Tag Archives: online

The Joys of Online Shopping

Posted on by
Comment

Why visit stores?

I have gotten to the point where I do about 75% of my non-grocery shopping online. I’m willing to bet that a good portion of the folks who read this are in the same situation. The rest of you might wonder why.

The Shipping Cost Argument

Most people use this as their argument against online shopping: if you shop in a store, you don’t pay shipping.

Okay, this is true. But I still have to get to the store. That takes time and costs money for fuel.

While I’m more concerned with the value of my time than the cost of fuel to drive to a store that has what I need, I won’t deny that I probably would have to drive at least 80 miles roundtrip from my Wickenburg home to find the item I’m looking for.

Let’s do the math here.

First, my time. Suppose I have to drive 80 miles round trip to get to a store that might have what I want to buy. Suppose I can get to the store in about an hour and that it takes me a half hour to find what I want to buy and pay for it. Then another hour to get home. That’s 2-1/2 hours. But what if the store that I thought had what I wanted didn’t have it? Then I have to go to another store, which may or may not be nearby. Let’s estimate 30 minutes for each store I visit. Now let’s estimate 2 stores per item I need to buy. So if I have to buy something as simple as a pair of jeans, I might be spending about 3 hours to get to the store, find them in my size and color, buy them, and get home. In 3 hours, I can write a how-to article for publication on a Web site that pays me several hundred dollars per article. So I’m potentially losing out on several hundred dollars of income.

Okay, so suppose I wasn’t planning on doing anything else that day. For the sake of argument, let’s assume my time is worthless.

But let’s look at the fuel costs. Suppose I drive that in my Honda, which gets about 20-25 miles per gallon highway. There’s some highway driving and some nasty “city” driving in terrible traffic where I usually shop. To make the math easier, let’s assume 20 miles per gallon. That’s 4 gallons for the 80 miles. Fuel prices for premium (which this little car takes) have ranged from $1.50 to $5.00 per gallon over the past year. We’ll use today’s price, which is about $2 per gallon. That’s $8 in fuel alone.

How much is the shipping cost for that pair of jeans?

It’s Not Secure

What? Get with the program. If you shop smart online, your transaction is secure.

In fact, it’s probably more secure than handing your credit card to a waiter in a restaurant where it’s all too easy to copy down credit card information before running a charge for your meal. Or reciting it over the phone, in a place where it could be overheard, or to a company that may or may not have honest employees or good intentions.

What’s risky is entering credit card information in unsecured forms online. Look for the lock icon on the edge of your browser window to ensure that a form is secure. You can also look at the URL; it should start with https (note the all-important “s”). Another thing that’s risky is putting your credit card information in an e-mail message. There’s no reason to do it, so don’t.

It Doesn’t Support the Local Economy

Well, that’s certainly true. But neither does shopping at the mall. Or at Wal-Mart.

And neither does hiring staff in India or China or Pakistan to provide telephone support or make products.

Let’s not go there, okay?

Today’s Purchase

Simply said, online shopping is fast, convenient, and affordable. Here’s an example.

Chef PantsI just bought 3 pairs of the “chef” style baggy pants I like to wear. (And no, I didn’t buy them with this crazy pattern — although you have to admit they look pretty funky.) As I was buying them online, my husband pointed out that he knows a place in Phoenix that sells “those kind of pants.” But do they sell the brand I’m wearing right now? The brand that seems to be cut perfectly for my middle-aged body and relatively long legs? And how much do they sell for there? These are all unknowns. There’s a chance that I could track down the store he knows and spend 30 minutes in there only to find out that they don’t have what I want. That my time wasted.

I found an online retailer that sold the pants I wanted by doing a Google search for a brand name. I immediately saw a store I’d bought from in the past, as well as a bunch of other online stores. Within about 10 minutes, I confirmed that the store I’d used before had the colors I was interested in at the best price. (You want to buy your own pair? The pants are from Five Star Fundamentals and the online store is AllHeartsChefs. These a great pants.) The entire shop-and-buy transaction took 15 minutes of my time as I sat at the kitchen table, enjoying my morning coffee.

Shipping on these three pairs of pants was a hefty $12.50. That’s a lot more than the $8 of fuel that I use up on a Wickenburg to Peoria shopping trip. But guess what? There was no sales tax added to my purchase. That saved me about $4.50. Oddly enough, when you add the cost of fuel to the sales tax I saved, it results in exactly $12.50 for this purchase. So the net savings was just my time.

And I’ll continue to argue that my time is of value to me.

