Also, being new to gs, I found the biggest challenge was how underemphasized the search was. The focus is so heavily on asking new questions when there may very well be answers already to what I am about to ask. When you are asking a question or reporting a problem, it should almost force you through the search and suggest possible matches before allowing the creation of a repetitive question. Ideas and praise are less likely to be repeats or matter that they are. As a customer looking for answers, I’d really like to get them as fast as possible.

Also feel like I’d be more inclined to see product areas above other customers. Seeing a bunch of avatars for people I don’t likley know doesn’t seem as valuable as identifying with a product I am using and getting to answers faster.

Let’s say someone comes to my site and starts a new forum, thread, topic, or whachamacallit. Let’s say they strike a conversation on how to most optimally install/configure/use some software product made by some software tool vendor. According to the discussion that I’m reading here, I, as the owner of that site, am now saddled with the extremely tedious and unpleasant duty to detect that conversation in almost real time and to quickly scour the web in order to supply all the ‘official’ channels where these issues could also be brought up.

My question is: why? Why is the onus on me? Am I not free to offer to others a platform where they could meet, greet, bring up their problems/issues/concerns, and in the process make some much needed headway? So what if it has to do with some registered business out there? Why is it all of a sudden a big legal offense to discuss issues pertaining to a certain product without not mentioning all the ‘official’ channels of support?

I must say you guys lost me here. What’s your problem? Let people start a conversation on any business they’d like, and let them be proactive about it. Let the vendors shit bricks and sweat bullets trying to figure out how not to lose customers. The onus is on them, it’s not on you.

Since when is it Get Satisfaction’s responsibility to make sure that people out there know about the existence of the ‘official’ channels of support for potentially millions of businesses in the world?

Thor et al., you guys should not cave in under the pressure of this balloney protectionism bullying. Just tell them to take a hike. You were doing fine until 37signals started bullying you. Why are you acting so afraid of them? They’re just a bunch of manipulators. Stay your course, insist on offering the service the way you’ve originally envisioned, and chill out and don’t fret about scouting the web and ‘covering your asses’ by digging up all these moronic ‘official’ channels of support. That’s just going to unnecessarily slow you down.

You can afford to ignore those bullies. They are just running around being scared of the web, and being afraid of the freedom that web brings.

Cheers!

However, I think it takes up too much vertical space…this is good info, but it pushes the call-to-action wayyyy down the page, which could be just as confusing for a new GSFN visitor.

Keep up the great work!

I was referring to “Cyberdyne Systems is not participating yet” in its guise as the status of a company that is yet to opt out. It still sounds a little strong & absolute to me.

Thor: “The “Cyberdyne Systems is not participating yet” is not intended for an organization that has opted out. This is the state before they have made a choice one way or another.”

Ewen: I believe they have made a choice, just not in your arena. I feel the wording needs to be specific to your arena rather than inferring they have not made a choice, internet-wide.

That’s all. I know it’s a fiddly semantic difference and I seem to be out on a limb on this one. Granted, my critique of your wording used wording that was probably far too strong for the point I was trying to make. That in itself illustrates my point. I actually do like your service and do think you’re intentions are good. It didn’t really come out in the wording did it?

Some IMO examples. The ‘nav’ is below the top elements of the page. This seems the wrong way round and I don’t consider anything in the grey box to be that important. The important stuff is the topics and products so get them up the page.

I’m not keen on another ’social’ site bunch of photos and members profiles. If I’m looking for support, officially or unofficially, I don’t want to form a ‘friendship’ with other customers or even employees. This may be dependant on the type of company being represented but for mine I just want a professional support area.

I really have an issue with how non-participating companies are conveyed. It has to be made absolutely clear that a company may have decided not to use GS and the reason why. This could be simply that they don’t know it exists, so it needs something more appropriate than “… is not yet participating…”, or that they have their own support channels and GS is an unofficial support community. GS really has to move away from making out that they are in any way an official platform for a company unless the company has clearly decided on using them.

The community message in the top right needs to be more prominent as most people will not read that part of the page.

Although my comments may be seen as largely negative I do support the initiative of seeking feedback for this important part of the site.

That is very good to hear and perhaps the core issue I had with the 2 topic areas/tabs within the post form. I commend you on these efforts.

Best,
- Nick