Buying complaints (was: Re: [TxMt] mousing issues)

[Eric Hsu]

Allan is one person. He is working productively on the program.  He 
has opened up interfaces to the program to allow a lot of other 
people to work on it. He has dozens of people requesting features 
that they all think is more important than everyone else's request. 
It doesn't help Allan get through the list by being rude.

Here is one of my favorite blog entries, posted by Dave Hyatt of 
Safari. I've seen all the listed phrases on the list (replace EOMB 
with Every Other Modern Editor). I have probably used one or two in 
my younger days.
--
Bug Guilt Trips (from 
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2003_11.html#004361)

I love the tactics some people use when filing bugs. In particular 
the tactic of saying something inflammatory in order to goad the 
receiver of the bug into fixing it. You see this a lot in Bugzilla, 
and also in reported Safari bugs.

Here are some of my favorite phrases (for your enjoyment). Let X = 
the browser of your choice. Let Y = any other browser.

(1) The Promise - "The lack of this feature is the one thing that 
keeps me from switching to X."
(2) "I can't work under these conditions. I'll be in my trailer." - 
"I can't believe you broke this! That's it! I'm going back to Y!"
(3) Playing the EOMB Card - "How can this be broken? Every other 
modern browser gets this right."
(4) Impatience - "Months have passed, and this bug still hasn't been 
fixed! What's the holdup?"
(5) Overeagerness - "Still broken." (2 days later.) "Still broken." 
(2 days later.) "Feature still doesn't work. (2 days later.) "Broken 
in build from mm/dd/yy."

The Safari team has actually started using the term EOMB as a way of 
referring to all other modern browsers. ;)

-- 
Eric Hsu, Assistant Professor of Mathematics
San Francisco State University
erichsu at math.sfsu.edu
http://math.sfsu.edu/hsu