Please improve "Support" and add a list of "bugs" with ETA
Thread poster: Mirko Mainardi
Mirko Mainardi
Mirko Mainardi  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 12:56
Member
English to Italian
May 10, 2019

I have a ticket (about a link in users' profiles that opens to an error page) that's been open for more than a month now, and have received no reply whatsoever to my (2) subsequent inquiries about it.

Based on past discussions I have read here and there on the fora, it seems there are several unresolved issues, and there have been repeated calls from users to solve them instead of keeping changing "stuff" on the site non-stop.

I think it would be very helpful to at leas
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I have a ticket (about a link in users' profiles that opens to an error page) that's been open for more than a month now, and have received no reply whatsoever to my (2) subsequent inquiries about it.

Based on past discussions I have read here and there on the fora, it seems there are several unresolved issues, and there have been repeated calls from users to solve them instead of keeping changing "stuff" on the site non-stop.

I think it would be very helpful to at least have some sort of (stickied) "bug-tracking thread" where all the outstanding issues are listed, together with their status and ETA.

As things stand, it's basically impossible to have a complete overview of what problems are persisting on this website and what features they are affecting, which might very well also include the way our profiles are presented to prospective clients (as in the above mentioned ticket), thing which I believe is not unimportant...
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Thomas T. Frost
Angie Garbarino
Josephine Cassar
Jo Macdonald
Christel Zipfel
Philip Lees
Sebastian Witte
 
Thomas T. Frost
Thomas T. Frost  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 11:56
Danish to English
+ ...
MeToo May 10, 2019

I also have a few bug tickets sitting around gathering dust. The oldest was submitted on 30 October 2017. The latest update was on 19 September 2018: 'This issue is being addressed by site developers'. This bug deleted all my forum tracking without warning.

I consider it a priority that existing functions should work and be fixed quickly if they don't, but perhaps I'm just old-fashioned. It isn't any better in MS Office and MemoQ.


Mirko Mainardi
Philip Lees
 
Barbara Carrara
Barbara Carrara  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 12:56
Member (2008)
English to Italian
+ ...
Same here (now solved, but it took nearly 6 months) May 10, 2019

On 20 November 2018 I raised a Support Ticket to have the ProZPay 'feature' removed from my profile page, as I was (and still am) not interested in it or any other payment methods other than bank transfer.
And of course I wasn't happy to have it on my profile page without my consent.
I eventually had it removed on 7 May last.
Need I say more?


Mirko Mainardi
Thomas T. Frost
 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 11:56
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
I thought there had been agreement to this May 10, 2019

Mirko Mainardi wrote:
Based on past discussions I have read here and there on the fora, it seems there are several unresolved issues, and there have been repeated calls from users to solve them instead of keeping changing "stuff" on the site non-stop.

I think it would be very helpful to at least have some sort of (stickied) "bug-tracking thread" where all the outstanding issues are listed, together with their status and ETA.

Although it wouldn't necessarily hasten the lead time for bugs to be fixed, I thought I remembered someone on the tech team saying that they'd keep a log and issue regular/frequent/occasional system updates listing what had been resolved. I don't actually know what happens about system updates. Are we ever informed that they've been done, let alone given notice of them? I haven't managed to find the forum post though .

I must say I think the least we can expect is to be notified that an update has been done and that it affects this, that, and the other parts of the site in order to fix identified bugs / introduce asked-for functionality / introduce totally new stuff. At the moment, site maintenance appears to be totally opaque, with Support presumably beavering away at something or other but nothing appearing to get done (except for brand-new, added functionality that nobody who pays for membership has ever asked for publicly, AFAIK, and that rarely seems to work well and/or serve a useful purpose).


Mirko Mainardi
Thomas T. Frost
Christel Zipfel
Barbara Carrara
Jessica Noyes
Philip Lees
 
Josephine Cassar
Josephine Cassar  Identity Verified
Malta
Local time: 12:56
Member (2012)
English to Maltese
+ ...
Same here and more May 10, 2019

Mirko Mainardi wrote:

I have a ticket (about a link in users' profiles that opens to an error page) that's been open for more than a month now, and have received no reply whatsoever to my (2) subsequent inquiries about it.

