Since it seems Sira doesn't speak English as a native language (no problem since I'm sure I can't speak or write in their language at all!), I'd be careful about any miscommunication as to whether they are actually saying they want a refund.
Alex - you’re creative, and clearly smart enough to understand what you did. It doesn’t improve things to compound it by feigning ignorance.
Self-responsibility by definition, means each party takes responsibility for their own actions.
We own our record for taking longer to make something unique, yet clearly not quitting in the face of challenges. The bad and the good, we own all of it.
Anyone who thought we weren’t worthy could bail whenever they pleased.
The thing you did, was different. As an observer, rather than participant, you used your talent to create a false narrative around our effort, and our character. And you did it while we labored hard to endure and overcome the challenges.
You wrote parodies, and lyrics, and prayers. Clever stuff. All of it camping on threads for a product you cancelled your order for, years ago. The fixation was notable.
And all of it crafted with a consistent undertone to suggest we were not honorable. There was purpose to it.
You didn’t simply slip in new characters for the Lord’s Prayer, you changed the very logic of its structure itself, it’s essential truth, and used the fracture to serve your purpose.
After a long diatribe impugning our honor, you wanted us to just stomach your narrative without responding to its inherent conflicts. You gave much didactic advice about morality, while you knowingly colored elements, taking license with morality. And when challenged, you whimpered that we should get off our high horse. But you cast those first stones, not us.
We didn’t initiate any of this dialogue, you did. And you laid it on progressively thicker until we pointed out what was wrong with your claims.
If we had no pride in our work, or care about fulfilling the highest expectations of our customers, we’d say nothing. But precisely because the passion is there, we responded.
The thing is good, and everyone knows it now. When there’s attempts at interference with execution, we, and anyone serious about doing a good job, will act to defend their mission. This is ordinary course for disruptive innovators, and we wish it weren’t part of the job, but it is.
Go in peace, and stop throwing stones. We have no beef with you personally, only with dishing hurt upon others who work hard to make something good.
The above is a load of crap. Readers, make up your own minds. Mark Knighton rationalises, can’t speak in plain English, presumes only he is worthy and makes out everyone else is a bad actor.
Sira is the latest to cancel and unable to take your crap any longer. Stop trying to force TBD to cancel. It’s clear that if I re-ordered, you’d just force cancel me!
Stop defending yourself, you only embarrass yourself further.
You go in peace and finish your piecemeal work so that your testers can become true users. I deleted my references to final messages because you insist on having the last word, and all your high-falutin’ talk is just that - talk.
I’m sick of your endless BS, Mark. No-one has ever seen a company like Waytools, despite plenty of shonky Kickstarter and Indiegogo efforts - you take the cake, and you weren’t even supposed to be crowdfunded.
Yes, I do write well, and it has been used in the service of shining a light on the way you respond.
I hope people read these posts so they learn the true you. They can see I’m honest and sincere, and that you’re not.
Please save your smarmy comebacks and false declarations of sainthood, I’m sick and tired of your crap.
Finish the damn job. Get off your high horse. Learn some damn humility. The world doesn’t revolve around you. You can only be a Musk or Jobs-like figure by delivering the goods, not insulting comebacks. Until you deliver to the general public, and not just some Treggers, your fine words about achievement are just that - empty words.
Your company and smarmy comebacks should lead you to rename the company Waywords, because your wayward ways lead to a bunch of truly astonishing weasel words, and it is virtually unforgivable despite many attempts to get you to apologise to us all, and to promise to be better, which you have outright refused to do by merely doubling down on your recalcitrance.
Instead the best you can do is the crap above. Sad! It’s a disgrace.
Good bye! May you end the endless BS and complete your mission of a TextBlade to the public!!
