Re: Wolfram | Alpha: Acres per square mile? (oddities)
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg101302] Re: Wolfram | Alpha: Acres per square mile? (oddities)
- From: David Reiss <dbreiss at gmail.com>
- Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:36:21 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <h27fg7$coc$1@smc.vnet.net> <h29ca7$ban$1@smc.vnet.net>
Actually I believe that there are a number of people at WRI that read this group regularly and who take it quite seriously as a valuable resource for feedback from a spectrum of Mathematica users. As a result, bugs that we mention here usually end up in the Wolfram bug database. This applies for Mathematica. For Wolfram|Alpha my guess is that this is less likely to be so. I think that, with regard to Wolfram|Alpha, whether if one puts a note in the comments field it has an effect on the design and implementation of the product is certainly more tenuous--there are far more users of W|A than of Mathematica. But coming back to the question of whether Wolfram reads this group, as we all know, John Fultz participates directly (on his own dime: thank you John...) and many others at WRI read it regularly to see how Mathematica users are faring.... --David On Jun 28, 11:27 pm, AES <sieg... at stanford.edu> wrote: > In article <h27fg7$co... at smc.vnet.net>, > Bill Rowe <readn... at sbcglobal.net> wrote: > > > > > > > On 6/27/09 at 6:02 AM, sieg... at stanford.edu (AES) wrote: > > >Doesn't WIA, with all its resources, have someone on staff whose > > >responsibility it is to do the same; make informed judgments on > > >which if any posts seem useful and important enough for WIA to > > >consider further; and then slapshot-forward those posts to the right > > >people within WIA? > > > I believe it has been pointed out Wolfram doesn't have anyone > > assigned to scan posts here. Simply put, posts here are not > > official bug reports for either Wolfram|Alpha or Mathematica. > > > >If WIA doesn't do that on its own initiative, well, I'm not going to > > >go out of my way to do what you suggest -- especially knowing my own > > >limited knowledge and understanding as to what contributions might > > >be important or of interest to them. > > > What do you see as going "out of your way"? There is an input > > box and send button right on the page that returns results. > > Surely, it is no more effort to type comments in that box which > > ensures they will be looked at by those interested in fixing > > bugs than to make a post here. > > Take your points, stick by mine. I'm spending my time participating in > c.s-s.m.m, not serving as a bug reporter for WIA; and am quite often not > sure whether what I'm commenting on is a bug or inadequate understanding > on my part. > > If WIA were to assign some knowledgeable staff member to do a quick scan > of c.s-s.m.m every morning, looking not only for bugs but other feedback > on glitches, misunderstandings, confusions on documentation, and the > like -- well, I think that would be useful feedback to WIA; would show > whether a problem of any type was widespread; and would show whether > there were multiple or threaded reports on a problem. > > Some companies spend big bucks on surveys, focus groups, product testing > exercises to get precisely that kind of feedback. If WIA wants to > ignore this free source of such info (and from a generally knowledgeable > group of users) . . . well, I think that as a company they make a fair > number of other odd decisions also . . .