

GetSatisfaction's open letter to Jason Fried - swombat
http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2009/03/31/open-letter-to-jason-fried/

======
Raphael_Amiard
I think i'll buy into the fact that they're dedicated and willing to fix this
when they will have links to the official support page, and changed again this
banner to something like :

"37signals decided to handle their web-support by themselves. You can reach
them at <url>".

Their site is build upon a conception about "big evil companies", thor said
that himself in the so called open letter. So it makes every company on their
site that hasn't suscribed to their thing an evil one by definition.

Now don't get me wrong, this can be very good, when it is true. And very bad
and harmfull when it isn't

This is not a technical issue. This is a structural flaw into the conceptual
design of their website, so maybe they meant no harm, but that's not the point
at all.

If they can't fix it, it would probably be better for everyone if they went
down. On a brighter note, it's probably not that hard to fix. But it needs to
be taken very seriously.

Also i don't buy the garrett dimon line, even if i understand his motivations.
Those companies also leave in a world where they have very real possibilities
of harming each others.

So in the end, the fact that they're "really good people" is totally emotional
and strictly not related to the issue in place here.

And the fact that they're willing to fix, while a good thing, is also tied in
my opinion with the fact they did a mistake that could have hurt anybody in
the community.

So this is not 'nice' of them, it's just well, the regular attitude to have !

~~~
swombat
_This is not a technical issue. This is a structural flaw into the conceptual
design of their website, so maybe they meant no harm, but that's not the point
at all._

Of course that is the point!

Intention is important, not just actions. It makes a world of difference.

Every business is "flawed" in some sort of way - if only because they all aim
to trounce their competition and make money. But there's a whole lot of
difference between a business that willfully takes unethical steps that they
know are morally wrong, and one that merely makes a mistake.

Until I see proof that the GetSatisfaction team is actually a collection of
thugs, I will believe the various reports that indicate they're just like the
rest of us - nice, smart guys trying to solve a real problem as well as they
can.

~~~
Raphael_Amiard
Well i believe someone said "With great power comes great responsibilities"

I'm not saying intentions are not important. I'm saying what you get as an
outside observer is the facts, not the intentions.

GS business is directly built upon the existence of other societies,
particularly internet related ones. It's actually the whole purpose of the
site. So , as nice as they may be, they DO have a responsability about what
they do with the image of theses societies, and a way bigger one than anyone's
else site wich is not making added value with the society's technical support,
or lack thereof.

This responsability is real, and they failed at assuming it. That doesn't make
them thugs, or mafia or anything, unless we have proof of such things ;)

But it does make them pretty irresponsible people, since they failed on the
particular point that is supposed to be the key of their business !

Now i'm not saying it's dramatic or anything. They're probably nice people.
I'm just saying than saying sorry, even with the nicest of attitudes,and
changing this banner, isn't gonna cut it until they make all the changes
needed to adress every point made on 37s.

Also i don't think it's particularly nice to play the card of "We're a nice
little harmless startup, we're struggling, don't throw bad words at us".

They did real harm. In what proportions, that is difficult to estimate. I
probably would have thought along the same lines as the guys from 37s, wich do
not have a duty to play nicely with people that , besides all you could say
about their niceness, still potentially harmed their business.

~~~
swombat
_"With great power comes great responsibilities"_

Taking a leaf from that book, 37-Signals do have great power, with SvN, which
is a very influential blog read by many people in the start-up ecosystem. They
should then also have the responsibility to use that influence for good, not
evil. Viciously attacking another start-up without warning is not a good
action.

A big difference between GS and 37S there is that GS can plausibly suggest
that this was unintentional, whereas 37S actively published this attack on
their blog.

So where intention is concerned, 37S are the bad guys.

~~~
Semiapies
Are you saying you're in Jason Fried's head?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=541696>

------
randy
> I only wish that you hadn’t implied inethical motives with words like
> “extortion,” “mafia shakedown,” etc. _The fact is, many people hear those
> words and nothing else, and it compromises years of work by our small but
> committed team._

Well, at least now they know how Jason (and potentially thousands of other
committed teams) felt.

~~~
webwright
Can we please (as a race or at least the HN community) grow out of this eye-
for-an-eye, two wrongs make a right crap?

OT: It reminds me of Obama's response when criticized about spending
explosion: "Well, my critics clearly have short memories. The republicans
increased spending dramatically, too!"

~~~
Semiapies
Could you please explain why it is "wrong" to publicly criticize a company
that is misbehaving, particularly one that centers its business largely around
being a venue for public criticisms of other companies?