The Death of Brick and Mortar Retailers

Online shopping is going to put a lot of brick and mortar retailers out of business. It’s sad, but is it such a bad thing? Don’t you think we have enough strip malls in this country? Aren’t you sick of seeing “big box” stores popping up all over the place, causing traffic jams during the day and blotting out the night sky with their parking lot lights?

Yes, there’s a loss of jobs. Or maybe it’s just a shift of jobs from malls to warehouses.

The benefits — as far as being green go — are real. People argue that when you buy online, the item has to be shipped to you and the shipper has a carbon footprint. That’s true, but don’t I have a carbon footprint when I drive my Honda down to Peoria and back to buy a single pair of jeans? The UPS guy, in contrast, is bringing goods for dozens — if not hundreds — of Wickenburg residents every time he comes to down. He’s doing the driving for all of us. And the more online shopping we do, the more driving we don’t have to do — while his driving remains almost the same.

This is the same argument the railroads have been using lately to say why shipping freight via rail is more green than shipping via truck. They’re already making the trip; adding more items doesn’t substantially increase the carbon footprint.

Personally, I’d like to see malls go away. I’d like to see downtowns revitalized. I’d love to be able to go to downtown Wickenburg and shop for things like clothes and shoes and books and music. I’d love to sit at an outdoor coffee shop with friends in my own town, with shopping bags at our feet while we discuss the bargains we’ve found. None of that kind of shopping is available in my town or anywhere near it.

Just as malls are killing downtown shopping, online retailers are killing malls.

And the way I see it, I’ve wasted enough time and money shopping. When I want to buy, I’ll buy it online.

What do you think? Use the Comments link or form to share your thoughts.

Hotwire Loses a Customer

Posted on by
1

Mike finally wises up.

My husband, Mike, is always looking for a travel deal. While there’s nothing wrong with that, what he usually winds up with is a prepaid travel deal with restrictions and other strings attached that make the trip a little less pleasant.

Hotels Deals?

His use of Hotwire, for example, has screwed us up more than once. He often uses it to book hotels. He claims he gets a better deal. What he usually gets, however, is a substandard room in the least desirable part of the hotel that doesn’t match his requests. I’m talking about the third-floor room in a high-rise that overlooks the air conditioning units on the roof of the hotel’s conference center. Or the one across the hall from the ice machine or elevator bank or housekeeping storage closet.

The request thing really bugs me. Hotwire — and most of those special deal booking services — include a field in the reservation form where you can enter requests, such as “quiet room” or “upper floor.” It usually also includes form fields for bed size (i.e., King, 2 Queens, etc.). The trouble is, the hotels either don’t see or don’t get these requests. While we’ve never been stuck in a smoking room after requesting nonsmoking, we seldom get our requested bed size (a single King or Queen). And the other requests regarding room type are usually ignored.

So what is your special deal getting you? Certainly not what you wanted.

And what kind of a deal is that?

While it really doesn’t matter on a one-night stay, getting a less-than-satisfactory room on a multi-night stay can really ruin the trip, especially if it’s supposed to be for pleasure.

The hotels, in the meantime, don’t give a shit about you. In their eyes, you’re paying $99 for a $199 room — or whatever your special deal is — and you’re at the very bottom of their list for service. They don’t care about you. They don’t want your kind in their hotel. The very fact that they have to take in Hotwire guests cheapens their establishment, in their eyes. So when you realize that your vacation is about to be ruined by your room’s view of the garbage dumpsters rather than the mountains or ocean on the other side of the building, and ask to get a different room, they respond that the hotel is full. They’re not even willing to do a deal with you for an upgrade. I think it’s because you pay Hotwire for the room — not the hotel itself — and making a change is likely to start an accounting nightmare for whoever’s at the desk.

This happened to us twice on trips Mike booked for the two of us. After the second time, I made him promise he’d never book a hotel through Hotwire for a trip I was going on with him. But Mike continues to use Hotwire for his solo trips, and for the trips he takes with his family members. Whatever.

Rental Car Reservations?

Well, Mike got bit bad by Hotwire this week. He’s flying to Seattle to visit me out in central Washington. I told him to fly into Wenatchee, which is 30 miles from where I was staying, but he was too cheap to pay the extra $220 airfare from Seattle to Wenatchee. He expected me to drive the 300 round trip miles twice to pick him up in Seattle and then take him back. When I explained that wasn’t happening in my 10 miles per gallon truck, he decided to rent a car. I had no problem with that because I figured that whatever he rented would be more comfortable and fuel-efficient than my 1994 Ford F150 redneck truck.

