James Wilde [mailto:[email protected]] observed:

> I have to say that:
> 
> a) I also have noticed a surprising number of mails on the 
> list from people who say they can't use the OOo suite [...] 

Yes.  I [also typing with blurry eyes and cramped fingers] 
probably didn't make clear that I thought my hypothesis 
covered one of _many_ reasons why people have trouble. 

I agree with your suggestion that it should be high on 
the checklist to find out what people were expecting/hoping 
when they first came to OOo. 

There's the other matter of all those who never even get 
to this list.  It's hard to survey people who don't show up 
to be asked, so our sample is self-selecting and necessarily 
involves a bias.  My 84-year-old mother-in-law, for example 
would never think to join a mailing list, looking for help 
with software. Instead, she'd ask her son-in-law.   :-) 

That limitation (survey bias due to lack of response from 
people you never encounter)_certainly_ applies when it comes to bug 
reporting. For a newbie - or anybody who hasn't spent a 
lot of time in the trenches - there's no confidence that 
the problem they've been suffering is not simply operator 
error, and not a defect at all. 

Anyway, aside from misundestandings and grumpy arguments, a 
lot of the (often complained-about) high volume on the list 
is due to recurring causes.  One example is the unsubscribe 
problem being pursued by Barbara and others. 


 - K

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