Sira- please email us and we will work with you to minimize exchange rate effects. The dollar is strong now, so in theory, a dollar credit should be in your favor. We can review together by email or phone. Thanks
To be fair, you’ve said that the decision whether to refund (or not) rests with the customer “with a single click...” and yet here, you have subsequently removed that decision from the customer. That’s a direct contradiction, and contrary to what you may think, is not ethical behaviour (I say this to educate; not to piss you off... I acknowledge that you may genuinely believe enforcing a refund is an altruistic thing; it isn’t)
I am not going to imply I’m something I’m not... for the sake of honesty and clarity, I’m unimpressed with Waytools and Mark, I’m rather unimpressed with your behaviour as CEO and representative of the organisation in the manner you present to the public and your customers.
Having said that, the decision as to whether I want to continue with my pre-order and “free gift” (I do wish to continue with it btw...) should belong entirely with me. I can understand you freely offering a refund (entirely fair and appropriate), but enforcing one unrequested is not ethical behaviour; it is very “no soup for you...!” [Seinfeld, Soup Nazi] behaviour and is not “normal” business practice...
If I’m willing to live in frustration and angst, then that’s entirely up to me. Your end of the purchase contract is to deliver on the items I purchased - if it upsets you that I’m an upset customer then the two mechanisms open to you are a) engineering and development or b) customer service offer of a refund... If I refuse an offer of a refund and you’re still bothered at me being upset, then you really only have engineering and development to get the thing out the door to fall back on... If you want to be insanely generous and give me my money back whilst still delivering my multiple TextBlades and free gift when they’re ready (without needing me to pay a second time), then I really can’t see how I could refuse, but since I can’t imagine anyone being that generous, I’d be happy to settle for you leaving the purchasing and refunding decision to remain with the customer (in my case; me) - you have a very simple and straightforward refund mechanism (very efficient and effective btw) and I have no problem with you directing people toward it if they wish to avail themselves of it, but this whole “force refund” business appears quite capricious and brittle. If that isn’t how you intended to appear (and I certainly believe you don’t want to be viewed that way), then may I suggest not capriciously forcing refunds on people who don’t want them* and going down a route that leaves the purchase/refund decision entirely in the hands of the customer...
(Even if I wanted to blow a couple hundred bucks with no hope of getting anything for it, that’s a decision for me; at best you could, by all means, offer a refund, but if I choose not to, you really shouldn’t be forcing one on me... nobody should be forcing things on to anyone quite frankly...)
The idea that people actually need to specify “please do not cancel my order and force-refund me...” on any post remotely critical of you really is “Empire-Strikes-Back-Imperial-March-theme” kinda stuff; I’m sure you don’t want to be viewed that way. Those statements appended to their posts should have rung alarm bells that “I don’t think people are taking this forced refund thing the way we intended... maybe it was a miscalculation on our part...”
Just to be clear, please do not refund my order, please maintain my place in line along with my “free gift” status - and if I knew whether the free gift was worthwhile, it might change my decision, but I’ve read from Treggers that it’s extremely generous... I’m prepared to continue going through quite a bit of frustration if it means Waytools end up treating me to their generosity... I’m still open to you refunding me but still delivering two TextBlades along with my “free gift” whenever you get to general release, but if not (and I’m guessing not...), I’ll still settle for my order being fulfilled... )
*How do you know if people want a refund or not? Best way is to ask them first... if they say yes, then go ahead, but if they say no, then no means no...
Dabigkahuna - re Sira, we checked the server and didn’t see any cancellation from him. We didn’t do any from our end, we just offered it if he wanted.
We checked the exchange rate, and it looks like he’s ahead about 8 % on his preorder. So it would cost about 8% more yen to buy today because the dollar is higher than when he ordered. And that’s before we implement the price increase for the infrastructure upgrade.
He’s a native Japanese speaker, so we’ll discuss with him what he prefers.
For those of us who missed it, in the past there have been complaints about refunds because of the changing monetary rates. So, it was argued, one of the reason to oppose the refunds was because it could actually result in a return of less value that it was when ordered. But now doing that to everyone is fine???
The obvious and ethical solution would be for Waytools to cover any such disparity in refund value as a result of their negligent 4+ year delay. Clearly Waytools is entirely responsible for damages to the injured parties.
