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The front page of Hacker News - the only way to get your support issue with (insert big tech company name here) fixed. As I keep suggesting, these big compani

The front page of Hacker News - the only way to get your support issue with (insert big tech company name here) fixed. As I keep suggesting, these big companies each need their own internal ombudsman, because at the moment they provide no way to fix things when their systems have gone crazy. The other reason (big companies X/Y/Z) need to each have an internal ombudsman is that it's getting tedious reading on Hacker News about how (big company X/Y/Z) has done something crazy and the user/developer/customer cannot get it fixed. Maybe its an entrepreneurial opportunity - someone could make a website that pays a fee to someone with Google/Microsoft/Amazon who is willing to use their influence to solve a crazy problem. "Rent a manager friend at Google".

burtonator 8y ago
You just gave me an idea actually... I don't have time to implement it but if you like it go ahead and steal it. Basically a Hacker News style-site for complaining about companies that don't fix their problems or own their support issues and their user base can upvote them to embarrass them into actually fixing the problem.
- dcow 8y ago
  Doesn’t this exist?
  - theoh 8y ago
    "Get Satisfaction" partly fits this description. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Satisfaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Satisfaction
- TheSpiciestDev 8y ago
  This is available ;) thingsarebadat.com
  - totorokun 8y ago
    Doesn't work :/
    - TheSpiciestDev 8y ago
      Whoops - what I meant was that the domain name is available!
- pishpash 8y ago
  They're not embarrassed, that's the problem, or embarrassment is just not enough. Usually money talks but "take your money elsewhere" also doesn't work when it's free.
  - A1kmm 8y ago
    "Take your $thingOfValue elsewhere" still works, it is just that when thingOfValue == "eye balls", the number of people that need to do it before the cost of the loss of those eye balls outweighs the cost of doing something about it is relatively high.
- bsparker 8y ago
  I’m building this at the moment :)
ehsankia 8y ago
It's hard to know, because in the majority of these cases, people don't even actually bother trying to contact Google and go straight for the outrage post. It's Sunday afternoon, the much more likely explanation is that it's an automated system, or something broke.
- pishpash 8y ago
  Where do you "contact Google" such that you don't get to play with a bot for free over the course of several weeks?
- mxd3 8y ago
  The Twitter OP is just sharing something he’s found. And now it’s front page on HN. Most likely there will be a response/fix tomorrow morning. A much faster response here then through traditional channels (Emailing Google). I’m thankful we have this format, one of the good things that’s come of social media.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  I've been part of a 4500+ member group of Google+ users trying to get any sort of response or assistance out of Google since the G+ shutdown was announced. That's a large set of the core G+ userbase of ~10 - 100k users, with probably 10-20k as the core cohort.[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/9ulvr0/dear_google_were_inviting_you_to_comment_to_the/ https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/9ulvr0/dear_googl... That was submitted to multiple channels on G+, to the Google Press email address, and through numerous Googler contacts. No response (though many of the issues were, and often only in the past few weeks and days, addressed, though others never were). It's been exceedingly difficult to get any response, and that's included what's effectively been a war against us by much of the Google+ Help community moderators. Google shut down the Communities on Google+ itself for Community owners and moderators, in one case for six weeks with no notice at all, in another, with at best a few hours' notice. https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/aev39g/google_shut_down_the_google_moderators_community/ https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/aev39g/google_shu... The details of this sort of behaviour tend toward petty and tedious, but that's precisely what's been seen: https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/9wi6sg/a_curiosity_regarding_disappearing_google_posts/ https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/9wi6sg/a_curiosit... https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/agm2j6/banned_from_the_google_help_community_on_g/ https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/agm2j6/banned_fro... https://imgur.com/a/5Sq0aAf https://imgur.com/a/5Sq0aAf Google didn't even bother putting shutdown notice on their G+ app and About pages (the latter still doesn't say anything): https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/ae5lsv/failure_of_communication_no_mention_of_imminent/ https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/ae5lsv/failure_of... ________________________________ Notes: 1. I've made (or inspired) several estimates of total Google+ user activity, beginning in 2015 using the services own sitemaps to show that only 9% of profiles were active at all and that a fraction of a percent could be considered regular public posters. That's not all Google+ activity, but it's a very, very large share of it. Stone Temple Consulting's follow-up study, based on my methods, looking at 500,000 profiles, gives a pretty solid view, and showed 50-100k highly active posters. There's a fair bit of churn at the top due to spam accounts: https://www.stonetemple.com/real-numbers-for-the-activity-on-google-plus/ https://www.stonetemple.com/real-numbers-for-the-activity-on... Further information: A Change.org petition has 38,580 signatures presently: https://www.change.org/p/google-inc-don-t-shut-down-google-plus-2 https://www.change.org/p/google-inc-don-t-shut-down-google-p... The Pluspora pod of Diaspora has 12,000 members. Other signs of activity (and expanding to include non-English native speakers) probably doubles the petition and Pluspora numbers (largely English-speaking, at least as a second language).

