The following is just my $0.02, and is not intended to insult anyone in particular. Allow me to begin by insulting myself so that we can all be on equal footing. I am not quite the full blown neckbearded stereotypical basement dwelling Linux user, but let's just say that I have "some tendencies!"
There is nothing else out there like MLO. Not even close. A real native client on each platform that it supports (instead of some "cloud" based nonsense, which is nothing more than a website wrapped in an "app"). This allows you to make separate independent updates to your ToDo list, even if not connected to the internet at the time. And then sync up later when you are. Also the level of detail and number of options available support GTD better than anything else I have seen, as well as a number of other paradigms. Now, on to the meat of my analysis of your OP, which I view as a sort of a culture clash. Or how shall I say this, again no offense intended, but I think far too many people these days expect the world in terms of customer service and immediate response and hand holding, instead of trying to figure things out for themselves. I think of it as a Linux crowd vs Windows (or even worse, Mac/iPhone) crowd, the former value self sufficiency and asking good questions (and only after they have spent at least some amount of time trying to figure the issue out themselves), and the latter want everything easy and spoon fed to them. The former are old time computer users, and currently use Android, and the latter are iPhone users. Multipurpose computers are complex devices, which previously were only the realm of geeks and hobbyists. With the rise in popularity of smart phones (iPhone especially, which led to Android) amongst the general populace, it brought to multipurpose computer usage many people who had absolutely no understandings of the underlying hardware and software. This, in my view, has led to the further "dumbing down" of many "apps" taking options away from the user and over simplifying the user interface. You could think of the iPhone with it's one button as a reducto ad obsurdum case in point of this phenomenon, which I think illustrates my point nicely. Personally, as an old school computer power user, I find that sort of over-simplification and reduction in options maddening. MLO is very very powerful and flexible software. It is complex, which is a necessity of such flexibility. It will take some time to figure it all out and become proficient. But it is worth putting the time in, as MLO is a system that can and will serve you well through almost any eventuality for the rest of your life. But that is slightly besides your main point. Circling back to the "lack of service" by the developers, as a former business owner I also understand that everything costs money. They could employ someone to monitor and reply on the forum full time, but this would add to the cost of the product. And/or take resources away from further development and feature implementation. Which *I* would not want, personally. I suppose many others here feel the same. And given the fact that it's pretty complex software and requires a certain amount of patience and time to overcome the learning curve anyway, and theereforee is likeely to attract a certain type of individual, I suppose that the developers have sort of made the same analysis. Support forums are very often community based, this culture began in the Free/Libre Software world but has now spread to other platforms. What we all must realize is that almost everyone here are volunteers / other users, who reply out of a sense of community and realization that if no one took the time to reply / help out, there would be no community and no answers. And out of hope that some day someone else here will be able to answer a question for them. But no one is obligated to do anything, and no one should EXPECT a reply. But then again, in the final analysis, by choosing to go after this market segment (iPhone/Mac users), I suppose the developers of MLO have brought this upon themselves. If you are going to support Apple products (and charge a premium to do so? I'm not an Apple user and have no idea the pricing differences, if any) then I suppose that a certain level of service will be expected by that portion of the user base. I hope that I have managed to offend everyone equally (starting with myself) and that instead of getting mad, that I spur people to some realizations of some underlying kernels of truth, and thusly we can all become further enlightened. :) On Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 8:18:00 AM UTC-4, Tolqua wrote: > > I recently started evaluating MLO. There's a lot to like, but the > complexity of the program is quite daunting so questions are inevitable > despite the generally good documentation, tutorials and help. > > > > My first questions were (partially) answered fairly quickly which gave an > initial impression that MLO is a responsive and helpful organisation, but > some questions were not answered and I quickly learned that this group was > a better place for more involved topics (thanks Dwight). Straight issues > with simple problems, though, should be dealt with directly by support, > especially where it’s a problem that the development team should know about. > > > > Subsequent emails were answered less swiftly and some questions simply got > ignored (despite reminders) whilst another 'answer' was repeated several > times despite my saying I'd 'got it'. Okay, it's not a perfect world and > no harm's done by repeating things, but it is really annoying, especially > when other questions are repeatedly ignored – that’s really not on. > > > > After a certain point I stopped getting responses altogether. Around the > same time my posts stopped appearing on this group so it looked to me like > I’d been blacklisted – I was being ignored by support and my posts were > being blocked, or so it seemed. > > > > After a further few days it became clear that no new posts were appearing. > Personal messages were also apparently not getting through so I started to > wonder whether MLO was in meltdown. A week later and the ‘blockage’ has > suddenly cleared – My posts, including those about the problem itself, are > now visible (I’ve left most of them there for now), but nobody’s bothered > to post an explanation for what happened so we’re left guessing and I’ve > still had no reply from ‘support’. Now I know my expectations are > probably higher than most, but this just isn’t acceptable by any standard. > > > > > I find it quite shocking that such an excellently crafted product is > undermined in this way, but I know I’m not prepared to entrust the > organisation of my life to a product on which support isn’t available. > Hopefully > there’s an explanation that will help restore some confidence, but the fact > that we’re having to ask for it doesn’t bode well for MLO. > > > > I doubt I’ll get a direct response from MLO, but perhaps one of you who > has access to the ‘inner circle’ can let them know that they can’t just > ignore this sort without causing serious damage to their customers’ > confidence. > > > > Tolqua. > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. 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