A plea for less negativity for the sake of negativity

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by TechniSol

I am not generally, a cold, harsh or difficult person, I will go far out of my way in my work or socially to help others, but I draw the line at a company's representative stating, or even implying that, we the consumers -and often the ad hoc tech department, should be careful of what we say about a product or development team because of the negative impact it may have on them. Get real and do your jobs and we will have nothing about which to carp.

Perhaps it's not the content but the manner in which the content is provided. A bit more diplomacy in posting complaints might improve the overall tone of these forums as well. The old saw about a diplomat being someone who can tell you to go to Hell but does so in fashion which has you looking foward to the trip comes to mind.

As someone who has worked in IT for more years than I care to remember, I've found that politeness and courtesy often work wonders in improving service. The squeaky wheel may get the grease but the sarcastic squeaky wheel gets moved to the bottom of the trouble ticket list.

Regards,
David

[PeterT]

I think it should also be understood that staff get caught between a rock and a hard place. On one side they have us, demanding, vocal, all wanting to see our own issues resolved. On the other side they have management and marketing, setting priorities for new features, new devices, all of which are needed to grow the corporate bottom line.

[david_e]

Originally Posted by guma

Well ... it is not pleasant either for customers to experience the bugs they are complaining about. So just do your work properly, fix the product and you won't have to endure all the negativity.
To complain about (rightfully) complaining customers is maybe not the proper way to do business ....

Prove the customer isn't responsible for the bugs they are experiencing.

The only thing I've ever experienced is the multiple shelves, never any of the numerous problems some people seem to recount over and over again. Why is that? My best guess is because I buy my books (and not only from Kobo) and load them directly onto my reader without running them through Calibre (used to do this and realized it was unnecessary for me) or any of the other apps and programs other people use. I don't seek out firmware updates but wait until they are pushed to me. I don't make any other hacks or mods.

If Kobo was the source of all these problems then we would all be experiencing them.

[Sharkus]

Originally Posted by TechniSol

I, like most folks, have buttons that occasionally get pushed. When someone comes into a forum, working for a manufacturer and expresses that consumers shouldn't be expressing our displeasure at the expense of the company causing a great deal of aggravation to their own consumers, it sort of whacks the big red button at the top of the pile. This is not how business and user forums work. We paid our money, we have a right to express our opinions. If they want better feedback, do better. That's the way it works. Don't dare whine about negative impact, do better

I'm not saying you cannot / should not express displeasure. My original point was targeted towards the problem whereby people are continually posting / sniping about their issues on threads that have nothing to do with that specific issue.

Hypothetical example:
Someone starts a thread about how to get a specific award on the iOS app. Someone else jumps in and comments that they should not expect any help from Kobo on this because of the problem they are having with version 1.2.3 of the firmware on their Glo, and then comment on how crap Kobo is.

The other user then goes on to do the same thing in other threads not related to the problem they have.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Sharkus

IHypothetical example:
Someone starts a thread about how to get a specific award on the iOS app. Someone else jumps in and comments that they should not expect any help from Kobo on this because of the problem they are having with version 1.2.3 of the firmware on their Glo, and then comment on how crap Kobo is.

The other user then goes on to do the same thing in other threads not related to the problem they have.

Please report any post that breaks this guideline:

"Deliberately provoking other members is prohibited. Members who post provocative or inflammatory posts will be warned. Persistent offenders may be banned."

or any of the other posting guidelines to the moderating team.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by david_e

If Kobo was the source of all these problems then we would all be experiencing them.

Actually, quite a few bugs that are reproducible once you know what conditions are required to trigger them. Take the issue where the Kobo ereader does not return to the correct page for a bookmark or from sleep mode. Turned out that you need to set non-zero margins before this will happen. Simple fix for now is to move the margin slider all the way to the left. Other oddities such as getting flyspeck sized body text though the page numbers stayed normal size when starting a new chapter did not appear to be affecting that many people. That one I did not find the exact conditions to reproduce and seems to have gone away with Glo firmware 2.3.2.

The first bug I noticed with a Kobo ereader was having an ' in the file name triggering a DRM violation -- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court from Gutenberg triggered that one.