This premise keeps being bandied around by GS defenders here and elsewhere,
and I'd really like to hear the logic behind it.

~~~
webwright
Sure-- though I think saying that GS is "centered" around "public criticism"
is wrong. It's centered around getting help and being heard.

I separate willful misbehaving from bad judgment and mistakes. Startups are
like children- they flail around and make mistakes (lord knows mine does!). If
a child/startup does something bad without intending to do evil, I think a
quiet correction is a good idea.

Example: A child spills juice all over the floor in a classroom. Is it right
for an influential classmate announce his clumsiness to the class and lecture
the class on how sticky juice on the floor is a terribly thing,
inconveniencing everyone? If spilled juice is a big deal, you could STILL go
public with a, "Hey, Billy didn't mean it-- but this is a good opportunity to
discuss the perils of spilled juice and why we should be so careful with out
juiceboxes".

If the act was a result of malice or shameful neglect, then I think a public
thrashing is more appropriate. GS clearly fucked up, but I think there are
plenty of scenarios where that fuckup could've been a result of a hurried
design/review process, an errant employee, or just plain bad judgment. You can
read the founder's letter describing how the design decisions happened (
[http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2009/03/31/open-letter-to-
ja...](http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2009/03/31/open-letter-to-jason-fried/)
). It's a pretty credible story.

It doesn't excuse the mistake, but it should make us lean towards leniency in
the punishment-- especially considering that all of us are in the same boat
(37s, HN Founders, etc).

A lot of it comes down the the style of the attack by 37s and the influence
they wield. Vigilante mobs are easy to summon but hard to dismiss. The
internet is forever, so if you damage a party (or damage them way more than
they deserve), it's very hard to repair.

IMO, one of the biggest problems with the human race is that we don't seek to
understand before we condemn. I'd kinda hoped that the HN community would give
a startup that's pretty clearly trying NOT to be evil here the benefit of the
doubt.

~~~
Semiapies
"It's centered around getting help and being heard." By _airing complaints in
a public forum_.

I'm afraid that to me the whole scenario and fallout more resembles one child
poking another in the eye with a pencil, followed by all the child's friends
complaining about how the kid totally cried and went to the teacher...and the
first kid griping about tattle-tales even as he promises to be more careful
with his pencil in the future.

GS has gotten bad press for actual things that it has done. It doesn't matter
that they're just a few guys, or that they're a bunch of awesome people who
mean no wrong, as many of their defenders insist. They did things that quite
fairly deserve askance looks and criticism, and their burden will be to
correct those things and attempt to earn back any lost confidence. Comparing
this to a "vigilante mob" is hyperbolic, distasteful, and rather fanboyish.

EDIT: Or, to put it another way - nobody likes having their business
criticized. People even dislike seeing businesses they really like criticized.
When the criticisms are valid, though, it's time to stop arguing against them,
even in the passive aggressive manner of saying things like "We all know what
it’s like to _feel_ manipulated," (emphasis in original) and just promise to
do better.

------
fallentimes
Not once in that entire letter do they say the word "sorry". You'd think a
company so experienced with corporate indifference would have the courage to
admit they made a mistake, say I'm sorry, state their next actions to fix the
problem and move forward.

I know these situations are tough, but Thor spends way too much in the letter
promoting and PRing instead of apologizing and fixing.

~~~
Semiapies
For all the complaints about how Jason Fried should have given them a holler
and jawed it out person-to-person, none of GS's defenders note that they
aren't doing what one person would do upon accidentally wronging another:
_apologize_.

Of course, there's a very good reason for that: saying "Sorry" can be cited as
a possible admission of guilt. Really, it looks like GS is trying to establish
a public record that they acted quickly to resolve these problems _without_
admitting wrongdoing at any point.

That isn't behavior that's very consistent with "smart, but naive guys at a
startup". If they _didn't_ run out and get a lawyer and have him/her start
looking over their copy and responses to the blog post, then they're more
sophisticated than their defenders give them credit for.

~~~
webwright
Except here: "Thanks for the feedback, and I’m sorry for the hassle."
[http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1650-get-satisfaction-
or-...](http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1650-get-satisfaction-or-
else#comment_41863)

Do you have to use the word "sorry" to express regret/"mea culpa"? All of that
stuff felt pretty apologetic to me (comments, blog posts, etc).

~~~
Semiapies
You're right. Muller's comment there is head and shoulders above later remarks
by GS (and much of the arguments made on their behalf).

As to your question, yes, you _do_ have to say "sorry" or "I apologize". You
also have to avoid criticizing those you've wronged while doing so and in
subsequent statements on the matter.

~~~
Semiapies
Specifically, you have to avoid saying things like this:

"I have to be honest: All of these charges of extortion are distressing for
someone who has worked so hard to try and encourage open and honest
communication between companies and customers. I know that the pile-on effect
is in effect here, but to hear it told in these comments, we’re evil people
who are trying to exploit people in the worst way. We’ve always been simply
trying to help improve the way companies do their customer service and make it
more human. We apparently need to be better at explaining the way it works, I
suppose.

"And now, I’ll step aside and dodge the bottle I see sailing through the air
in my direction."

