Saturday September 4, 2021; 10:57 AM EDT
- I'm going to be a super hardass about this so test me if you want, but there will be no "give."#
- The only reason I'm running the private testing repo is to answer questions for users who need help.#
- I also love it when other users help, when they know they have the answer. Don't guess here, we'll get the right answer. If you don't know the answer, kick back.#
- A couple of times people have innocently asked questions of people, which I understand, we're all community-oriented but the support forum is not for that. Why? Because I know where that goes, I've been there many times, and I don't want to go there. #
- People behave weirdly in mail lists and in spaces where everyone is following everyone. It becomes about power. "Who does he think he is?" Well here, in support for a product I am developing, I am in fact a special person. Usually in support forums you don't communicate with the person developing the product. But I need to do that, to do my job. It's how I do my job at this stage in its development, with contact with users.#
- Once when I was testing a product, naively, gave everyone the means to communicate with every other user in the product itself. I had to kill the product because in about a week they were telling me what to do with my time. People very quickly forget in these contexts how to be a decent human being. #
- Anyway -- we need a way to help people get their questions answered. So that's where the line is. And as I said at the top, there is no give. #