> The AI article quotes you as saying '[the] money from these orders is not what's funding the company.' If that is true, then how is anybody 'helping' by letting you keep their money?
If you think about it you can probably come up with a logical reason. But somehow I don't think you will.
Mark makes a statement about customer money furthering the release of the product, which directly contradicts the quote in the article that the development is funded without customer money. You ignore that contradiction entirely, because you are a Waytools shill with a narrative to defend. Fail.
I'm shocked to hear someone say he didn't did deeply into issues in the comment section - WHICH WEREN'T WRITTEN UNTIL AFTER HIS ARTICLE.
Every point of criticism rendered on this thread exists similarly on Macrumors, Reddit, and the Waytools forum, and were publicly available to research before this article. You know that, but again fabricate a straw man argument to further your narrative. And your choice of all-caps does not make your lame argument stronger. Fail.
If you want to be insanely generous and give me my money back whilst still delivering my multiple TextBlades and free gift when they’re ready (without needing me to pay a second time),
They should refund everyone, absorb any costs related to exchange rates and credit card fees, notify people when the product is actually ready to ship so people can activate their orders again, and then ship the product. Its very simple. It is the only ethical course of action.
Blimey! Of course it doesn’t exist. In the alternate reality you laboriously craft, up is down, and right is wrong. And all those customer reports are imaginary.
In the alternate reality you laboriously craft, the product was ready to ship in 2015, and all those subsequent promises of imminent shipping were imaginary. You really make a fool of yourself with the weak attempts at self-righteousness.
If you want to be insanely generous and give me my money back whilst still delivering my multiple TextBlades and free gift when they’re ready (without needing me to pay a second time),
They should refund everyone, absorb any costs related to exchange rates and credit card fees, notify people when the product is actually ready to ship so people can activate their orders again, and then ship the product. Its very simple. It is the only ethical course of action.
I appreciate your view, I really do, but I got in early and was promised a free gift - I want my gift and I can afford a couple hundred bucks...
(I actually think the “free gift for early orderers” is pissing a lot of people off... they got in early but now don’t know if getting out will deprive them of something sufficiently valuable that they’d be kicking themselves once they discover what it is... after 4 years, it might actually help if Waytools drew a line in the sand (end of the early adopter bonus...) and announced what the early-adopter bonus is so people can make an informed decision... I don’t imagine Waytools initially figured they’d be holding off on it for 4+ years...)
I do not want a refund (unless there’s no choice i.e. I end up being a creditor after a bankruptcy or something equally unfortunate...). I want my products. I also want my free gift (I just like presents... ). I would consider a refund without my request/consent to be “transactional rape”...
From the point of view of a customer who has offered twice to meet with WT at their choice of venue to dispel their fears, only to be met with no response, I get the impression that any attempt to communicate with WT is more or less pointless. There are too many unknowns when talking to "Waytools_support". Some here have assumed that the hands behind the keys are those of Mark himself. Which presents a few interesting questions to ponder.
Why would the CEO of a multi-million dollar funded company get involved in an increasingly petty slanging match on a smallish forum? I am certain that between now and 2019-06-21 at about 10 am. PT, Mark is going to be quite busy.
Would it not make more sense to have a social media body to do that? You know, someone good at this sort of thing.
If the posted comments are not the typed words of Mark, then can someone let actual Mark know what a poor job his representative is doing?
If these are the words of the CEO of WT then they do more to damage the company image than protect it. Should we be concerned regarding potential Musk-Toxicity? Tesla is a an oft cited example for WT's talking points, but isn't the CEO of that firm in a spot of bother for accusing people of stuff on the internet?
Whoever is typing the responses to comments here only fact checks transaction information sometimes, can anyone see a pattern as to what gets verified and what doesn't before comments are made? I'll give you a clue what may be going on here rhymes with "Scores a ball, his nigh ability's key".
Is there any benefit for WT not to explaining in short and clear terms what the current state of development is when asked here? The answer to "is it done yet?" is "no." work from there perhaps? That is the current news reduced to a 4 word question and a single word answer but I am sure that someone at WT can manage something in between a single word answer and Tolstoy.