[http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1650-get-satisfaction-
or-...](http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1650-get-satisfaction-or-
else#comment_42097)

It's the attempts to evoke pity for them and cast any criticism as mindless
persecution by people who aren't smart enough to _get_ them that create more
hostility. When you're in the wrong, it's just not time to go on about how you
feel hurt by people being critical of you.

More appropriate would be, "We work very hard at trying to encourage open and
honest communication between companies and customers. For that reason, I find
it very distressing that our efforts could strike people as evil or
extortionate. That is not in any way our intent, and we are looking at ways to
better explain how what we do works."

------
fizx
I would bet that this is yet another example of a startup pushing things to
the edge. For example, Youtube/Scribd/etc. have hosted copyrighted material in
their early days. This clearly benefits them while they make baby steps
towards compliance. Startups will do what they can get away with, not that I
know anything about this.

~~~
olefoo
I'm willing to bet that most of the people on the GS side didn't realize that
someone could see their actions in as sinister a light as Jason Fried
obviously did.

It's interesting the extent to which emotions and self-control are the
deciding factors here; it's clearly important to be seen to feel, but also to
be in control of your emotions.

~~~
KWD
I'd actually suspect it was part of the business model. They're banking on
companies paying for reputation management. After the recent Yelp discussion
(and some other older examples of a similar issue), I was not surprised at all
about Jason's post.

------
tptacek
People keep saying these guys are awesome at PR and are doing a pitch-perfect
job of handling this crisis. But the second graf of this letter just shovels
more coal onto the fire. If you made mistakes, apologize and move on. Don't
ask the people you offended to apologize.

~~~
Semiapies
I'm actually pleasantly surprised at the amount of skepticism people are
showing towards the defenses of GS around the web.

~~~
webwright
Have you MET the internet? You're surprised that people are quick to attack,
slow to defend, and assume the worst about every other human being alive?

~~~
tptacek
Not sure it's 37s's fault that the behavior observed here is _really easy to
characterize_.

------
swombat
Also worth reading is the article from Garrett Dimon at the end:
<http://garrettdimon.com/archives/2009/3/31/handling_things/>

Makes some good points about what would have been a better way to handle this,
including this particularly important truism:

 _Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by ignorance._

~~~
fh
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by ignorance."

What if something can't be adequately explained by ignorance?

~~~
jsmcgd
Perhaps it should be, "Assume ignorance before malice".

------
quellhorst
They still use the 37Signals logo and fail to link to the official 37Signals
support channels.

~~~
swombat
Apparently, using someone's public logo to refer to them is fair use.

Anyway, that's not the point.

~~~
quellhorst
Really? The way they were using the logo on their page made it look like it
was an official 37s service. That isn't fair use.

~~~
astrec
Not fair use at all: In many jurisdictions it's called passing off.

------
run4yourlives
So, where is GS's CEO in all of this? Isn't she the "leader"? Why is the
CTO/Founder doing the PR campaign?

This whole thing leads me to believe that GS operates a little on the shady
side. Everything from the poorly worded "box" to the competitor's ads to the
clipped logos and trademarks seems designed to stick it to the companies in
question in a manner that is borderline extortion.

It seems that instead of seeing companies as clients and selling them a
service they can use, they're operating a giant defamation board where
anything goes, and perpetrating the "us against them" mentality that seems
popular these days with consumers.

Bad karma begets bad karma, and the whole business case of GS seems to be
designed to generate bad karma. Once GS gets big enough to rankle a company
with big enough legal pockets, it's going to go the way of the dodo.

------
WebTom
In Get Satisfaction You have to pay a ridiculous amount of money to remove
your competitors from a support page you didn't even create on the first
place? HOW IS THAT NOT BLACK MAIL?

------
yan
I wonder why they're using Hype Machine's logo on their front page..

------
trapper
I think it's time for an open source getsatisfaction.

------
evil
Thor Muller wrote:

You were angry, and honestly I don’t blame you. We all know what it’s like to
feel manipulated. And while I would have preferred you sending us a note, or
even posting it somewhere less trafficked than your popular blog, the fact is
that Get Satisfaction is a huge proponent of public airing of grievances. You
were right to bring it to our attention any way you saw fit. I only wish that
you hadn’t implied inethical motives with words like “extortion,” “mafia
shakedown,” etc. The fact is, many people hear those words and nothing else,
and it compromises years of work by our small but committed team.

"Inethical"? That's not even a word!

~~~
erlanger
Please stop doing that. Paul will never fix this bug, which gives any
commenter the ability to force everyone to scroll horizontally.

Edit: I see that this style is in place, which should work:

    
    
      pre {
          overflow: hidden;
      }
    

but Mr. Graham's insistence on table-based layout thwarts this attempt to
control user content (table cells stretch to accommodate their content).

~~~
steamboiler
Is it just me or has this bug been addressed after the parent comment was
posted? The page (as I see it) does not require horizontal scrolling any
longer.

~~~
bobbyi
I think the comment was edited because looking at it now I don't see any long
part that would potentially force scrolling.