For the most part, I don't make much use of Calibre other than basic conversion to epub for books I own in other formats. After the conversion, I use Sigil to clean up the formatting and do basic error checking/validation with epubcheck to do a final check. For the most part, Calibre does a pretty decent job of the conversion. I've seen far worse epubs from companies that actually had me pay for the product including such lovelies as an epub that had the entire book in a single file, was missing the toc.ncx file and formatting codes that looked like a straight export in HTML from Microsoft word.

Regards,
David

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by DNSB

As someone who has worked in IT for more years than I care to remember, I've found that politeness and courtesy often work wonders in improving service. The squeaky wheel may get the grease but the sarcastic squeaky wheel gets moved to the bottom of the trouble ticket list.

This.

There's a difference between:

• "This is a bug" and even
• "This is a bug and it's unacceptable and needs to be fixed asap" and...
• "This is a bug and the fact you didn't spot it means you are clearly idiots who do no testing"

I work in software fixing bugs and I expect and experience all three. And I don't exactly de-prioritize anyone's issue for sniping but on the other hand it doesn't help me solve the issue either. Once you've let me know the issue is important (see example 2 above) then anything else is just "noise" really. Let off steam if it makes you feel better (and subject to the board rules etc), and trust me I understand that buggy software can be very frustrating, but don't imagine it helps get things fixed quicker.

[mXb]

Originally Posted by mXb

Going off topic slightly;

"Declare a Interest" is a phrase used by lawyers I believe.

I would like to see people who are directly or indirectly employed by Kobo to "declare" that fact in their posts so that those of us who are just customers can gauge what those people have to say.

Similarly anyone posting who works directly or indirectly for Kobo's competitor should also declare that. (don't hold out much hope for the latter)

Sharkus has set a good example by "declaring", perhaps the others will follow ?

Sharkus.

OK I understand the dificulties and probably it's a dead duck but, maybe I'm being paranoid, I sometimes get the impression that some posts seem designed to steer a thread away from or damp down complaints against a problem with a Kobo ereader.

Anyway since you as an employee have had your say maybe I as a customer can have mine.

I also used to have a technical "customer facing" (as it was called ) job.

Some customers were impossible, wanting technology to be 100% reliable, this is something you have to deal with. Luckily others were reasonable, its "swings and roundabouts".

As a customer let me ask you this. If we keep having problems with our Kobo ereader what should we do:

A. Report each one immediately to Kobo cust services.

B: Discuss them on this Forum.

C: Live with each one in the hope that Kobo will fix them sometime in the future.

D: Check this Forum, find out which brand of ereader gives the least hassle and buy one of them.

[jackastor]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I think it should also be understood that staff get caught between a rock and a hard place. On one side they have us, demanding, vocal, all wanting to see our own issues resolved. On the other side they have management and marketing, setting priorities for new features, new devices, all of which are needed to grow the corporate bottom line.

That is definatley something that needed to be said. We tend to forget things like that.

Jack

[Sharkus]

Originally Posted by mXb

Sharkus.

OK I understand the dificulties and probably it's a dead duck but, maybe I'm being paranoid, I sometimes get the impression that some posts seem designed to steer a thread away from or damp down complaints against a problem with a Kobo ereader.

Anyway since you as an employee have had your say maybe I as a customer can have mine.

I also used to have a technical "customer facing" (as it was called ) job.

Some customers were impossible, wanting technology to be 100% reliable, this is something you have to deal with. Luckily others were reasonable, its "swings and roundabouts".

As a customer let me ask you this. If we keep having problems with our Kobo ereader what should we do:

A. Report each one immediately to Kobo cust services.

B: Discuss them on this Forum.

C: Live with each one in the hope that Kobo will fix them sometime in the future.

D: Check this Forum, find out which brand of ereader gives the least hassle and buy one of them.

While I am not currently in customer care, my previous pre-Kobo job was as a senior support engineer / technical manager for a software development company, did that for about 13 years, and so that could explain why I do like to help others out, and I can understand the swings and roundabouts one experiences when dealing with customers.

I would also like to point out, that as mentioned above, I am NOT in customer care. I am on this forum because I want to be here, there is no job requirement for me to be here. I am not always on here, I pop by now and then. If I happen to reply to someone to help them out then it is because I personally wish to do so, again, no job requirement for me to do so. In other words, I don't have to be here, I don't have to reply to anything, it's a purely personal choice.