There are a great many questions regarding the product development status left unanswered in this thread with only a vague statement to the effect that WT will update their forum with details at some point. We as customers are in the odd position of waiting for updates regarding updates regarding the timing of the latest update.
I'll be back tomorrow to see what has been forthcoming, from the WT account. It would be refreshing to see some engagement on the topic of their product, it's development roadmap, and the timescales on which that will be delivered. But then why engage with you paying customers when you can just turn not into ex-customers and/or start flinging accusations around? It's far easier to point to horizon and shout "Look there. Elephants. Thousands of them" than give a passerby directions, but It wears paper thin very quickly.
We already have the marketing quote of the decade right here:
So please don’t buy it, and definitely don’t read what users say about it. - Waytools, developer of the Textblade - 2019.
That's not even lifted from inside a comment, it is the whole comment.
Alex, I wish I could write half as well as you. You see, when I sit to type I am simply all fingers and thumbs...
If we had no pride in our work, or care about fulfilling the highest expectations of our customers, we’d say nothing. But precisely because the passion is there, we responded.
Just on this point: do not invest time in a war of words to right any wrongs, attack or defend. As I said, perhaps it would be better (& smarter) to take it with good natured humor and even publish some of these things at your site. If you laugh at yourself you defuse your critics. You might be passionate but I think you are also very smart, and you are doing it all wrong. Leave emotions out the door and talk ONLY about the TB, and its status. (BTW, my last comment on this is: I do not read any bad intentions from Alex. It felt quite conciliatory specially at the beginning. He is for sure a fun guy to keep around. It would liven up the WTF forums. Peace)
Suggestion: Why don't you hold a product & project Q&A / AMA session for example after you publish the next update this month ? or now or whenever you want.
Another topic: I do not know if you are familiar with Alfred for Mac, but I use it quite a lot with different keyboard shortcuts to start workflows and a lot of other stuff, ie: I have configured CTRL+ALT+k to every morning open all my usual apps & websites in their own spaces, or use double pressing cmd to open docs finder window, the same with alt that opens de App window, etc etc. I have 10/12 that I use very often and 10 more I use only occasionally. I was always intrigued on what would be the best way to use keyboard shortcuts as they are part of my workflow. There is the programming layer (which I am not that clear on how to use), and now DBK mentions the sticky keys. What would be the most practical way to work with shortcuts on your opinion? Is there a video that could help illustrate so that I might understand better ?
I don't, as although I have ordered more than 4 years ago, I still don't have first hand experience, just the reports from TREG and the few articles from AI and MR.
Please allow me to comment, as statements like the above really bug me, as it comes across as pure marketing BS. I thought I was part of "everyone", so better not assume what I know and don't know - I am sure that many other non-TREG participants (customers without a product that is) feel the same way.
Please understand, that it really is not about the money that I paid for the product a long time ago, but rather:
It is about my personal time that I enthusiastically invested in following the progress and discussions (sad, but was checking WT forums, status, Reddit almost every day in the past 4+ years! Yes, I am that invested in/excited about the product).
It is about the ever changing delivery dates (estimates now): daily/weekly changes in the beginning, then monthly, quarterly, seasonally, now semi-annually.
It is about the countless times, when there was a lack of response on the WTF to customer questions (especially about gating issues), yet there were lot of discussions of completely unrelated topics (DBK Mac/monitor/etc set-up, frying pans ..).
It is about the changing narrative - E.g. I ordered, not pre-ordered the product at the time, it changed to pre-order after year(s) of debate on the forums.
It is about the forced refunds, and shadow banning used to silence the vocal customers with valid questions.
It is about comparing WayTools to Tesla and Apple - just not the same league (yet).
No matter what you do, you will not be able to make up for the personal time invested, which by the way, I didn't mind investing in the first place - retrospectively of course it was a mistake, but here we are.
