Well, my readers have spoken. And while, as always, they are by no means speaking with one voice, there does seem to be a general consensus that the mix of topics we cover here in the GripeLog is just about right. That doesn't mean, however, that things can't be improved.
In a recent column I asked readers to tell me what they like about the GripeLog and what they found not so useful. And I've been extremely gratified by the many encouraging comments and constructive suggestions I've received in response. And also a bit surprised that most readers seem to feel that even our more arcane topics -- EULAs, the DMCA and the other legalistic subjects -- have their place here.
"I think the everyday gripes are your real bread and butter -- the HP smart chips, the broken activation schemes, tech support failures, rebate hassles and the like," wrote one reader. "These provide real information to help all of us make purchasing decisions and fight back with our dollars. Please keep this up. But I also think your attention to more macro issues is critical -- I'm talking about UCITA, Fair Use, the DMCA, EULAs and FEULAs. People need to be informed about initiatives by software publishers and content providers to lock in their revenue streams at the expense of our rights."
Many readers said it was basically impossible to choose from among the topics I'd listed in my reader poll. "All the topics mentioned in the poll are extremely important," wrote another reader. "It is the whole that matters. Even if you don't have ultimate answers, the discussion is valuable. In some cases, you are a pioneer in thinking carefully about difficult social problems. There is really only one topic, abuse in all its many forms. Without you, the abuse would be far greater."
A reader who is into nature photography had a lesson he'd learned from that pursuit. "If you set out to photograph a certain subject, chances are you will just not see it," the reader wrote. "Hence, you are much more successful covering all the subjects that present themselves randomly to you with your three rolls of film for that weekend. I think the GripeLog will remain sanguine and 'natural' the same way -- you simply cover what comes along naturally and the log will be 'richer' than had you tried to focus on specific subjects instead. As a butterfly-nut I was not prepared to see suddenly one day thousands of frog eggs glistening at the edge of the pond - I had left the super-macro extensions and those cumbersome focusing rails at home. I will never make this mistake again."
The one area where many readers felt there could be improvement is in providing easier access to the vendor and product issues we discuss. "There are certain vendors with whom I will not do business," noted one poster "I've read enough nastiness about them -- typically from you, Ed -- that I know to avoid them. But I have a hard time remembering all the various issues that have come up with their licensing, support, DRM, sunsetting, evergreen policies, spyware, etc. It would be useful to have a single source where you could enter a vendor or product name, or select from a list, and see a list of issues that have come up, one line each, with a link to the full story. I often warn others about vendors/products to avoid, but my warning loses some force when I can only recall one or maybe two notable issues surrounding them, even though I know there have been many."
Others agreed that they would like to see more structure than the weblog provides. "The utility of the site could be improved, i.e., I'd like to search your site before making a bad purchase," another reader wrote. "Googling the site is OK for specifics, but it would be nice to have more of a categorical comparison capability of various companies along with complaints and compliments registered by users and tallied and graphed against each other. Basically a database in addition to the weblog format. Ideally, users could rate companies and products separately and in several different categories -- fairness of EULA terms, responsiveness to customer problems, product quality, etc. Responses could be tallied by date so that you could even look at how a particular company's philosophy has changed over the years."
But given that I'm not noticeably getting any younger or richer, how can we add more structure to the content without dropping some of the stuff we're already doing? As a matter of fact, a number of readers have proposed an answer to that conundrum, and one that really seems to be quite in keeping with the spirit of the GripeLog. Making it work won't be easy, but I'm not worried - because that's going to be your job.
Read and post comments about this story here.
3:19:18 PM 
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