Finding technical help on the internet is getting more and more frustrating. The companies that own the web sites are smart to create FAQs, support forums, and have lots of answers available. But ultimately you should be able to contact a person or send a problem report. And it shouldn't be so hard to find out how to do that. If you look at Google, you really have to jump through hoops to finally find a support email address just to report a bug. Same for contacting Amazon technical support.
I just found a bug in a software tool that I use at work. I have a license for this tool, but my company has no maintenance agreement. When I go to the tool's web site, the only choices for getting technical support are for customers with maintenance agreements. Don't they want me to report a bug?! I don't want any follow up, I just want them to know about it. OK, I want them to care, but if they don't, that's not my problem. It's their product.
Even if you report a bug, don't expect for it to be fixed. I reported a bug on dictionary.com many months ago, but they haven't fixed it. Their American Heritage dictionary pronunciation key has a bug, and in fact it's in the very first entry - it shows the symbol for long a (remember, long vowels say their name), but then the example word is pat. It would take them 2 seconds to fix that, if they cared. Obviously they don't.
- schneid
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I totally agree, it's next to impossible to get to a real person at Google. I had an idea for a new project they could do and wanted to suggest it to them, but their e-mail auto-reply response was ridiculous. It would probably be easier to send a personal telegram to Sergey Brin and Larry Page themselves.
I tried to contact American Heritage Dictionary one time because I keep hearing the word "divisive" pronounced on NPR with a short "i" sound in the second syllable. AHD is usually pretty inclusive/descriptivist, so I was surprised that pronunciation was not included in the dictionary. I thought it was a mistake the first time I heard it on NPR, but since then I've heard it many times from different reporters. I thought maybe it was a radio thing so people won't mishear it as "decisive" if they're not listening closely. But I've also heard some of my in-laws say it this way, so maybe it's a regional thing.
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