Offer Solutions - not Mudslinging...

11/21/2006 06:36 PM by Chris Toohey

This community has always been a close, helping community. If anyone has an issue, your typically only an Email, IM or phonecall away from getting a solution to an issue. Sadly, based on what I read over at Jake's, it looks like we're simply slinging mud and not trying to provide answers to business problems. Now, I've been a member of this online community for years (since October 23rd, 2002 when I "Hello World!"-ed and posted a link to Pixie that Mike Golding picked up on), but this was the first time I really saw such a split between the community.

I'm not getting into it - I quite frankly don't have the time.

It's just a shame. I can see this from both ends. I understand IBM's views and stance on things. I can totally understand Jake's (and others) views and their cry for the tools to do their jobs... but bitching back and forth, trading "armchair quarterbacks"-comments (understanding the thought behind the statement, but we're your frigging champions dude...) and combatting with cries of "I can do this with this and that with that, while people over at Volker's are complaining of a webpage/site being non-W3C compliant and ugly/long URLs.

I wonder what happenned to our community. I wonder why people are taking shots at eachother. And I wonder if we all don't have too much damned time on our hands to start bitching about stuff like this.

Community: give feedback to the vendor - the product will surely not be all it can be without it.
Vendor: take our feedback - and try to do what you can. We might not understand all of the reason's behind you doing things a particular way, but we the majority of us aren't complaining because we like to slam IBM.

I didn't want to get into this. I really didn't. But I care. I use this tool every day. I have slightly more than a "vested interest" in it's adoption and retention. Maybe that's why I commented. Maybe that's why everyone on Jake's site commented. Maybe that's why Ed commented. We all care. Now, instead of mudslinging, why don't we try to focus that energy and use it to provide the greater community with solutions to their issues instead of cultivating that oh-so-clever quip and jab!