burtonator 8y ago

You just gave me an idea actually... I don't have time to implement it but if you like it go ahead and steal it. Basically a Hacker News style-site for complaining about companies that don't fix their problems or own their support issues and their user base can upvote them to embarrass them into actually fixing the problem.

dcow 8y ago
Doesn’t this exist?
- theoh 8y ago
  "Get Satisfaction" partly fits this description. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Satisfaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Satisfaction
TheSpiciestDev 8y ago
This is available ;) thingsarebadat.com
- totorokun 8y ago
  Doesn't work :/
  - TheSpiciestDev 8y ago
    Whoops - what I meant was that the domain name is available!
pishpash 8y ago
They're not embarrassed, that's the problem, or embarrassment is just not enough. Usually money talks but "take your money elsewhere" also doesn't work when it's free.
- A1kmm 8y ago
  "Take your $thingOfValue elsewhere" still works, it is just that when thingOfValue == "eye balls", the number of people that need to do it before the cost of the loss of those eye balls outweighs the cost of doing something about it is relatively high.
bsparker 8y ago
I’m building this at the moment :)

ehsankia 8y ago

It's hard to know, because in the majority of these cases, people don't even actually bother trying to contact Google and go straight for the outrage post. It's Sunday afternoon, the much more likely explanation is that it's an automated system, or something broke.

pishpash 8y ago
Where do you "contact Google" such that you don't get to play with a bot for free over the course of several weeks?
mxd3 8y ago
The Twitter OP is just sharing something he’s found. And now it’s front page on HN. Most likely there will be a response/fix tomorrow morning. A much faster response here then through traditional channels (Emailing Google). I’m thankful we have this format, one of the good things that’s come of social media.
dredmorbius 8y ago
I've been part of a 4500+ member group of Google+ users trying to get any sort of response or assistance out of Google since the G+ shutdown was announced. That's a large set of the core G+ userbase of ~10 - 100k users, with probably 10-20k as the core cohort.[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/9ulvr0/dear_google_were_inviting_you_to_comment_to_the/ https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/9ulvr0/dear_googl... That was submitted to multiple channels on G+, to the Google Press email address, and through numerous Googler contacts. No response (though many of the issues were, and often only in the past few weeks and days, addressed, though others never were). It's been exceedingly difficult to get any response, and that's included what's effectively been a war against us by much of the Google+ Help community moderators. Google shut down the Communities on Google+ itself for Community owners and moderators, in one case for six weeks with no notice at all, in another, with at best a few hours' notice. https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/aev39g/google_shut_down_the_google_moderators_community/ https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/aev39g/google_shu... The details of this sort of behaviour tend toward petty and tedious, but that's precisely what's been seen: https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/9wi6sg/a_curiosity_regarding_disappearing_google_posts/ https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/9wi6sg/a_curiosit... https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/agm2j6/banned_from_the_google_help_community_on_g/ https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/agm2j6/banned_fro... https://imgur.com/a/5Sq0aAf https://imgur.com/a/5Sq0aAf Google didn't even bother putting shutdown notice on their G+ app and About pages (the latter still doesn't say anything): https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/ae5lsv/failure_of_communication_no_mention_of_imminent/ https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/ae5lsv/failure_of... ________________________________ Notes: 1. I've made (or inspired) several estimates of total Google+ user activity, beginning in 2015 using the services own sitemaps to show that only 9% of profiles were active at all and that a fraction of a percent could be considered regular public posters. That's not all Google+ activity, but it's a very, very large share of it. Stone Temple Consulting's follow-up study, based on my methods, looking at 500,000 profiles, gives a pretty solid view, and showed 50-100k highly active posters. There's a fair bit of churn at the top due to spam accounts: https://www.stonetemple.com/real-numbers-for-the-activity-on-google-plus/ https://www.stonetemple.com/real-numbers-for-the-activity-on... Further information: A Change.org petition has 38,580 signatures presently: https://www.change.org/p/google-inc-don-t-shut-down-google-plus-2 https://www.change.org/p/google-inc-don-t-shut-down-google-p... The Pluspora pod of Diaspora has 12,000 members. Other signs of activity (and expanding to include non-English native speakers) probably doubles the petition and Pluspora numbers (largely English-speaking, at least as a second language).