Now, I’ve rented cars too many times to count over the past 20 or so years. I don’t like doing it. There are too many different prices and options and add-on fees. I’ve found that the very best way to get a good deal is to check the Web sites or call the toll-free numbers for the top 3-5 car rental places that serve the market you’re going to and get quotes. Have your AAA or AOPA or whatever discount code ready. Unless you’re traveling with a lot of people, always ask for the smallest, cheapest car. Nine times out of 10, you’ll get upgraded for free. (I’ve been upgraded to convertibles, minivans, SUVs, and even sports cars.) The trick is to compare apples to apples to make sure each quote is for the complete and total amount. When you find the best price, book it through the car rental agency. They usually just ask for a name and phone number; they seldom ask for a credit card. You write down the confirmation number and present it at the rental counter when you arrive.

But Mike reserved through Hotwire. And not only did they charge him over $350 up front for the entire rental, but the “reservation” was non-refundable. So when I picked up a contract in the Chelan, WA area and needed my truck (and its miserable fuel transfer system) up there with me, he was unable to cancel the car reservation and make the plane reservation (as I’d originally requested — and yes, that’s an “I told you so”). As a result, he’s paying $350 to rent a car to drive himself from Seattle to Quincy and back again. For the rest of his stay, the car will be parked in front of my camper at the Quincy Golf Course.

After battling with a “supervisor” at Hotwire and the rental car agency and getting nowhere, he admitted that he’d learned his lesson: He will never book anything with Hotwire again.

The Moral of this Story

I guess the thing that bugs me most about this affair is the fact that you can really get screwed just trying to save a few bucks. And while it’s nice to save money when you can, there comes a point when saving $20 or $50 on a 10-day car rental isn’t worth the restrictions and headaches that go along with the savings. In this case, by booking his car rental through Hotwire a few days in advance of the trip, he forfeited all of his travel flexibility.

Moments ago, with 10 minutes of work, without any discount codes, I found a suitable car rental through Enterprise for $373.56 — less than $25 more. Is it worth $25 — less than 7% of the purchase price — to pay for something in advance without any chance of refund?

To add insult to injury, our financial situation does not make it vital to save the $25. It’s not like we’re broke. But that’s part of the big picture. And sometimes, for some people, it’s tough to see the forest for the trees.

Offline Again

Posted on by
Comment

An update to a recent post.

Less than 12 hours after the unhappy Internet guy set me up with service in my camper at the golf course (as reported here), that service was disabled.

By the irrigation guy.

Here’s the strange but true story.

Since the Golf Course folks were paying for the Internet installation, it made sense for them to have an Internet connection at at least one of their computers. For simplicity’s sake, they decided to use the computer closest to the router. Although it looked like a regular desktop PC, it was actually a PC dedicated to the operation of the golf course’s irrigation system. A complex Toro software/hardware system enabled the golf course staff to activate any of its sprinklers by radio from anywhere on the course.

Wireless AntennaThe PC in question was connected to a simple antenna on the roof that was about 18 inches from the antenna the Internet guy installed. You can just about see it in this picture; It’s the white pole behind the pizza box antenna.

Well, as soon as the Internet was connected to that computer, the otherwise bored golf course employees decided it was time to go surfing. I don’t even think the Internet guy was gone before Explorer was launched and at least one employee was checking out YouTube.

I knew this was going on, but it didn’t really register that it could be a problem. I was oblivious, just happy to have my connection.

Around 9 PM, there was a knock on my trailer door. It was still light out — the sun doesn’t set until about 9 here this time of year — but I was in my pajamas, lounging in bed with a book. I threw on a pair of shorts and came to the door. It was the irrigation guy. I’ll call him Carl, even though that’s not his name.

“The Internet guy screwed up my computer,” he fumed. “I can’t get the sprinklers to come on. It’s all screwed up.” I could tell he was pretty angry. “Do you have his phone number?”

I handed over Pete’s card. He stormed away with it.

I didn’t think anything more about it.

Until the next day. My Internet connection still worked for a while, but the signal wasn’t very strong. Some rain on the camper sent me to the airport to pull the helicopter out, just in case I had to fly. When I returned at about 9 AM to keep myself busy until I got a launch call, the Internet was down. In fact, my computer couldn’t even find the wireless network.

I went into the golf course office. The router was gone. I later found it in a pile of wires and cables and transformer boxes on another desk.

I asked the guy at the desk what had happened.

“Carl couldn’t get the Internet guy on the phone and his sprinklers weren’t working. So he called his daughter out here and they disconnected the Internet.”

