April 2004 - Posts
Good blog here on community http://weblogs.asp.net/betsya/archive/2004/04/19/116430.aspx
I think although flaming really hurts when you are starting out in this wild world web, it doesn't kill you and does actually make you stronger. Some flames are simple "Hey look at me" and kinda text message equivelant of pulling wings off flys and beating the small kid up for his lunch money. Other flames are criticisms and occasionally do have some valuable feedback buried under the really hurtful delivery. "That sucks" sometimes is a little warning that your message isn't getting through the way you had hoped ;OP
The most hurtful flames I ever received were not when I started really getting into newsgroups or discussion lists (heh, although a certain Red Dwarf fan by the name Friday was notorious for having a vicious temper on warm days - check it out in your favourite ng archive!). My worst flames came much later when I started writing for http://Aspalliance.com - woooah. Did I underestimate the amount of venom and bad will targetted at people who have the ARROGANCE to publish articles that put forward OPINIONS! I didn't write any comment pieces for a long while after that. I didn't write at all for a little bit, I just daren't.
When I wrote the chapters for the first two books I was involved with some technical reviews were pretty harsh (without any constructive advice). "This is woeful". Yeah? Really? Why? What should I do to correct it? Give me the benefit of your experience rather than a kick in the nuts. New authors are really sensitive to criticism as their skin is still human thickness, it's something I tried to remember when roles were reversed.
You know what the best thing is? No one gives two hoots what flamers think and your writing gets better because of it. What goes around comes around, what you give out you get back multiplied, etc etc
As far as communities are concerned, I think small communities take on a lot of the values and character of the founders. Larger communities take on a life of their own, especially when they grow very quickly. It's unavoidable that the odd twit get in and spoil it for some people, just have to make sure the community doesn't tollerate it when it happens. Easy to say ..
You may recall I was having a little difficulty with my web host (http://weblogs.asp.net/cgarrett/archive/2004/04/10/110796.aspx), well they finally came through with my affiliate cash this morning via Paypal. They are back in my good books (they really are a good host and at $10 a month including asp.net 1.1 AND sql server the best value for money on the net). If I have any problems in future I think I should direct to the one guy there who seems to be able to make things happen (Erwin)!
Paypal gets a lot of adverse press but without it I may never have seen what I was owed so they are pre-tty good to me :O)
I won't put the web hosts name here as I don't think it is the place for advertising but surf around my site and you will find a banner for them along with all the other services I recommend.
http://a9.com/
Check it out .. should shake things up a little in searchworld ;O)
It's by Amazon, using Google technology but also contains the Alexa "site info" so tells you information about the site and how many inbound links are pointing to it and other interesting stuff :O)
I was chatting to Plip who has just joined the aspalliance (at last!) and the subject of my GDI+ articles comes up. Plip thinks people "know" me for my ASP.NET graphics stuff on aspalliance and asptoday. There was also a book but sadly it was one of those big red ones with a photograph of a geek on the front :O( Now the only book with my GDI+ code in is the (brilliant) cookbook.
As I say in one of my articles (republished recently here) GDI+ is the aspect of .NET I really love and got excited about (what a geek). When I started writing stuff about GDI+ it was all new (to me anyway), there weren't many people writing about it so it seemed a fresh landscape to explore. Now there are many people writing on the subject (people often inform me when someone has rehashed my code - even down to keeping the same variable names and comments LOL!).
I guess I am asking if I should keep banging away at the subject or find something new to write about? I guess I need to find some cash and computer bits and build a machine to install that shiny new VS on!
What do you do when a company lets you down on a promise? Do you just leave that service and defect to a competitor?, do you warn people not to use them? What about if the company that let you down was one that you had recommended to others?
My hosting company has been great up to now. They are very low cost but provide a lot of features not included in the more expensive companies plans. Support issues were usually turned around in about 24 hours (possibly partly a time difference thing, me being in UK and them in USA). I have recommended them whenever anyone asked for recommendations for low cost ASP.NET hosting with sql server. It was an easy decision to make, I thought they were great plus they have a generous affiliate scheme - no brainer.
In fact I have only had one problem with them.They don't pay out on their affiliate scheme. According to their control panel I have been paid - months ago. But I haven't. No problem, I thought, they have always been responsive to tech queries. On this occasion they are not being very helpful at all. It's been going on since early February.
So I don't know what to do. On the one hand I have received a service I am happy with, happy enough to recommend to others. On the other hand they have broken a promise to me, a promise that is worth more than the value of another years hosting. Should I stick with them and write off the affiliate money or should I warn the people I have recommended that there is something dodgy going on? (Probably moot as if I have recommended them to YOU then you know now!). Should I tell the wider ASP.NET community?
Could be incompentance or it could be they are struggling with cash flow, either way its not a good signal for a hoster to be sending ..
Bit of a discussion going on over in my other blog - is it necessary to have a degree?
Would be interested in what you think ..
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