CakeAlexS
4) Stop being frightened about talking about bugs in public and in the open. Dealt with the right hand it actually improves your image against competitors. People are less concerned with actual bugs, they are more concerned with what is happening to tackle it or finding out whether somebody else has it so "it's not just them". I can entirely understand why Cake does not want to talk about features though, that is a totally different kettle of fish..
5) Stop moaning at me about the forum traffic as though this is somehow my responsibility. Give us our own forum then and allow us to move relevant posts across related to reproducible bugs. Or give us better front facing tools likethis configured with the right public facing permissions, rather than a dead end web form.
If what I do does such a great disservice in the forums I'm more than willing to fork it to another website. Opinion seems to be split down the middle, and there are those who remain out of view, so we must be doing something right. Either way we are doing it for genuine reasons and not to rock the boat so my conscience is clear.
"If what I do does such a great disservice in the forums I'm more than willing to fork it to another website"
Cake just has to say the word. I'm not sure Cake would like this however as it opens up a whole other set of issues when the tentacles get spread elsewhere. I don't want to end up with a "competing database" scenario either. #78 Point (5) would be far more preferable.
I guess I don't understand the ultimate goal here. I'd like to express that it
seems like you're trying to dissuade everyone from using a system that DOES work. We've been releasing updates to our software largely based on user feedback well before your involvement here. That isn't to say your involvement isn't appreciated, because it definitely is. But it
seems like you're spreading the message that we need to fix all kinds of stuff and if we don't you're going to do it for us. I don't know how many times I can repeat this to you, but we have some major projects in the works and I think in the long run you'll be quite happy with the improvements. These things take time though.
If customers are concerned about accountability and if things are being done to improve the products, we just released five major updates to SONAR that included hundreds of bug fixes, many of which were reported directly by users. I'd like to think that speaks volumes about how much Cakewalk cares about user feedback.
Try to understand that there's a lot more to our problem reporting then that simple web form (it's also integrated with our fault reporting system which is quite advanced and has resulted in some pretty major stability fixes). We have pushes to several different services using different APis that allow us to manage the flow of data in several ways for different teams. There is a reason we maintain control over the system, and it has to do with the direct benefit of how we
know we can make the product better based on how things work behind the scenes. Just because you don't have an inside look at our processes and the form itself is a bit ugly to look at, doesn't meant here aren't some sophisticated systems behind the scenes.
Alex, my message is and has been extremely simple from the start. I personally am
very thankful for your contributions and everyone's contributions here on the forums. If I never personally thanked you directly, it's only because I always
thank the community in general. I'm sorry that wasn't clearer, but I am thankful to people like you, Jlien X, robert_e_bones and our beta team who contribute
so much. I think my only fear is that some of your posts seem like they're dissuading people from using the systems we have in place, which ultimately makes things worse for everyone. It sometimes comes across as if you're undermining our business practices and it makes it very difficult for our staff to do our job. If Cakewalk staff is telling you that working against us makes things harder, the direct result is less time spent improving the product.
I've had direct interaction with you multiple times over PM, where you refuse to accept my explanations for things despite the fact that they've been based purely on facts. You suggest improvements need to be made, but are confused about the systems in general. I honestly don't get it because I'm making an genuine honest effort to explain this to you and have been 100% honest every step of the way. Every time I turn around, it feels as if you want to call us out on not being organized, yet again you seem to be very misled about the facts of what is happening behind the scenes here at Cakewalk and how things work. This isn't the first time we've gone through this. This is why I keep getting involved with conversing with you. I'm not trying to have an public argument with you, but try to understand I feel like I don't have a choice but to speak publicly about it because of
sarcastic remarks like this. I think you know what I'm talking about here. It feels like you just don't want to work with us nor accept our explanations for things. I'm only being honest here. It bums me out that I feel like you and I haven't been able to see eye to eye yet, when we're actually both pretty passionate about SONAR, Cakewalk and this community.
I understand you want to be helpful, but please try to consider how deflating it can be when you work months on end to deliver five MAJOR free updates to a program and the next day are met with tons of bumped posts about "what wasn't fixed", many of which were very minor in the grand scheme of things. I honestly had a hard time thinking the entire rest of the day. It truthfully bummed me out that our message was being overshadowed by this (on several sites across the internet). Try to consider how that affects our ability to reach our customers and sell a product we're extremely proud of.
Also try to consider that someone who truthfully cares about this software, it's customers, and the future of the company is telling you that we have a plan in place and that not allowing us to roll it out is making it hard for us. Suggesting to create a site elsewhere, when nobody at Cakewalk has been trying to undermine your efforts, seems like (I hate to use this word) but it seems like a threat. The end result will surely be more work and less progress on everyone at Cakewalk. Customers need to know the clear and proper way to report bugs to Cakewalk. We've stated how this is done. Tone is extremely hard to convey in text, and I think if you knew Dan in person you'd understand that he just wants to deal with the monotony of bug tracking and let customers work on music. I don't think he meant what he said in a condescending way. For people that want to be involved in bug tracking, we have a beta team. We've let you know about this, but it doesn't seem like you're interested.
We've had customers make websites before about issues that were completely beyond our control, and it didn't help. If anything it probably hurt sales, which in turn makes it harder to develop the software as a result of fewer resources. I'm telling you and everyone else, repeatedly, that we have things in the works to improve our website overall. Dan is telling you that QA has a very good process for bug tracking. Can't these things be enough for now?
My suggestion is continue to tell people how they can work
with us, which is to continue using the problem report form (as you have been doing) and contact us via the proper methods to make sure we have things on file and can follow up appropriately. Nobody has asked you or told you to stop maintaining your list, but I think it needs to be made clear that we have ideas in mind for improving things and we need people to allow us to do this.