I later found Carl. He was still fuming. “That computer is for the irrigation system only,” he said. “If you touch anything on it, the system goes down. They shouldn’t have put the Internet on it. The Internet guy didn’t call and I had to do something so we disconnected it. I had to do a restore from last Tuesday. I think I got it working again.

I should clarify here. The only way “the Internet” was connected to his computer was via a single Ethernet cable from the router. That’s it. The computer was not doing anything to keep the Internet connection alive — although for all I know, Pete may have used its browser to configure the router the previous day. All Carl had to do was disconnect that Ethernet cable. But he’d pulled it all out.

All except the power to the Internet antenna.

I discovered this on Monday when I attempted to reconnect everything — except the irrigation computer, of course. I had Pete on the phone and he gave me a physical description of the box between the antenna and the router. Carl hadn’t disconnected it, so the antenna was still powered and operating.

I got the system all back up and running, then asked Carl to test his system. He went outside with a radio and tried it. “It won’t work,” he said.

I powered down the router and asked him to try it again. It still wouldn’t work, even though it was basically the same as it had been all weekend when it did work.

I unplugged the little box and asked him to try again. He said it still wouldn’t work. But now nothing was connected. When I pointed that out, he looked at his radio and said, “Well, maybe the radio isn’t charged up. It’s acting like it’s not charged.”

Patience, Maria. Patience.

“How about if you charge it all up and we try again later?” I suggested. “Maybe after lunch?”

He agreed. He put the radio in its charging station and I left everything unplugged.

Later, he came by my camper. “The antenna is too close,” he told me. “I called the irrigation support people and they told me the Internet antenna was conflicting with my system.”

I’d already explored this possibility with Pete. He didn’t think it was likely, but since we didn’t know the frequency of the irrigation system’s radio, we couldn’t be sure. Carl didn’t know the frequency.

After he’d driven off to look at something out on the golf course, I slipped into the office. A mousepad provided by Toro listed support phone numbers. I dialed one of them. Moments later, I was explaining the situation to a support guy. I asked him the frequency of the radio system. He said it was in the “400 range.” I had no idea what that meant, but figured Pete would. I asked him if he’d ever heard of the system conflicting with an Internet setup. He said he hadn’t. I also discovered, during the phone call, that Carl had not called their support number since the beginning of June. So that means that either Carl was lying or someone else had told him the two systems would conflict. Sheesh.

I spoke to Pete. We agreed that there was no conflict. But he promised to come by on Tuesday (today) to move the antenna farther down the roofline.

With luck, I’ll have my network backup by this afternoon.

Online Again

Posted on by
Comment

I finally get a reliable Internet connection.

AirPort SignalI’ve been trying, since arriving here in Quincy, WA, to get a reliable Internet connection. Today I succeeded. Sort of.

I’m camped out in an RV park at the Quincy Golf Course. The golf course has just changed ownership and the new owners — the Port of Quincy — are trying hard to get the place up and running for the summer. They’re doing a damn good job. But they didn’t have Internet and they had too many other things to think about before adding it.

One of the people who works there, Matt, lives about four houses down the road. I could see his network from my computer, but it was secured. He kindly gave me the password. For the next week or so, I could connect during the day and take care of file transfers, Daily Show Downloads, blog posts, and e-mail. But when my next door neighbor returned around 5 PM each evening and parked his truck in front of his camper, my connection was cut off.

I could use my Treo and did so when there was no other choice. It uses Bluetooth with a Verizon service called BroadbandAccess Connect — which is also known as Dial Up Networking (DUN). (I wrote about DUN here in an article titled “Setting Up Your Mac to Use a Smartphone’s Internet Connection.”) I pay $15/month for this service and it’s worth it. It’s the only cellphone based Internet service I know that doesn’t have a bandwidth cap. I don’t like to use it because (1) it’s not terribly fast — perhaps 256-512 kbps and (2) when I get an incoming call, not only does it disconnect me, but my Mac always seems to need restarting before it will connect again.

I researched other options. All wireless options had a bandwidth cap that was far lower than I needed. (5 GB a month? Are they kidding?) Other ISPs who worked in remote areas — I’m in the middle of farmland 5 miles outside of town, for heaven’s sake! — didn’t serve this area. But there was one ISP who did serve this area.