What you can do however is to stop lecturing your customers on how they should feel, behave or act. They have given you funds in good faith, and often had logical questions, and raised completely understandable concerns, of which many remained unanswered/ignored.
Most importantly, you can deliver the product that you promised over 4 years ago - that will surely help, I promise!
In any case, we are where we are, and I continue to look forward to hear the news about GR finally.
You might be passionate but I think you are also very smart, and you are doing it all wrong. Leave emotions out the door and talk ONLY about the TB
If they are doing it all wrong, then why do you think they are very smart? ('They' being Mark Knighton of course, who refers to himself as 'we' and 'us'). It doesnt make a lot of sense, wouldnt you agree? Smart people do not behave so stupidly. Smart people are quite capable of acting maliciously however.
Why do you try hard so hard to placate the person on the other end of this line? Do you really think it will work? He has been behaving this way since the beginning, for over 4 years.
>There are too many unknowns when talking to "Waytools_support". Some here have assumed that the hands behind the keys are those of Mark himself.
Rolanbek: Do the math. We have a CEO, Mark Knighton, who micro manages every aspect of this operation, who is widely reported to talk to each of his testers for many hours at a time and handles their tech support calls at all hours of the day and night, handles all of the PR, and is the primary financier. The journalists all report interacting with him directly. Nobody ever mentions another key player at the company, that I can recollect. Do you think that kind of guy would delegate all public communications to someone else and let them botch it so badly? Do you think Mark Knighton would empower his social media 'Waytools_Support' employee to force refund customers at will using his own judgement? And then there is the 'dialect' (I use the term loosely) of the Waytools_Support / Waytools character on AI and the Waytools forum. There arent two people in the world who 'speak' the way the Waytools screen name speaks. Its the same person, and that person is Mark Knighton.
Rolanbek: Do the math. We have a CEO, Mark Knighton, who micro manages every aspect of this operation, who is widely reported to talk to each of his testers for many hours at a time and handles their tech support calls at all hours of the day and night, handles all of the PR, and is the primary financier. The journalists all report interacting with him directly. Nobody ever mentions another key player at the company, that I can recollect. Do you think that kind of guy would delegate all public communications to someone else and let them botch it so badly? Do you think Mark Knighton would empower his social media 'Waytools_Support' employee to force refund customers at will using his own judgement? And then there is the 'dialect' (I use the term loosely) of the Waytools_Support / Waytools character on AI and the Waytools forum. There arent two people in the world who 'speak' the way the Waytools screen name speaks. Its the same person, and that person is Mark Knighton.
I wondered about this Waytools_Support character as well. I'm not 100% sure exactly who this person is, since he/she never reveals their true identity (while attacking everyone of being anonymous, mind you, with five (5) additional alter-egos).
So I'm hesitant to say it's Mark Knighton. But I do know:
He/she has been there from day one.
His/her output is mostly at night (i.e., only nocturnal emissions -- making it a 'he', I guess)
His/her primary language is not English
Not sure whether he/she has a primary language
Likes to play victim, drama queen or passive-aggressive games
Always answers with a question + accusations or combination thereof (i.e., questionable accusations, accusatory questions...)
He/she is pugnacious, scans for any negative sounding words and pounces on it (not unlike a "rabid" person)
Questions are like Kryptonite to them, makes them go radio silent for days, even months.
If you say anything he/she doesn't like, you're in their crosshair forever (no matter what you say thereafter)
Similarly, he/she takes offense to any variation of "I just want to know where my stuff is..."
He/she clearly hates any sort of anonymity (even real names) -- since they can't dox you for public humiliation
He/she is a paranoid conspiracy nut who thinks there are secret cells with pseudonyms + five (5) alter-egos comprising a clandestine cabal out to destroy their company. Who are these cells? Apparently, if you ask them about "where my stuff is...", YOU are.
Has clear contempt for both non-customers (who ask questions even w/o orders) and customers (who has an order but refuse refund) alike
It's all about hate... It may seem like they like you; but really, they just hate you less
If one person says something, they can quote it as coming from any other critic -- because we are all one and the same, or one of the five (5) alter-egos
> The AI article quotes you as saying '[the] money from these orders is not what's funding the company.' If that is true, then how is anybody 'helping' by letting you keep their money?
