A plea for less negativity for the sake of negativity

[PeterT]

Deleted

[nogle]

Originally Posted by Cdesja5

Wow! That's pretty harsh! Maybe you should get a Kindle, I hear they're perfect.

Note that the devices reportedly owned do not inlcude a Kobo...

[PeterT]

Deleted

[jusmee]

Hmmm, attacking people who complain is becoming too common in this forum IMHO. In attempting to correct one fault, another one just as bad is emerging, ironically appropriate for a Kobo forum Is it too much to ask for a bit of evenhandedness?

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by PeterT

No... This is a thread where we are attempting to suggest people be a tad less antagonistic towards people; where maybe we all try to keep a slightly more positive tone towards people and their issues.

Frankly it's replies like yours make me wonder why I try to help.

Frankly I wonder if suggesting that ignoring the Kobo problems, of which there are more than one, or glossing them over is a really productive way to approach the problem.
I do have a Kobo Mini and was quite enamoured of it for a while.
Becoming more than a bit disillusioned. Still it is okay, but not getting better despite two updates.

I admit my previous post may have been a bit inflamatory, but it is my honest opinion.

I also feel that an opinion should be able to be expressed without being tramped on arbitrarily even if it disagrees with the the other posts in the thread. I was and still am a bit disturbed by open chastisement of others posting a differing opinion in this thread.
Obviously I missed the part in the thread where it was stated no disagreements allowed. Sorry for that.

I knew I would get jumped on when I said what I said, but it is my opinion and I am sticking by it.

Helen

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by TechniSol

Sharkus,

What I said was not intended as a personal attack, but when a Kobo team member starts posting about how negativity affects performance, etc. it is bound to annoy people. If anyone has a right to be annoyed and express that annoyance it is consumers dealing with frustrating situations. You're extremely lucky to just take a few barbs here and there rather than just being passed over at the sales counter. Your company and the development team have EARNED any truthful criticism you get. Many of us would consider that motivation enough to get our collective ducks in a row very damn quickly.

In my book, you're very lucky as a company that you produce hardware with software innovations of sufficient merit that the consumer will purchase despite bugs that are sometimes multigenerational in the firmware. I returned a bugfree, near as I could tell, Nook w/ Glowlight because your display hardware on the Glo is better, and because of software features you offer.

Many of us deal with similar issues, but at some point you have to adopt a "coffee is for closers" attitude. Despite any barbs, most of us really want Kobo to succeed and sometimes we're just frustrated at how close you guys are to producing really stellar product.

Oddly, it seems the majority of Glo owners are quite happy with their purchase despite some relatively minor bugs -- the relatively minor being my not so humble opinion.

Personally, I've been finding the carping by some posters in this forum is making me think twice about continuing to participate here and I have lived through many a flame war over the decades. If I was a Kobo employee who was here on my own time attempting to be helpful and kept getting the barn floor shoveled into my face, I might come to the conclusion that my time was better spent tending to my carnivorous plant collection.

Yes, there are bugs in Kobo's firmware. If you really think the Kindle, Nook, Sony or other reader do not also have their share of bugs, you should try reading through those forums -- seem to be quite a few complaints there as well. Does the Kobo have more bugs? That I'm not sure of. I notice them more because I have used several Kobo devices (all except the mini and Arc) and I will admit that I am not the normal user. The "normal user" does not have 1600 books on their Kobo -- about 2300 more and I'll catch up with my woodpulp collection. The "normal user" does not consider Sigil or equivalent as very useful everyday tool. The "normal user" does not compare various dithering algorithms for their effect on graphics displayed in an epub or cbX file. The "normal user" does not notice and complain about the defective epub files produced by many publishers.

Perhaps Kobo could be more transparent with their bugfix process. Something like Calibre's bugs or Sigil's issues web pages might work. OTOH, Kobo is a for profit corporation and might not like putting that much information out for their competitors or spending money that could be used elsewhere to pay someone to maintain the list.

However, I am very certain that repetitive whinging in these forums is not the way to encourage anyone to participate. Kobo the company may have "EARNED" your criticism but enough is enough -- quit dumping on people who are volunteering in an attempt to be helpful because you are unhappy that Kobo Inc. has not fixed every bug or possible bug that has been mentioned. Post your complaints once then consider your self-annointed job of whinging done. Get a life. No one forced you to sell your Nook and purchase a Glo so stop making the rest of us regret that move on your part.

Regards,
David

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Frankly I wonder if suggesting that ignoring the Kobo problems, of which there are more than one, or glossing them over is a really productive way to approach the problem.
I do have a Kobo Mini and was quite enamoured of it for a while.
Becoming more than a bit disillusioned. Still it is okay, but not getting better despite two updates.