I contacted them shortly after arriving, when I realized that the borrowed access wasn’t going to serve my needs. It’s obviously a small company. I spoke to two different people. I won’t use real names; let’s just call them Don and Pete. Don was evidently in charge of sales and was anxious to make a deal — even for a period as short as two months. Pete was the technical guy who did the installations and evidently had no desire to come to Quincy. Pete made a lot of excuses. It kept getting put off. Then I got Don on the phone again and made a deal with him. I was willing to pay $220 for two months of broadband access. (I really need access to get my writing work done.)

Pete came out to check my site. The service they offer is the same type I have at home. They mount an antenna in a high place and point it at their antenna within visual range. Then they attach a router to the local antenna and I’m in business.

Pete seemed pissed and was not very friendly. He went through the motions of pointing the antenna at one of two sites. But he was standing on the ground and he wasn’t trying very hard. He said there was no signal. He couldn’t help me.

I wasn’t about to give up. It had taken two weeks to get him there and I wasn’t going to let him leave. I suggested putting it on the golf course’s clubhouse building, which was 100 or so feet away. I talked to the golf course manager and he said okay. He also said that they also wanted Internet service, so they’d pay for the installation. All I had to do was pay for access for the two months I wanted it.

Pete didn’t seem happy about this. He said he’d come back in “a day or two” to do the installation.

Of course, he didn’t come the next day.

Wireless AntennaHe came today and did the job. He put the antenna on the roof of the building and set up the router in the golf course club house office. He connected one of the golf course computers via Ethernet. Then he came to my trailer and fetched the MAC addresses for the three laptops I have with me. (I really am serious about getting some work done.) He programmed them into the router so no one else could get access without paying for it. After a few false starts, we got all three of my laptops to connect, although my old 12″ PowerBook doesn’t pick up the signal as well as my MacBook Pro and Dell Latitude. I joked with him about living in a trailer with three laptops. He didn’t laugh. He still wasn’t happy. I wonder if that guy is ever happy.

Then he tried to collect $220 from me.

I told him the golf course people said they’d pay for installation. He got Don on the phone. I talked to him. He was very agreeable. When we hung up, I wrote a check for $70 for the next two months of access. I should be gone by then.

After he hurried off to be cranky elsewhere, I discovered the shortcomings of my connection. First of all, it drifts and sometimes drops — although it’s been pretty good for the past few hours. Second, they must have a port blocked because I had to reconfigure Mail to use a different port to send e-mail. (Read more about this solution here.) And third, because I’m sharing the connection with the golf course people, if they do some heavy surfing, my connection slows down.

But overall, it works well enough. And the price was less than I was willing to pay.

June 24, 2008 Update:
Read how this situation changed the very next day.

Why Forums Suck…

Posted on by

…and what you can do about it.

Do the forums on your favorite Web sites get your blood boiling? Or simply frustrate you beyond belief? Well, join the club. You’re not the only one who feels this way. But there is something you can do about it. Read on.

A Brief History of Today’s Forums, from My Seat

I’ve been participating in an online community since the late 1980s. And no, that isn’t a typo.

I ran a computer Bulletin Board System (BBS) with message boards connected to the Fidonet network back then. Fidonet was a cooperative effort to gather up and distribute groups of messages posted on BBSes all over the world. Each night, in the wee hours, my computer would use special software to exchange the messages posted by my system’s users with those posted by others. They would, in turn, exchange with others. Like any true network, the content was distributed quickly and efficiently. Because there were so many Fidonet BBSes back then, I seldom had to make a long distance call to get new content. The distribution was as wide as the popularity of a topic — WRITING, I recall, was quite popular and would typically collect 300 or more new messages a day. Other topics might dribble in 2 or 4.

It was kind of cool. You’d log onto my BBS, The Electronic Pen, in the tiny town of Harrington Park, NJ. Perhaps you lived nearby. Or maybe you liked the other people who frequented the place. I might get 20 to 50 callers a day, connecting via 9600 baud modem on my two phone lines. You’d post a message in a local message board — that’s one that wasn’t part of Fidonet and could only be read on my BBS. Or perhaps you’d check out one of the Fidonet message bases. It would be full of messages from people all over the country. You’d read and reply to them. At night, your message would travel in a package with other new messages to another computer. Depending on scheduling and the willingness of BBS System Operators (SysOps) to do multiple connections in a day, your message would reach all the other BBSes that subscribed to that message base, usually within a few days or, at most, a week. If someone responded directly to you, you’d get that response a few days or a week later. Yes, it was slow. Yes, it was primitive. But it worked and it was free.