If you think about it you can probably come up with a logical reason. But somehow I don't think you will.
Mark makes a statement about customer money furthering the release of the product, which directly contradicts the quote in the article that the development is funded without customer money. You ignore that contradiction entirely, because you are a Waytools shill with a narrative to defend. Fail.
You still haven't figured it out. There is even a reference to it in the article.
If they are doing it all wrong, then why do you think they are very smart? ('They' being Mark Knighton of course, who refers to himself as 'we' and 'us'). It doesnt make a lot of sense, wouldnt you agree? Smart people do not behave so stupidly. Smart people are quite capable of acting maliciously however.
They came out with an awesome product idea & execution that so far has a ton of people including me following-up after 4 years. That they are technically adept, might not mean they are also marketing & PR geniuses. (Jobs / Woz capabilities compare comes to mind). Just trying to help imagining myself in their shoes / company. Also it is professionally case study grade material. So I took it as a challenge.
I have mentioned a different path for them to act in their exchanges with customers (ex, current or prospective). I mentioned this a few times already so I will now stop. That is all. Everybody can learn new stuff. You can always be positively surprised. Call me naive.
TBD, not trying to cast any shade here. I just seem to remember Mark not being all that shy about declaring himself.
When I read back through MR after I joined there I'm sure he said something like "my name is Mark and I make the TextBlade." I may have misquoted slightly because I haven't looked in a couple of years.
It doesn't feel right that someone who calls his Test release group in person, sometimes chalking up a couple of hours on that call, would bother hiding behind an anon account.
If the person you are dealing with is a minor functionary, it might be why there are no real answers and why they keep getting material facts wrong in the first instance.
Obviously you think what you think, and what I've put up in this post is an opinion based on what I've experienced.
You may indeed by right. It would be an interesting trajectory from proudly proclaiming yourself to hiding as a corporate anon.
Sigh. WayTools has previously stated that their infrastructure rewrite was limited to feature parity with the current firmware. (Good!) But now I see on the WayTools Forum that they are adding new features to it (e.g. new sticky modifier keys; ability to use it while wired; etc.). *head in hands*. Look, I like new features as much as anyone, but this is a problem (as anyone who has worked in software can tell you). New features means additional development time, new bugs, and more testing time required. This is how you get never-ending projects.
And no, these are not just knock-on benefits of the infrastructure rewrite (as in, the rewrite inherently automatically includes them and thus doesn't require any additional work). In their own words on the forum "The main design work for this is to carefully craft the UI aspects, so it’s easy to use, while also not trigger-happy." [https://forum.waytools.com/t/treggers-has-it-replaced-your-keyboards-completely/5609/30] That "carefully craft[ing]" is time and energy that should be spent on getting to feature parity and should be delayed until after General Release.
To address the 2 inevitable and contradictory responses to this:
1) "I agree that they shouldn't delay GR to add new features, but they won't do that. They're just making it possible to do it in the future, but they won't add these features before GR." Great! I really hope that is true and I've misread them! (@WayTools_Support, please clarify!) But if experience is any guide, they will fold these new features into the current build because it "will deliver the best possible user experience" or some such to justify the delay. And then, when it gets sent to TREG, the same TREG members who said that they shouldn't delay to add the features will fall over themselves to say how good the features are and say "It's worth the wait". (Make up your minds--should they delay or not!)
2) "They've already added the features, so at this point it won't add any additional time." Sigh. Then change my criticism from "They shouldn't take the time to add the new features to the firmware now and wait until after GR to do so" to "They shouldn't have *spent* the time to add the new features to the firmware and should've waited until after GR to do so."
Sigh. WayTools has previously stated that their infrastructure rewrite was limited to feature parity with the current firmware. (Good!) But now I see on the WayTools Forum that they are adding new features to it (e.g. new sticky modifier keys; ability to use it while wired; etc.). *head in hands*.
