Re: MadCap Nightmare

Subject: Re: MadCap Nightmare
From: "John Cook" <john -dot- cook -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 14:04:48 -0500

On 8/10/06, Donald H. White <trlbldr -at- comcast -dot- net> wrote:

It does seem that others have experienced problems similar to those given
voice by Anonymous, and that those others have tried working with the
vendor. To little avail, apparently.

Really? I'm not sure you can draw that sweeping conclusion from one
piece of flamebait.

Besides, the onus is NOT on the licensed user to fix problems. Rather, the
vendor should. A bug or two, that's pretty normal. Buggy? That's not. So, it
doesn't matter to me whether the anonymous messenger has ever e-mailed or
called MadCap.

Donald H. White
Sr. Technical Writer/Editor
James River Technical Communications LLC

Ok, let's turn this around. Somebody uses a product that you have
produced the help for, and they are angry. It's not working for them
in the manner that they desire. Is it your problem? Is it their
problem?

Set that aside for a moment, because they don't contact you directly,
they go to the largest tech writing forum that they can find and they
post about this situation anonymously. That's bad enough by itself.
Instead of giving you an opportunity to understand their problem or
suggest a solution, they're dragging your good name down in front of
this huge audience of your peers.

Viewed that way, it's more than a little like character assassination,
and it's morally reprensible, and practically pointless (if they, in
fact, were looking for a solution to a problem).

How do you approach that if the tables are turned? Do you still adopt
the stance that the user is right and appropriate in their handling of
the situation, or would you hope and expect that they would contact
you, first, offline, with the specifics of the problem?
--
John Cook
Technical Writer / Help Author
john dot cook at gmail dot com
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Follow-Ups:

References:
Re: MadCap Nightmare: From: Al Geist
RE: MadCap Nightmare: From: Donald H. White

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