I admit my previous post may have been a bit inflamatory, but it is my honest opinion.

I also feel that an opinion should be able to be expressed without being tramped on arbitrarily even if it disagrees with the the other posts in the thread. I was and still am a bit disturbed by open chastisement of others posting a differing opinion in this thread.
Obviously I missed the part in the thread where it was stated no disagreements allowed. Sorry for that.

I knew I would get jumped on when I said what I said, but it is my opinion and I am sticking by it.

Helen

I don't mind people complaining about an issue they've found -- once. The people who annoy me are the ones who repetitively complain about the same issue, the ones who complain about every issue even ones that they are not personally being affected by, the ones who complain that Kobo should be faster getting bug fixes out and, often in the same post, complain that Kobo does not do enough testing before releasing firmware updates, the ones who very seldom attempt to offer any helpful suggestions to the people asking for help.

Hmmm... looking at that last sentence, my English 200 prof is going to disown me.

Regards,
David

[John F]

Seems like the people asking for a lot less negativity are being pretty negative.

[Dr. Drib]

Moderator Notice

One thing needs to be made clear right now: Disagreements are certainly allowed on MobileRead.

How we express those disagreements is the key to constructive argumentation. Disagreements couched in rude, disrespectful and dismissive language contributes nothing to an ongoing discourse where opinions are respected and ideas can flourish.

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

I also feel that an opinion should be able to be expressed without being tramped on arbitrarily even if it disagrees with the the other posts in the thread.

From my perspective, part of the issue is that some of the people who have problems with their ereader also fail to respect the perspective of people who are happy with their ereader.

There are far too many threads about bugs that many people will never notice or even encounter, yet those who have a problem make it sound like everyone should toss their Kobo's into the trash bin because of it. (That is only a slight embellishment, since there are a few threads about people abandoning their Kobo because of the bugs.) If your problem with your ereader is significant enough for you to dump it, then by all means do so. Just don't expect everyone else to do the same because they may never have the same problem as you (e.g. the page turning bug) or they may not understand why the bug is so important (e.g. certain formatting issues).

And let's face it, sometimes the complainers just made the wrong choice. That is certainly the case with issues over privacy concerns (Reading Life and other stuff of that ilk). These issues are created over features that Kobo promotes, so the people who are concerned about privacy should have bought other ereaders in the first place.

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

From my perspective, part of the issue is that some of the people who have problems with their ereader also fail to respect the perspective of people who are happy with their ereader.

Yes, and the exact opposite happens all the time as well. For example someone recently posted about a problem they were having and 3 or 4 posts immediately appeared saying they have no problems with theirs. You could say they failed to respect the perspective of the OP who was unhappy with their ereader. It seemed as though they were attempting to make the OP think he must be doing something wrong because there's no problems with everyone else's ereaders. They probably weren't, but that's how it would appear to the OP. My point being, you can't really be sure you understand where any person is coming from based on a post on a forum, be it negative or positive, and we should NOT be censoring posts based on our own perspectives.

[robko]

Originally Posted by jusmee

Yes, and the exact opposite happens all the time as well. For example someone recently posted about a problem they were having and 3 or 4 posts immediately appeared saying they have no problems with theirs.

There is a delicate balance required there. If nobody else is having the problem or it's not reproduceable by others it would suggest the problem is with their specific hardware or something is corrupted on their device which may suggest possible immediate solutions (reset/exchange device) rather than waiting for a new firmware update. But I agree that telling someone it's their fault and they shouldn't do whatever they're doing isn't helpful.

[Danger]

Turning a negative into a positive. The Kobo Touch I gave the Wife awhile ago stopped working for her, it just didn't want to be touched any more apparently. Could be turned on and off at will... the Touch not the wife , but just wouldn't respond to being touched (again the Kobo, not the wife). Sent an email to Kobo, was escalated to Tier 2 and not quite a week later I received an email today from Kobo saying the Touch needs to be replaced and they are sending a box to return the Kobo to them.

Sucks that it stopped working but glad it was within the warranty period and they are replacing it.

[filmo]

Negativity here does not bother me. It is part of Internet forums. I chose to ignore it . A bigger problem for me is no local stores have Kobo Arc, Kobo Glow or Kobo Touch on display and for sale.

[TechniSol]

filmo,

Have you gone to Kobo's website and checked the list of independent booksellers that carry their products? I had to drive around 60 miles round trip, but the display beats the heck out of the Nook Glowlight I tried out. If they'd had a Nook Glowlight on display I could have saved a lot of trouble and skipped that trial.