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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 . . .