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.
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