the post gets locked?!? I've seen this happen repetitively lately.

And by the way I too have had an enormous influx in cart abandonment AT the checkout step.

And furthermore, if we want to discuss these issues amongst ourselves, we should have every right to do so...

If we want to submit a ticket, we're not children, we know we can do that. Unless someones is emphatic and demanding that MC fix something in a post, then they have every right to express their frustration with the functionality or lack thereof.

We shouldn't have to go to other forums to discuss MC software and the problems we're encountering. That kind of defeats the purpose.

Hi Heartland-

The purpose of the forums is for discussing e-commerce issues and as a resource to help you grow your online business. The forums are not an acceptable channel for bug reports or emergency issues. Posts are removed or closed along Forum guidelines.

I can assure you that communicating your troubles through Tech Support is the best way to resolve any issues you have with the software. In fact, not communicating your issue may actually slow down our ability to resolve the issue. This is the primary reason for restricting certain topics in the forums. Also, in most cases, to accurately diagnose an issue sensitive information would need to be made public in the forums.

Thanks

Brian

I am always available via PM or email if you feel that the methods or procedures in the forums are not to your liking. You will find me to be very open-minded.

Brian is correct though, submitting bugs or emergency issues through the forums is not the best--pardon the verbiage--forum to air those types of topics. Although it's popular to do so--I assume because the community thinks we'll react differently than we do through our normal support channels--it's still not as effective. The forums generally contain the most amount of active and answer-seeking clients that MonsterCommerce serves. In this regard, we make every attempt to quickly respond to threads--usually within an hour or two of a member posting. The standards for tickets and phone support are quite different. You may have noticed that we aim to answer calls within a period of no more than two minutes (last week was an exception) and would like it to be much lower, so we have added additional technical support reps. Four of them by my last count. Tickets usually are responded to within a half hour. In order to assist with that, we've recently promoted two Junior Tech Support Reps to Senior Tech Support Reps. Those two will assist with more advanced issues.

We feel our resources are best dedicated to the methods already established--which helps us to continually refine the process. As I said, I am always open to suggestions to better serve our clients. If you have a fantastic idea of how we can better amaze our clients or an interesting idea that we haven't thought of yet: please share! There will be times where we disagree and that's OK. The Captain has said before, we try to share as much of what we are doing and the reasons why through many channels. We are very interested in what this community and it's members say regarding our software, our products, our services, and the like. We are able to take what the majority of clients report through our official channels and utilize what is submitted through the feature area of the forums to make improvements in the software.

I'll repeat it again: if you have additional questions about reasons why we do things, feel free to PM or email me.

Very best regards,

Chris

Two days ago Brian locked my Feature Request thread here. He told me that is was closed "due to posting violations.", but failed to mention which rule I had violated. After careful review of the forum rules I can find no rule which has been violated by my post. I sent Brian a PM requesting the exact reason why my post had been locked, but he has not deemed a reply necessary. Perhaps you can enlighten me as to why a Feature request thread posted in the forum of the same name would be locked?
-SC

Hi Chris,

I understand what you're saying...but just also see it from our point of view.

Sometimes when we have issues (and I can't speak for everyone)....checking the forum to see if others are having the same problem can sometimes help us.

If there are other merchants experiencing the same thing as myself, I darn well want to know that.

Again, put yourself in our situation and I believe you'd feel the same. Censorship of our posts is not the answer. It only makes me feel as if MC must have something to hide, when they're not letting their own merchants express themselves in an orderly manner.

Heartland

since I am a newbie and have a lot to learn, I come to these forums to learn about the problems and solutions others are having. Maybe some of the language gets a little angry and frustrated. But I learn a lot by reading what others have to say and their experiences.

You might be surprised at what I have learned by reading about the frustrations and aggravations other have dealt with. I really appreciate these forums and since these forums are "Members Only" I don't understand why some issues are locked and not allowed to continue their direction.

As a newbie, I need all the information, support, and problem solutions available.

gemini

I think MC is getting a little crazy. Perhaps the vent isn't necessarily a bug. Before a ticket and investigation can determine that, it's inappropriate to close the thread. Besides, the last I knew, this was a community forum where merchants help other merchants using the MC software, the least of which is to provide workaround suggestions for bug-related software problems until MC can FIX the bug.

As long as the threads are located in merchant only areas, what's the problem? If the vent gets too far off-base, then by all means moderate and pull the discussion back in. But just locking the thread smacks of censorship of anything wrong with MC software and will frankly cause merchants to go outside of these forums to talk about it. Just some friendly advice.

Hey everyone,

Let me do some "research" on this particular issue. It has long been a standing rule that we don't post bug info in the forums (whatever the reasons were). As PK mentions, since these issues are behind the Verified Store Member access wall, maybe it would be OK to do so. I won't make any promises yet, but let me do some digging and see where we stand.

The only caveat is that we will still stand behind the forum being a place to air grievances, rants, raves, applause, etc, and is not the first or best place to get what I'll call "authorized support" from MC team members. The only exception, I think, is the Feature area, which we mine pretty heavily and toss against requirements and overall need.

Thanks all!

Chris

Couldn't have said it better PK.



Understood. Having it out of the eyes of anyone that isnt a store owner makes perfect sense. It is however to many of us a place to get answers right away. During the day there can be 50 people on at the same time. Some who could have the answers we are looking for. Don't get me wrong the ticket system is great. But sometime having to call tech support or wait for a response on a ticket just takes too long. And anyone looking for an reply to a question/rant/rave/etc is not taking it as being "Authorized Support" my . I mean it is a forum.

It has been a long standing tradition - for as long as I've been here anyway - that people will post that they are seeing something funny happening with their cart. Sometimes it is something silly like an update is going on and they didn't remember so merchants here will inform them of that fact. Other times, it is something new and a merchant is trying to see if they are the only one experiencing a problem. When they find out that others are or are not experiencing the problem, they then know what course of action to take. Submit a ticket, use a known workaround, etc. This helps MC in that it can help to cut down on the number of calls/tickets you have to answer for simple issues which means that important things get handled quicker.

I, for one, don't want another merchant to be censored for asking a question or making a suggestion. I want to read the question/comment/suggestion. By censoring your forums like you have started to do recently, all you are doing is forcing your customers to use another means of communication that may be more public than MC would care for. Do you want your dirt out for public consumption? I wouldn't. But if you continue to censor in the fashion that you have been, you are asking for trouble, and that is just plain common sense.

If you decide to continue censoring, maybe you should state specifically what you want us to post about.

Ayup.

Chris, I think what you are referring to is that it is against TOS to post verbatim ticket and email responses from MC in the forums, NOT to post about a bug and then the merchants discuss it amongst ourselves. Honestly, together we've come up with some pretty nice workarounds, many that are still being used today because the bugs are not fixed...er...intended software design is not modified yet.


Too true. There are review sites all over the Internet. If merchants can't discuss it here, they're bound to go somewhere else to try to get help.

I'd still like to know why this was done. There has been no explanation for it and I think I deserve an answer. Many other threads have been locked which do not appear to violate the rules, so by answering this perhaps others will be as well.
-SC

Hey at least they didn't erase the thread. They have totally erased threads of mine. Punks