Anyway, back to your questions:
A = Yes, without a shadow of a doubt you should report an issue to us. If we don't know about it, we cannot fix it. If we do know about it we might already have a fix for it.

B = Yes. I am not against reasoned discussion of issues people have. I think I have made it clear it's the sniping / thread hijacking that I don't like and that tends to be of the negative persuasion, hence the existence of this thread. But yes, discuss problems on here, again, it could be seen by someone who puts it in front of the right person to get it fixed. It's also a good indicator of how many people have the problem. It could be isolated to some very specific things, or very widespread.

C = Yes, and No. You should have to live with issues in the hope they will be fixed. I'd like to think that A and / or B would aid in getting any issues fixed so that C isn't a long period of time.
Another factor is that even if we are aware of a problem, getting it fixed could take some time. This could be because it takes a while to nail down the exact steps to reproduce the issue, or for the devs to find and fix it. You then have to see how severe the issue actually is, and wether it is something that needs a hotfix, or if it can wait to the next scheduled release.
Speaking on iOS, we also have to factor in review times for the App Store, which are typically 10 - 14 days, so even if we fixed a problem today, which is unlikely, we still have to QA the changes and ensure they don't cause any other issues, and that could take a day or two, you won't see the updated app for 10 - 14 days (there could be exceptions if we say it's a critical fix, sometimes Apple will fast-track a release), there's nothing we can do about that delay, it's all in Apple's hands.
Other platforms, for example Android, may not have the problem of dealing with the App Store approval process, so after QA sign off there is typically a shorter period before you see the updated app.

D = Yes, but then I'm sure all readers have their unique quirks. It's all down to personal choice as to which reader you get. I will say that I'm not going to pressure anyone into getting a Kobo.

[John F]

Originally Posted by david_e

Prove the customer isn't responsible for the bugs they are experiencing.

The only thing I've ever experienced is the multiple shelves, never any of the numerous problems some people seem to recount over and over again. Why is that? My best guess is because I buy my books (and not only from Kobo) and load them directly onto my reader without running them through Calibre (used to do this and realized it was unnecessary for me) or any of the other apps and programs other people use. I don't seek out firmware updates but wait until they are pushed to me. I don't make any other hacks or mods.

If Kobo was the source of all these problems then we would all be experiencing them.

I thought the Avenir italics problem was universal?

Have you tried the Avenir font? Have you tried Italics with the Avenir Font? Have you tried it with a sideloaded ePub? What version of firmware are you using?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by John F

I thought the Avenir italics problem was universal?

Have you tried the Avenir font? Have you tried Italics with the Avenir Font? Have you tried it with a sideloaded ePub? What version of firmware are you using?

As far as I know, the Avenir Italics issue is universal. However if you are a person who never changes the font from the default, you're not likely to see the issue. A quick poll at work of 11 ereader owners showed 2 of them even knew/cared they could change fonts. Well, 3 if I include myself. And a total of myself who has actually added fonts to his ereader. On a brighter note, 4 of the 5 Kobo owners have sideloaded content or obtained ebooks from the public library while two of the Kindle owners are waiting for the libraries to finally get Kindle compatible content -- they see a "compatible for US libraries only" message.

As a group, they would make lousy testers -- the envelope is never touched much less pushed.

Regards,
David

[Ladyrixx]

I wouldn't have even thought that the Avenir Italics thing counted as a bug. I would count that occasionally taping the right-hand side of my Mini would make the page
go back, but as someone who also works in tech support, it's not a very reproducable bug...

Otherwise I think a lot of people on here are more the ones that fool around with their e-readers, changing fonts, adding in larger memory cards, or hacking it to have Google sync. (Alas my poor Vox...) Therefore we're more likely to encounter bugs, they might even be of our own making.

[mynot]

Buddy, I got a Kobo Touch for my wife for Christmas. 3 weeks later and I still haven't got it working - and I work with computers! I've lost count of the number of times I've reset it and the number of test books I've purchased from Kobo. I used to think the nadir of computing was Microsoft. They're geniuses compared with Kobo. As far as I'm concerned any complaints about Kobo are justified.

[Lynx-lynx]

@mynot it sounds like you need to return it to the shop now whilst it's still in the first month period.