Fidonet was similar, in many respects, with the much more widely distributed Usenet newsgroups. Usenet was on the Internet, though, which was still in its infancy in those days. Few people had Internet e-mail addresses; instead, we had accounts on America Online or CompuServe or Prodigy or eWorld. (I remember, in the early 90s, exchanging e-mail with someone on CompuServe from my AOL account — it was a huge deal. Not only was I able to connect with someone in another network, but the exchange of three messages took less than 5 minutes!) Each of those systems had its own conferences or message boards, too.

What all these things had in common — Fidonet message boards, Usenet newsgroups, CompuServe Conferences, etc. — is that they enabled a large group of people from all over the country or world to come together and discuss topics. They were the precursors of today’s Internet forums.

The Death of Courtesy

The one thing that could always be counted upon in Fidonet message boards and Usenet newsgroups was flame wars. A flame war erupted when someone posted a message that was unkind toward another participant. Sometimes it was a minor rudeness that could have been avoided by the inclusion of an emoticon (i.e., smiley) and the “injured party” blew things out of proportion and escalated the situation with a ruder response. Other times, it was intentionally rude or belittling, resulting in a response that was equally so. Other participants would take sides, and soon the entire board would be filled with nasty comments going one way or the other, with a few non-partipants trying in vain to retain order. It was ugly, to say the least.

I have vague memories of filtering software developed so local SysOps could prevent offensive posts from leaving their systems. I was fortunate that my BBS was so small that none of the offenders originated there.

Flame wars were much more prevalent on Usenet than Fidonet back then. And they were virtually unheard of on AOL or CompuServe. Why do you think that is? I think it’s because of anonymity. Usenet was part of the Internet and the people who participated there were quite removed from the responsibility of a SysOp or network administrator. They felt freer to say whatever was on their mind. All Fidonet users could be traced back to a specific BBS with a SysOp who could reduce privileges on the user’s account and spread the word that he was a problem user. It was even easier on the fledgling AOL, CompuServe, and other online services; they knew exactly who you were from billing information and could cancel your account at any time.

Fast-forward to Today

The Internet has spread to almost every corner of the globe. Millions, if not billions, of people use it daily to get information and communicate with one another. The small online services that couldn’t compete — such as eWorld and Prodigy — are gone. Even the larger services are now Internet based, accessible to more than just members.

The nationally or internationally distributed message boards became dinosaurs. Information was readily available on Web sites. Communication was through e-mail. The once centralized information exchange became decentralized once again.

But since communication among users is an excellent way to build content for free, many Web site administrators have created their own forums for discussion. Anyone who has been using computers since the 80s will easily recognize a forum as today’s incarnation of local message boards on BBSes.

In today’s anonymous Internet world, where the vast majority of users prefer to hide behind an alias or cryptic user ID, these forums are populated by people who simply don’t care about the feelings of fellow participants. Most of them are rude know-it-alls who get more satisfaction out of blasting a fine point in someone else’s post than actually contributing helpful information.

As a result, many of these forums, which are often relied upon by large companies to provide technical support to their customers, are a frustrating mix of information — which may or may not be correct — and personality clashes. Their value is questionable — I’d go so far as to say that most of them are a complete waste of time.

Clash of the Nerds

By far, the biggest problem on today’s forums is the irresponsible and rude voicing of opinions that may or may not be relevant to the conversation. While I’m not saying that people shouldn’t voice opinions where appropriate, it’s the way that this is done that makes it a problem.

For example, someone in a forum might say that he’s had a lot of good experience with Product A to solve a specific problem mentioned in a forum. A proponent of competing Product B might come forward and accuse the other person of being stupid for using Product A, or that Product A is for morons. He won’t provide any facts to back up his argument or, if he does, the facts will be, in reality, more opinions. His purpose is not to provide useful information to other participants or even to answer the original question. His purpose is to bash Product A and the person who suggested it as a solution.

It’s the rude accusations that make this so distasteful, not only to the victim of the flaming, but to the innocent bystanders who agree with him or the people who have just checked in to learn something of value. And while this seldom gets out of control on well-moderated forums — like those managed by employees of a large company depending on forums for support — it’s common among poorly moderated forums.

A few weeks ago, I was a victim on a helicopter-related forum hosted by a Canadian helicopter magazine. I’d decided to try the forums after reading, in a recent magazine issue, that they’d be better moderated. I posted a question about helicopter helmets in one topic of the forum, then posted about the availability of a co-pilot seat for ferry flights in another topic. Here in the U.S., it’s relatively common for helicopter operators to offer flight time, for a nominal fee, to other helicopter pilots interested in building time. I had some long ferry flights coming up and was hoping to fill that seat to cut my ferry costs. Well, you’d think that I’d asked these guys to cut off the head of their first child. A bunch of them came down on me like I was some kind of evil monster. One of them even had the nerve to use the contact form on my Web site to send me a nasty message. (Some people really do need to get a life.)

