People don't read the mail list

[Evan Platt]

After 10+ years of technical support, I can tell you it doesn't matter 
where you put it, people don't read it. Places I worked at that had 
IVR's would add a "If you are experiencing <such and such> problem, 
press 3 now." No one pressed 3. When someone then said "I'm getting this 
problem", we'd subtly ask "Did you hear the option on the phone menu for 
the solution? It would have saved you ten minutes on hold." and the 
answer would always be something like "Oh, I don't listen to those 
stupid things".

I mean, the homepage even had "ICQ/AIM Login problems? Go to Advanced 
Options, and uncheck....." How many people STILL said "I went to 
www.pidgin.im and downloaded the latest version" (thereby basically 
admitting they read the message)?

On 5/18/2010 2:26 AM, David Balazic wrote:
> ... obviously (judging by the latest posts).
> Neither do they check the archives.
>
> So how about serving them the relevant information instead?
>
> Currently it seems to be:
>   - flash issue on Windows
>   - theme changing
>   - maybe one or two more I forgot
>
>
> This could be put on one (or more) of the following places:
>   - home page (it already has a similar purpose line or two, currently saying:
> Pidgin 2.7.0 is out with fixes for AIM, ICQ, and Yahoo! JAPAN login and a bunch of new features! )
>
>   - About window of pidgin, before the mail list address, somewhere around "Helpful Resources"
>
>   - same as above, but just a button or link , titled like "(Current) Known issues (- read this first)"
>     linking to a page listing the few most common problems with the current version (or the version
>     the user is actually running, even if just suggesting an upgrade to latest)
>     This could also be a menu item in the Help menu.
>     Displayed as:
>       - regular web page, using the system browser
> or maybe:
>      - displayed inline in the about dialog or a special "Known issues" dialog
>
> Hopefully this would reduce the amount of repeat questions ont the list.
>
> Regards,
> David Balažic
> Software Engineer
>
> HERMES SoftLab
> a ComTrade company
>
> Litijska 51, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
> fax +386 (0)1 58 65 270
>
> www.hermes-softlab.com
> www.comtradegroup.com
>
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