Comments on: Firefox NYT ad, some disappointment

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 08 Aug 2005 13:35:12 +0000

Regarding the NYT ad: I, too, was a donor, and my name did appear (correctly). It was nice to see my name there, but that was hardly the reason for making my donation.

My disappointment was not due to the poor communication by Mozilla regarding the placement & timing of the ad (we all make mistakes), nor was it with the fact that, because of the poor communication, I was unable to get a copy of that NYT edition; I didn’t like the way Mozilla refused to hold true to their promises of “compensation” to we donors…

When I saw Mozilla would offer a free NYT Ad poster to all of us who felt a bit slighted by the lack of communication, I felt that was reasonable compensation, and I requested mine. Weeks went by, months went by, and no poster. I sent an email. No response. I sent a couple more, CC’ing those whom I thought would at least have some knowledge of the offer (including the Mozilla store), and absolutely no one replied. Seven months later, after realizing no one at Mozilla really gave a shit about it, I bought a poster–happy to yet again donate to “the cause,” but pissed that “the cause” seems apathetic toward individual supporters.

I’m still a Firefox user, a Mozilla supporter, and a strong proponent of open-source, but I’ll be much more careful how (and to whom) I make my donations…

By: bjorn

bjorn — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 10:40:10 +0000

Doesn’t this miss the whole point of “Community effort?”.
This whole ad campaign not to mention a large part of the browser it self is a volunteer project. If you only contributed to get your name printed for everyone to see, go buy a step ladder and a can of paint!

By: Rob Davis

Rob Davis — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 05:33:20 +0000

hi Steve & readers;
Fear not.. the nytadcorrections@gmail account is being checked and I am taking action on your requests. My first priority is to take action, then I’ll be going back to respond to each email. Thanks for your patience.
all the best,
Rob

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 19 Dec 2004 16:15:35 +0000

I’m disappointed as well – primarily because my name was missing. But also that they didn’t provide us with a days notice as was promised.

I’ve sent an e-mail to the address mentioned, but have yet to recieve any kind of response.

By: Ali Ebrahim

Ali Ebrahim — Sat, 18 Dec 2004 04:22:17 +0000

Thanks for posting this blog entry. I was considering posting a very similar one myself, but I decided not to because various people would have chosen to interpret it as an attack on the foundation instead of constructive criticism of what went wrong. While almost everyone at MF and sfx are great people (Rob and Chris included), I can think of at least one person who simply cannot take constructive criticism, and regards any criticism as a personal attack on his integrity.

I fully agree with that that it was not the lack of effort by the volunteers that caused the problems, but the lack of (any) communication, and the “surprise” effect, which was totally unnecessary.

Brendan Eich says to another posted that he should “save [his] bad attitude for mistakes that actually matter to the target audience.” Given that this was the case, then I don’t really see the value in pulling a surprise on the sfx community. Turns out, that the surprise had more than one face.

(For those who are wondering, BE is not the one who I was pointing to in my first paragraph.)

By: Nathan Wong

Nathan Wong — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 20:10:44 +0000

I think the ad was slightly less than what I expected. Somehow I imagined, well, a full page color ad that really pointed out Firefox and branded it. It’s not quite there…

I’ll say, they managed to fit 10,000 names in there pretty well though. I have a few friends who are disappointed in it too (both the communication, the general way it was handled, and how it looks). Oh well, as said, it can only get better from here. :)

By: Dennis Pallett

Dennis Pallett — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 20:10:35 +0000

Alphabetical order eh? Heh, didn’t notice that. Thanks, I found my name.

By: Cheah Chu Yeow

Cheah Chu Yeow — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 16:29:42 +0000

Josh: Oh you misunderstand my gripes. Like I’ve said again and again, I don’t fault the sfx team for their mistakes with the ad. But I do fault them for the poor communication and the way the ad was presented as a “surprise”.

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 16:25:45 +0000

You do makes some good points. But I’m going to play the other side’s card for a moment. Like was mentioned above, there were only a few volunteers (not employees) working on the names (in their spare time), and there were 10,000 names. If you had to make the ad, I’m sure you would make a few mistakes too. Overall, I think the team did a great job and looking at the big picture, its a huge win for Firefox and open source in the long run.

By: Cheah Chu Yeow

Cheah Chu Yeow — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:48:01 +0000

Daniel: The names are arranged in alphabetical order of last names. Try looking at names with last names starting with “P”, failing which look at names with last names starting with “D”.

By: Dennis Pallett

Dennis Pallett — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:41:48 +0000

How am I supposed to check if my name is there? Do I actually have to look through that list, and try and find it? :S

By: Cheah Chu Yeow

Cheah Chu Yeow — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:15:04 +0000

Daryl: Thanks for checking that up for me and for forwarding my email to Rob. :) Like I said in my email, I’m sure it was a ghastly and painfully tedious job, so I don’t fault you guys for making mistakes. I’m also glad you don’t take my post the wrong way.

Rob: Thanks for your explanations as well. You don’t really have to explain. I know how tough it is. Like I say to Daryl above, I’m also glad that you don’t take my post the wrong way and welcome the criticism. I feel much more comfortable now than before.

Truth to tell, I was a bit wary of posting this entry in the first place, because of the misconceptions that could result. But I guess I took the easy way out to get attention from the sfx team since no other means of communication seem to be getting me any response. I’m now glad I did post this entry.

Keep up the great work, Rob, Daryl, and everyone else at in the sfx team, and especially the developers! We luv ya!

PS. I’ve changed the “more than” sign to the “less than” sign.

By: Rob Davis

Rob Davis — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:05:54 +0000

arg.. that greater than sign should be a less than sign.

To be clear, there are fewer than 100 (60 some at the moment) who were not in the ad and thought they should be.

best (and good morning!)
Rob

By: Rob Davis

Rob Davis — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:03:29 +0000

hi Chu Yeow & readers;
Thanks for your feedback and also patience and support. I am delighted that you like the ad, and certainly hear your feedback on ways to improve the process – I agree! There’s no question about it — it is extremely tough to manage your job, life.. and an awesome open source project. I have a lot more respect for the teams of developers that struggle with this daily.
Please do encourage your readers to email me at the gmail “corrections” address listed on Spread Firefox. We have found <100 people who donated, but did not appear in the ad. There were two sources which accounted for 90% of these errors: 1. users contributed to the Mozilla Foundation directly w/o donating through the NY Times campaign. 2. the payment never authenticated.
Thanks again for your support and feedback. This was trial 1.0 — it can only get better!

best regards,
Rob Davis

By: Anthony

Anthony — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 12:30:32 +0000

Hi Daryl,

Thanks for the response. I haven’t emailed the gmail address yet. I’m going to have to do it tomorrow as I’m short on time today. I’ll let you know what happens. :)

Regards,

Anthony