I quickly decided that I’d made a mistake — not just in posting the message in the forums there, but for joining the forum in the first place. It was pretty obvious that there was little or no moderation by the magazine’s staff, despite the assurances that there would be. It was also obvious that the guys on the forum had not progressed past a high school mentality. They were unable and unwilling to see more than their own points of view. Although a more mature person could have expressed an opinion calmly and reasonably, this was clearly beyond their capabilities. Instead, they simply lashed out rudely, bashing me for suggesting such a thing, and painting me as some kind of evil witch trying to suck money out of poor, unemployed pilots.

All because I offered flight time in my aircraft for less than the going rental rate.

I contacted the forum administrator and told him to delete my account and any message I’d posted. To his credit, he complied within 24 hours. I’ve learned my lesson and won’t be back. And I probably won’t be joining any other helicopter forums, either.

But how many other knowledgeable, mature, and responsible people have been so turned off by the behavior in that forum to avoid it? And what about other similarly run-amok forums?

Could it be that the majority of people who participate in forums are those nasty, opinionated jerks hiding behind their aliases so they can get a sick thrill out of bashing others with conflicting opinions?

Could that be why forums suck? I think it’s the main reason.

My mother taught me that if I don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Why can’t forum participants remember this “Silver Rule”? They’ve obviously forgotten the Golden Rule, too.

Where’s the Information?

Forums run by big companies to supplement (or replace) true technical support may be moderated to prevent flame wars, but that doesn’t mean they’re perfect. Most of them are designed in such a way that the information you need is virtually impossible to find. As a result, you’re forced to create a new topic to ask a question, then monitor that and hope it gets a response.

Is that good technical support? I don’t think so.

The forum flaws that make it tough to find information can be broken down as follows:

  • Non-existent or poorly designed search feature. How frustrating is it to go to a forum and see a list of threads but no way to search them? Or a search feature that results in too many results? Or none at all? Or can’t narrow down results by date? Or product?
  • Forum categories that are too broad. A well-designed forum is separated into categories or topics (both terms are used), each of which contains topics, subtopics, threads, or posts (again, a variety of terms are used). Imagine, if you will, a software support forum with just two categories: Windows Support and Mac Support. Now imagine that all the questions are posted as hundreds of individual threads in either one of those categories. How likely is it that you’ll find support for the Product A printing problem on your Mac? Won’t you, like many of those before you, simply start a new thread with your problem? And how long before it’s buried and you can’t find it?
  • Threads that wander off topic. Imagine a forum thread with the subject line “Can’t Print with Product A on my Mac with HP LaserJet 2100TN.” Sounds pretty specific, no? You’d expect to find a discussion of that problem, wouldn’t you? But what you may find is (1) a Windows user claiming that Product A doesn’t work well on Macs, (2) a comparison of Canon and HP printers, (3) complaints about the same printer not working with Product Z from another manufacturer, (4) questions about Product A and PDFs, etc. In other words, anything remotely related to the topic. And once the discussion starts to stray, it can go anywhere. How useful is that for product support?

Personally, I have a problem with forum-based technical support. In most cases, the company is relying on its users to help each other. This is virtually cost-free support for the company — even cheaper than sending scripts and telephones to India or Pakistan. The quality of this “help” is not what I’m paying Adobe or Apple or Microsoft the big bucks for when I buy their software. When I have a question, I need an accurate answer quickly from someone or some resource that knows the answer. I don’t have time to screw around with support forums that may or may not answer the question for me.

Is the Information Accurate?

The scariest part of depending on forum information for support is the accuracy issue. Is the information on a forum accurate? Will it do more harm than good?

Perfect example: I visited a number of photographic forums to get information on how I could clean the CCD sensor on my Nikon D80 digital SLR camera. This isn’t a hugely expensive camera, but it did cost $1,000, which ain’t exactly cheap. Dust on the CCD is a common problem and there’s no local resource for me to get it cleaned. I wanted to see if there was a do-it-yourself solution, what equipment I needed to get it done, and how I could do it myself. What I found were dozens of different answers to this question, ranging from never clean the CCD yourself (!) to rub it with Solution A on a cotton swab. Some provided a detailed equipment list that varied from one person to another. Others provided step-by-step instructions that varied from one person to another.

