Re: Web site gripes - Mailing list pgsql-general

On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 04:38:58PM -0400, Vince Vielhaber wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Norman J. Clarke wrote:
>
> > You do an excellent job Vince. By and large the website is awesome, and I
> > love some of the newest additions such as the interactive docs. But you
> > should listen to his gripes and respond in a more polite way. If you think
> > he is wrong, then explain why.
> >
> > Responding with a personal attack is not helpful at all and seems really
> > out of sync with the tone of the rest of the list. When I saw his first
> > email I cringed because from reading your previous posts I knew you were
> > going to respond exactly as you did.
>
> I'll try to keep this plain and simple.
>
> If you (anyone) have suggestions for the website, I'm all ears.  But if
> you're looking to be blown off, insulted, treated rudely, etc. then you
> need to preface it with a bunch of whining gripes that have little to
> no foundation.  Make yourself look as clueless as possible.  If you're
> going to go looking for things to bitch about as your lead-in to the
> suggestions you have, don't get upset if I tell you where to go.  If I
> did it to you I'd expect the same result.  On the flip side of the coin,
> I'm not one for praises either.

    Ok, I've held my tongue on this for a while, now, but your attitude
is just annoying the shit out of me.  I'll keep it plain and simple,
too.

    I gave you several specific instances of places where the web site
could be made easier.  Such things as:

    o. adopting a transparent system for mirrors, much like other open
source sites do.

    o. reorganizing the navigation bar on the left side of the main page
to make it easier to find commonly-looked for things like "documentation".
(as opposed to making me look through "the third announcement in the
list for a link).

    o. reorganizing or eliminating some of the 38 different flavors of
documentation that are on the actual documentation page.


    THESE ARE NOT WHINING GRIPES.  They are pefectly valid points about
how the current website design is flawed.  Your responses were pretty
much "Make your own bookmark", "it doesn't work", and "you aren't
working hard enough to find things."  This attitude is unacceptable.

    I've been using PostgreSQL for several years, and my company has
currently adopted it for both server and client use.  I don't need you
calling me (or anyone else, for that matter) a clueless whiner.

    Technically, PostgreSQL is an excellent product.  The community is
great--responsive and technically knowledgable.  The documentation,
while a bit aged in places, is excellent.  However, I'm currently tired
of having to dance all over the web site when I want to find the
definition of a function.  As I (and others) have said, even the
context search on the site is damn near useless.

If you don't want to fix things, fine.  Don't dismiss it as whining,
though.

--
Adam Haberlach            | "Pancakes don't make hardly any juice
adam@newsnipple.com       |  and bacon makes too much."
http://www.newsnipple.com |        -- bug-eyed earl
'88 EX500    '00 >^<      | http://youlook.org