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Strategies & Market Trends : Piffer OT - And Other Assorted Nuts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: arno who wrote (43401)	7/2/2000 3:36:43 PM
From: Original Mad Dog	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 63513

Are you serious? Yes, I was serious. However, it has been pointed out to me both privately and publicly by a couple of people that they feel that would not be appropriate. I am happy to see that the Wall Street Journal has at least run a piece about the snafu and seems to have picked up the most important gaffes. However, I remain distressed by the "official" posts by SI management. I referred to one yesterday, and there was a real curious backtracking of that one later on: Message 13983371 To: Rose_Campion who wrote (12382) From: John Busby Saturday, Jul 1, 2000 5:39 PM ET Reply # of 12509 "I can’t probably address everything that you and others have brought up to your satisfaction, but I’ll (hopefully) answer some here. "Yesterday’s message wasn’t exactly what I had written in my first draft, but I wanted to say on behalf for the Silicon Investor team that we apologize and view as unacceptable the problems that you and others have reported to us. I agree with you that the problems weren’t associated with performance as defined by how fast the site operated, although one positive consequence I expect from the upgrade is to improve reliability, speed, and scalability. Instead, some functions weren’t responding properly. Our engineering team has been working around the clock and as we scour the message boards & read customer service e-mails in real-time, we are addressing, prioritizing, and most importantly fixing these problems." What jumped out at me was the first line: "Yesterday's message was not exactly what I had written in my first draft ...." Looks to me like some lawyers and managers got to that message and sanitized it to the point that it looked just ridiculous. I can easily summarize what apparently happened: Busby wanted to tell us the truth, and he was ordered instead to lie to us. I am open to other interpretations, but that is what it looks like from where I sit. What angers me is not the mistake, though it was certainly preventable and should have been prevented. What angers me most is the sheer dishonesty of the reaction to the mistake, both as evidenced by Busby's posts and in Jill Munden's comments quoted in the Wall Street Journal article I posted. That led me to conclude that these people needed to be taught a serious lesson. Calling in the pit bulls wouldn't help you and I one bit, and it would hurt GNET shareholders of whom there are a few I respect on this thread. But it would teach them a lesson, and maybe end up being preventive medicine. That was the origin of the comment, and while the feeling behind it is still there I am willing to wait and see a little bit. I note that my in-box has still not received a message to all SI members even alerting them to the problems, much less indicating a solution or apologizing for the inconvenience and gross violations of privacy. So my 300 word answer to your "yes/no" question is "yes", but since sentiment seems to be against my doing that I will only do so via private message.