With all this conflicting information, how was I to know which solution was correct? Obviously, I couldn’t know. So rather than put my relatively expensive equipment at risk of permanent damage, I decided to get it cleaned professionally, next time I’m in Tempe, 80 miles from my home.

(And in case you’re wondering, Nikon tells U.S. owners not to clean it themselves. But that’s just because Nikon is eager to avoid liability if it’s damaged during cleaning. In Japan, Nikon supposedly sells a cleaning kit with instructions. I’m not in Japan and I don’t read Japanese.)

Examples like this can be found on any forum. One guy says one thing, another guy says the opposite. Who’s right?

I personally believe part of the problem is a subset of the same sick jerks who start flame wars. In this case, they’re spreading their “expertise,” which is neither accurate nor reliable. They want to be seen as experts, so they spread their opinions as facts. Will you be foolish enough to take the advice of one of these people? I hope not.

Of course, the problem is even worse when incorrect advice is offered on a poorly-moderated product support forum.

What You Can Do

As a member of an online community, there’s a number of things you can do to make forums better:

  • Ignore the trolls. If there’s a jerk in a forum who’s saying stupid, nasty things, ignore him. I know it’s difficult, but it is possible. And guess what? If everyone ignores him, he will go away. These people thrive on conflict. They’re safely hidden behind their online handles, so they’re not worried about repercussions. They’ll say whatever they want, whatever will get the most rise out of the rest of the community. They’re doing it for attention. Don’t give them any and they’ll go elsewhere to get it. (Possibly to a local school where they’ll shoot innocent kids; but that’s a social problem I’m not going to address here.)
  • Rat out the trolls. If the forum is otherwise well moderated but there’s just one or two jerks trying to bring the discussion down to their level, contact the moderator privately, via e-mail or feedback form, and complain about the offending party. Use facts to support your complaint. If the forum moderator cares about the quality of the forum, he’ll do something about. If he doesn’t, then it’s likely you won’t want to be part of that forum anyway. Let it go.
  • Don’t fan the flames. If you see a conflict brewing in a forum, don’t pick a side and join in. You’ll only make it worse. Instead, if you know any of the people on either side, you might want to contact them privately and urge them to drop it. Or see the first two points here for what’s likely to be better advice.
  • Back opinions with facts. Got an opinion to share in a forum? Great! Lots of forum participants are looking for feedback from people with more experience or knowledge. But don’t state an opinion unless you can back it with facts. A statement like “Product A sucks.” is far more likely to get you in hot water and start a flame war than “I don’t like Product A because I’ve had a lot of trouble getting it to work with my printer and could not get any assistance from the developer to resolve the problem.”
  • Search before you post. If you’re in any forum where you expect an answer to a question, search the existing topics and threads before you add a new one. Your question may have been answered elsewhere in the forum. If the forum’s search feature is well-designed and functional, you may get an answer within minutes of arriving on the forum — rather than the time it takes for you to write out your question and wait for a suitable response. This also makes it a lot easier for others to find answers.

If you’re a forum moderator, there’s a lot more you can do to make your forums the best they can be:

  • Use the right software solution. A forum’s design depends, in part, on the software used to present the forum online. Choose software that gives you the options you need: search feature, categories/subcategories, threading, moderation, spam protection, etc. (Unfortunately, I don’t have any suggestions; I gave up running forums a while ago.)
  • Design the forum with appropriate categories and subcategories. This will help make it easier for forum visitors to find the discussions they’re looking for.
  • Make sure the search feature works. There’s nothing more frustrating than using a search feature that doesn’t find appropriate results. If your search feature doesn’t work right, you’ll get lots of repeat postings.
  • Moderate. I cannot stress this enough. While the free speech argument is very compelling, are you operating your forum as the soapbox for the masses? Or do you want to maintain some kind of order? Ban the trolls, delete inappropriate messages. If someone’s post is not in line with the purpose of your forum, it should go. You have the power and I think you have the right. But don’t advertise your forum as a place for all opinions if you’re going to delete the opinions that don’t agree with yours. You’ll find yourself under fire very quickly. Instead, on an opinion-based forum, enforce courtesy among commenters to keep things civil. We can all learn from other people’s opinions, but not when those opinions are rudely shoved down our throats.

What about Blog Comments?

If you’re a blogger with an open comment feature on your blog, you may recognize a lot of these points. You don’t need to operate a formal forum to experience the nightmare of trolls and flame wars. You might already have them on your blog.

All of this advice applies to bloggers and blog commenters, too.

What Do You Think?

Use the Comments link or form for this post to share your views. Just remember to play nice…