, or use another phone."

Good reply: "I understand, it really sucks for me too. The N900 email client sucks, but they're working on it. Here are some bug reports you can vote on. I'm also thinking about this solution as a possible workaround. What do you think?"

Constructive, reasoned reply, combined with empathy

If I bought a car and the radio turned out to be exactly what was advertised and not include a whole load of things I has just assumed were included (despite there being information available telling me what was or wasn't included) I'd probably feel a bit aggreived, but in my complaining I would take responsibility for not having done my research properly. If I had been mis-informed by my supplier, I'd be mad at them, not the manufacturer nor other users. If I'd been inclined to read what I wanted to see (say, making a 'hoped for' date into a 'promise') I'd take responsibility for deceiving myself.
Sorry, I don't buy it (pun intended) When you choose to buy a car or phone, you can be an informed consumer and decide that among all available alternatives under a certain cost, given all information available to you short of buying or renting it first, that a particular product is the best for your needs, even though it may not perfectly meet your expectations/wishes.

That does not in any way invalidate your wanting parts of it to change. Put another way, asking for features to change does not represent evasion of responsibility for choosing to buy it.

(The "cost" above is a total subjective cost, not just price. For some people the cost of having to tweak OS files, for example, is more than it is for others. These subjective costs significantly factor into why people choose one device over another.)

Buying on specs alone is not always sufficient to tell if a device meets your needs, and some people do not have easy access to products so that they can try them out without buying them first (in the USA for example, carrier-locked phones are 95+% of the market and hence unless a carrier sells a phone in a retail store, you cannot try it out before buying it unless you find someone who already has it and is willing to share it).

So, irrational as it may be, there are certain expectations that people have, even if they are not confirmed by the specs or promised by the manufacturer/developer. Sometimes these expectations are not even known about until they are violated, so you don't think to ask about them before buying, hence the angry rants by some posters who feel violated. Haven't you bought a product which didn't do what you expected, only to wish that you had checked if that one "obvious" feature was there before buying? You cannot check everything ahead of time, so this kind of disappointment is bound to turn up even among well-informed buyers.

If I bought a car and found the radio was lacking features I wanted and I could get access to the people who actually made (and could improve) the radio (even improve the one I'm using!) I would not jump in yelling "You guys are failures! The radio sucks!" as I would not expect that approach to to be very productive. I might say "The radio is good as far as it goes, but for my best use it would be really great if it could have this or that feature: is there any chance of you doing that?"
Yes, that would certainly be more constructive, and more likely to be a win-win situation in the long run. Most of us agree with that. But you can also constructively reply to non-constructive comments, with disarming empathy
 

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#140
Originally Posted by leek View Post
Bad replies: "You should have better informed yourself before buying it."
I don't see that as a bad reply. Just not a very helpful one, but not bad.

And just as there are bad replies, there are of course bad approaches. And amazingly enough, the latter beget the former. It's like time travel, only not.
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