Topic: Civil 3D - The Exit Interview

[mjfarrell]

I guess the discussion groups are a valid source for help as long as one is willing to put up with a major dose of arrogance unless and until one has apparently passed their muster and is deemed worthy of a response.  I tried a few questions over there and offered some answers as well.  I was respectful, posed well thought out questions and comments and received zero response except for a couple "yea, I see that too" comments.  From what I can tell, if you have a question that has no ready answer, the silence is deafening.  The discussion groups are fine if you have a question you know has been answered, but can't find or need to verify some procedure to solve something, but other than that I find them a waste of my time.

DinØ

I have other reasons to dislike the News Groups; just try to do a search and get a reasonable number of returns.
You get all manner of answers from all over the place. They may be indexed, however they are not searchable in a useful manner.
Further once you do find an article that might answer your question, one must weed through all the folks with "signature lines" that include every possible manner to contact them; because there tends to be a large number of Vendors representatives trolling over there hoping to find someone to market to.
Lately the trend is to see a user get 'ganged' up on by vendors from a certain company/website to the extent that I wonder, do they have any customers at all?
Combine all the snarky comments, with the feeding frenzy from vendors, and the draconian rules about what can be discusses, and how it may be discussed, and that's what you get. A bunch of folks trying to thump their chests, and or link you over to their marketing portal. (website, blog, whatever) If their purpose is to help the users they should POST the solution, leave off the encyclopedic signature lines, and the links to their website. The user came there for an answer, and the answer should be what is posted right there with no stinking links.

Trust me, if the users want to contact you, and want to do business with you; they will find you.

[Jeff_M]

Wow, I guess you see what you want to see. I spend a lot of time reading and replying to messages in the Autodesk C3D group, and, with the exception of very few posters, I sure don't get the same vibes as Michael & Stephen do.

And I sincerely hope that I am not one of those that gives them that opinion.

[Dinosaur]

No, you are not Jeff.  You are as helpful there or more than you are here . . . and you are also recognized as such on that site.  Try searching for postings by reed.stephens and observe the demeanor of the posts and the responses given and I think you will see exactly what I am talking about.

[scout]

I trust that what Scout is really saying is not "Don't waste your time at the swamp, only use the official channels"
Because that would lead to the question; If the Swamp is such a waste of time, why is she here?

Not at all. I think the Swamp is great. I think there needs to be independent places to discuss things. And the environment in here is typically very friendly for users, and far less intimidating.

What I mean was that if you wanted to be potentially read and/or responded to by someone at Autodesk, you would have a greater chance in the autodesk forums. Some 'deskers I know read the swamp, but none of them would ever post here.

[Dinosaur]

. . . Not at all. I think the Swamp is great. I think there needs to be independent places to discuss things. And the environment in here is typically very friendly for users, and far less intimidating.

in light of this statement

What I mean was that if you wanted to be potentially read and/or responded to by someone at Autodesk, you would have a greater chance in the autodesk forums. Some 'deskers I know read the swamp, but none of them would ever post here.

Why?

[mjfarrell]

Actually not posting could be a good thing DinØ. That way they could concentrate on what was being said, and not suggesting there is no problem, or that existing kludges are acceptable solutions to user issues. Good thing the Swamp allows Guest posting!  They wouldn't even need to be 'real' members to view or post, and so no one would ever know who they were, should they choose to participate 'not as a part of the job', instead because of their passion for improving the product.


Perhaps not participating in the dialog officially might free them to find out what the 'lunatic fringe' of users are running into, and what parts of the product are openly detested. Get some good input on the product in an open forum, and then go back to the lab and do something about it. Leverage the passions of the passionate users to truly improve the product.  Instead of a site like augi that want to leverage the users as eyeballs to be marketed to. Let them sit in over here, where no one ever has to know who they are, and they have nothing to defend. Let them LISTEN to the customers, get mad even, when they say their pet function sucks; and then go fix the _ _ _ _.

[Mark]

Anyone (as in they don't even have to sign up) can view this forum but not everyone can post in it.

[Dinosaur]

OK Dana, after that I concede that it would be a bit dicey but I think there may be a way to perhaps a one time or trial run at some moderated dialog between the Autodesk folk and some of the ordinary user base that aren't inclined to or are prevented from joining the beta program and for whatever reason, choose to stay out of the discussion groups.  Perhaps at some agreed upon time all parties could meet here, trade some questions and answers and have everybody learn something.  It would take a bit of prep work, but I think we could all be professional enough to get along for the time required and I would be more than willing to help moderate things so they didn't get out of hand.

[mjfarrell]

Thanks for that, Mark, I guess the guest posting is more limited than I thought.

[mjfarrell]

OK Dana, after that I concede that it would be a bit dicey but I think there may be a way to perhaps a one time or trial run at some moderated dialog between the Autodesk folk and some of the ordinary user base that aren't inclined to or are prevented from joining the beta program and for whatever reason, choose to stay out of the discussion groups.  Perhaps at some agreed upon time all parties could meet here, trade some questions and answers and have everybody learn something.  It would take a bit of prep work, but I think we could all be professional enough to get along for the time required and I would be more than willing to help moderate things so they didn't get out of hand.

DinØ,

If they want to talk about the product great, and I'll forget about (subscription). What did I say?

You know If they just come over and read a few select topics, like your pipes issues, and sinc's survey issues.
And go fix those items, and a couple of mine, then something truly great will have happened!

[John Mayo]

The NG's also get more silent as one's voice grows.

[John Mayo]

http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5928030

I found the ansewer here pretty darn fast.

Thanks to all.

[mjfarrell]

You are quite welcome.

Tell all your friends about The Swamp we welcome your questions!

(speaking entirely for myself of course)

[scout]

Why?

I can't speak for other people, obviously, but I do know that the IP tracking and some other things that moderators can find out about users scares some folks away from even contributing even under assumed names.

[Dinosaur]

Why?

I can't speak for other people, obviously, but I do know that the IP tracking and some other things that moderators can find out about users scares some folks away from even contributing even under assumed names.

Well OK, but I can assure you and any others lurking in the shadows out there, that while IP addresses ARE logged here and any member's activity can be tracked in that manner, that information goes nowhere except to the administrators and certain moderators who deal with approving membership status.  Beyond that, they are rarely even looked at unless someone is causing a problem on the boards.  Even then, the addresses are not shared with even the other moderators.
My previous invitation to dialog is still intact.  It looks possible on this end if there is any interest from Autodesk.  It sounds like an expletive NO from what you just shared, but I think it would be helpful to both Autodesk and the users if we could work things out.