Thank you Mirko for raising this again. Mine has been pending since November and I think I remember one member saying staff seem to be telling me not to raise it again as they have no intention of doing anything about it. Pity as it surely does not reflect well on the site, a site with so many hitches when we are supposed to be professionals. I'd rather site settles these than think of innovation. I don't think it's fair to leave these pending.


Kay Denney
MollyRose
Philip Lees
Mirko Mainardi
 
Dr. Matthias Schauen
Dr. Matthias Schauen  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 12:56
Member (2007)
English to German
Same here (first support ticket 2015) May 14, 2019

I first reported the fact that the filter for fields of expertise in the community rates tool does not work in 2015 and reminded Support yearly since. This was always sent/forwarded/referred "to our developers". I understand that "development, adjustments and fixing-ups may take some time", as Support wrote, but this seems excessive.

Since nothing happened, earlier this year I suggested that - to avoid confusion - the filter option be deactivated until this gets fixed. This suggesti
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I first reported the fact that the filter for fields of expertise in the community rates tool does not work in 2015 and reminded Support yearly since. This was always sent/forwarded/referred "to our developers". I understand that "development, adjustments and fixing-ups may take some time", as Support wrote, but this seems excessive.

Since nothing happened, earlier this year I suggested that - to avoid confusion - the filter option be deactivated until this gets fixed. This suggestion was also "passed to our developers".

To be fair: This is not something the Support crew, i.e. the people collecting and answering our queries, can change. It seems that ProZ.com is in need of more developers/programmers/coders. The 18-person team shown on the "About ProZ.com page" includes one developer.


[Edited at 2019-05-14 09:55 GMT]
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Thomas T. Frost
Mirko Mainardi
 
Andrew Morris
Andrew Morris
Local time: 12:56
ProZ.com team
More on the way May 14, 2019

A team of developers is currently being recruited.

Dr. Matthias Schauen
Thomas T. Frost
 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 11:56
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
Great news! May 14, 2019

Andrew Morris wrote:
A team of developers is currently being recruited.

That really is good news. I just hope they aren't all programmers. There seems to have been a distinct lack of systems, data and user-experience analysis in the past. I've often had the feeling that new features go straight into the detailed program coding stage, from where they get released after only basic testing. But maybe that's too harsh .


Mirko Mainardi
 
Andrew Morris
Andrew Morris
Local time: 12:56
ProZ.com team
Not a techie May 14, 2019

Not an expert on these things, but some of the new interfaces are much more attractive and in tune with the times.

 
Thomas T. Frost
Thomas T. Frost  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 11:56
Danish to English
+ ...
Good May 14, 2019

Thanks for letting us know that developers are being recruited. It seems many users have a backlog of issues reported.

I wonder if some users may seem annoyed in other contexts when they see their tickets ignored for months or years while the company is using resources elsewhere. In another forum there has been a debate about pleasant or unpleasant behaviour in the forums, in which I have no wish to participate. But let me just state that ignoring legitimate bug or near-bug reports
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Thanks for letting us know that developers are being recruited. It seems many users have a backlog of issues reported.

I wonder if some users may seem annoyed in other contexts when they see their tickets ignored for months or years while the company is using resources elsewhere. In another forum there has been a debate about pleasant or unpleasant behaviour in the forums, in which I have no wish to participate. But let me just state that ignoring legitimate bug or near-bug reports for months and/or years can very well be perceived as unpleasant or even rude behaviour by paying members and others. There may or may not be good reasons for this absence of bug fixing, but the company is not justifying it in newsletters or elsewhere.

This is not only about outright bugs but also lack of proper functionality, such as the insufficient Blue Board search for accented and similar characters (e.g. if you search for the fictional 'Hasta la Vista Translation' and for some reason the company name is 'Hasta la Vistá Translation,' there is no match; same with buero/büro). I reported this several months ago. Just an example.
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Mirko Mainardi
 


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Please improve "Support" and add a list of "bugs" with ETA






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