VegasRex Has Mail!
And lots of it.
Fine, so a large portion of it is hate mail, but still …
Not that I am complaining. I really dig hearing from people.
The problem is, I don’t have time to respond to it all. I really do try, but it cuts into my masturbation time … and replying to email with one hand is really very cumbersome. Plus, do you really want sticky email in your inbox?
Every week, when I’m unable to reply to the many emails, I inevitably get the “Well I used to read your site, but if you don’t have the courtesy to reply to a simple email then screw you!” comment.
And then I feel bad.
Most of the legitimate questions and requests are pretty good, but I don’t get to read all of them in a timely manner. I just skim through the inbox at the end of the day to get updates on exactly who is trying to kill me, and then I try to make a few replies here and there. This is not because I am an asshole. I appreciate every comment and I really do try to catch up on them eventually.
Also, some of the questions are of a very similar nature. I set up a Forums section so they could be asked, and answered en-masse, instead of one by one. Some of the other people there can actually provide much more insight than myself alone. This is much more efficient, and I actually do browse through the Forums more often than I browse through email since I can just respond once to everyone.
The other shit I catch is that people make comments on old articles, and I don’t see them until months later. A day after I make a particular post, I stop reading the comments section. I don’t get any notification that a comment has been made. So when people make comments on old posts, as they often do, I have no idea that they have done so. I went back through some of early June’s posts, and low and behold, comments popped up weeks later. We have over 20 times as many people registered to post on the blog site than we do on the Forum site.
So, VegasRex, what is your fucking point?
Well, I am going to try to make some adjustments over the next couple of weeks to try to direct some more of the comments to the Forums. No, this is not a gratuitous “join our Forum” plea. We have no desire to become one of the “megaforums”. Far from it. We would just like to direct some of the questions and comments to a place where they have a better chance of getting a reply. We don’t want people to type emails and responses which they don’t get responses to. That is just a waste of your time, and we actually want your stuff to be seen and replied to.
So we are going to test linking articles to a corresponding Forum thread where it can be discussed.
But we are also going to keep the comments section at the bottom of each post. We aren’t going to shove the damn Forums down your throat. The comments seem to work fine for quick, hit-and-run type responses.
However, if you have a question or comment that is not personal in nature, please do consider posting it in the forums. If we could balance it out a bit, then I could get back to many more people.
Not saying that me getting back to people is necessarily a good thing, but at least people might stop calling me an asshole for the wrong reasons, and start calling me one for the right reasons.
Okay, this will be a first attempt. I am sure the implementation will change and evolve over time.
