Re: WMP11-What an unuseable piece of junk

"zachd [MSFT]" wrote:


"Dale" <dale0973@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:12DA2D5E-6E37-48FE-9A3C-0971326051E4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I have a suggestion for WMP 11.

You should have been involved in the WMP beta, then.

I wish I had known it was coming in time to have been involved. But then,
some of the features lost were in all of the betas according to others who
have posted here and were only removed when WMP 11 was released.


How do I submit it? I have made this
statement many times here and you have never even argued the point. So
now,
after months, you want to say that they do take feedback, suggestions, and
bug reports?

I've made the point many times that WMP11 has shipped, and that if you want
or need to submit feedback at this late hour, the Official Channel is
product support.

Paying $35.00 (soon to be $59.00) to speak to a product support person who
has no ability to directly contact anyone on the product team is not an
option. And, since the vast majority of consumer Windows licenses are OEM,
product support will not help most users anyway. And even for those that
they do help, they are not able to pass suggestions on to the product team.
They can only pass them on to their supervisor. If there are enough reports,
the supervisor may or may not pass that on to the product team.

I received an email yesterday from the Visual Studio Connect site. A bug
report I made 6 months ago is finally getting attention. They needed more
help to reproduce the issue. I responded with more specific steps. That was
6 months later but the report is not lost and its status is available to
anyone who participates in their Connect site. That is what I call a great
feedback system.


Nothing you've said here under any context is anything that I'm aware the
team did not give consideration to. After gathering feedback from some
ridiculous number of users during the beta process, if you're disgruntled
that that program isn't around during the offcycle... *shrug*

The Vista and IE team had rediculous numbers of users during beta as well.
They still take feedback. By the time a product is in beta, the UI and
features are generally close to complete. Only something dramatic would
change the features significantly. It is the feedback and suggestions from
your customers that you should be using to build the framework of the
application that goes into beta. Locking the suggestion box until after the
application is nearly complete just makes no sense at all.



I will stop when my feedback, suggestions, and bug reports get real
consideration.

There's no need to stop, but speaking about things you don't know about ...
it's just not productive. Nobody wants to deal with that.

Actually, there are a lot more people who have posted agreement with my
opinion about the performance of the Windows Media Player product team than
disagreement. So it really isn't what I post that people have to deal with
and don't want to deal with. It is the lack of interest in their customers
that is displayed by the Windows Media Player product team that people really
are really unhappy about.

That said, please be specific about what I don't know what I am talking
about. And provide corrections to what I say and documentation to back it up
rather than just blowing it off with empty statements.


Not just a circular file - but when the practices of the team
indicate that bugs get real consideration.

I'm unaware that you would be in a position to know or speak to the
practices of the team. Attempting to do so would seem ... I have
personal knowledge that bugs get real consideration, that suggestions and
ideas were taken into account and duly considered. Unless you have direct
personal contrary knowledge ... *shrug*

Read the context. I didn't speak about the actions of the team. The
problem cannot possibly be the actions of the team but is, instead, the
inaction by the team. How can bugs, suggestions, and ideas get taken into
account and duly considered when there is no mechanism to submit bugs,
suggestions, or ideas?


*shrug* It's not about me, and it's not about any one person. If your net
goal is to have a positive influence, you at the least would want to speak
to things you have personal knowledge of.

I don't think you're looking for a positive influence on the product. I
think you're looking for a positive influence on peoples' opinion of the
product. There's a big difference. What you'd like is for people to help
provide workarounds to bugs and design flaws and not dwell on the things for
which there is no solution. You'd like us all to put on a happy face and
just shrug like you do all the time.

Helping unhappy users find the solutions or work arounds to bugs and poor
usability is a great thing to do and I do it whenever I think I can help.
But that doesn't do a thing to help improve the product. It only helps
soothe the flared tempers and frustrations of YOUR customers.

When the Windows Media Player product team really wants to help their
customers, they will provide a mechanism by which their customers can provide
feedback.


This is an area I have a lot of passion for. I respect your passion, too,
but there aren't any magic monkeys that are going to fly in and instantly
erect the awesome systems you and I both want.

The people that you want to have here aren't the people that are able to
solve the feedback system problems you have.

My goal is not to search for magic monkeys. To coin a verse from one of the
best stories ever told:

You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really
sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in
harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of
them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking
in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an
organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty
people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out.
And friends they may thinks it's a movement.



I'm just trying to start a movement.

Dale
.