From the way they wrote it, we can't tell if the sticky is before or after GR. Same applies to most things they've talked about.
I have no doubt but that some things can be "added" which really aren't much in the way of additions that could cause problems. For example:
We have 6 jump slots. More are apparently coming. Is this a new addition to be concerned about? It would depend on several things, but to take a simple example, consider a spreadsheet where you have a formula which looks a cell in 10 rows. When it finds a match, it takes info from other cells in that row.
But then you decide you want 20 different options. Well, it is no problem to change the formula to search through 20 rows. There is no risk here of screwing up some other routine. Jumps could work like that. It checks the chord you hit for the jump slot and when it recognizes it, it connects to the info that goes with it.
Even if it didn't work that way originally, a rewrite reduces the code may well make it work that way. I have a real life example of that. Many years ago, when we'd get computer magazines which had program listings in BASIC we would enter into our computers manually, I saw one that was about word jumbles. Those were things you saw in newspapers that, I think, had either 5 or 6 letters jumbled up and the reader would try to unjumble each one. Well, the code was written to handle those two situations and it was written so the first thing it did was see if you entered a 5 letter or 6 letter word. It would then jump to the part of the code which dealt with that length - the two parts of the code were essentially identical except for the number of characters it dealt with. Very wasteful and also limited.
So I rewrote it and, by using variables, you could enter any size word (thus not limited) and with no need to duplicate code (thus not wasteful). This means that even if jumps were developed in a way where adding more would be complicated, the necessary change to free up space could also mean they could add more with no additional complication or impact on other things.
The point is, if that is how more slots come about, is that really adding anything new? It could be argued both ways, but since the concern is about adding new things causing delays, in this example, if accurate, I'd say "no". Other things I can't even theorize since I don't have any idea about what they involved.
When I read back through MR after I joined there I'm sure he said something like "my name is Mark and I make the TextBlade." I may have misquoted slightly because I haven't looked in a couple of years.
The 'dialect' and vocabulary of that post combined with his statement of identity at the end proves it is the same Mark Knighton / Waytools / Waytools_Support character we have all been dealing with for the past 4+ years.
Comments
Sira is the latest to cancel and unable to take your crap any longer. Stop trying to force TBD to cancel. It’s clear that if I re-ordered, you’d just force cancel me!
Stop defending yourself, you only embarrass yourself further.
You go in peace and finish your piecemeal work so that your testers can become true users. I deleted my references to final messages because you insist on having the last word, and all your high-falutin’ talk is just that - talk.
I’m sick of your endless BS, Mark. No-one has ever seen a company like Waytools, despite plenty of shonky Kickstarter and Indiegogo efforts - you take the cake, and you weren’t even supposed to be crowdfunded.
Yes, I do write well, and it has been used in the service of shining a light on the way you respond.
I hope people read these posts so they learn the true you. They can see I’m honest and sincere, and that you’re not.
Please save your smarmy comebacks and false declarations of sainthood, I’m sick and tired of your crap.
Finish the damn job. Get off your high horse. Learn some damn humility. The world doesn’t revolve around you. You can only be a Musk or Jobs-like figure by delivering the goods, not insulting comebacks. Until you deliver to the general public, and not just some Treggers, your fine words about achievement are just that - empty words.
Your company and smarmy comebacks should lead you to rename the company Waywords, because your wayward ways lead to a bunch of truly astonishing weasel words, and it is virtually unforgivable despite many attempts to get you to apologise to us all, and to promise to be better, which you have outright refused to do by merely doubling down on your recalcitrance.
Instead the best you can do is the crap above. Sad! It’s a disgrace.
Good bye! May you end the endless BS and complete your mission of a TextBlade to the public!!
I am not going to imply I’m something I’m not... for the sake of honesty and clarity, I’m unimpressed with Waytools and Mark, I’m rather unimpressed with your behaviour as CEO and representative of the organisation in the manner you present to the public and your customers.
Having said that, the decision as to whether I want to continue with my pre-order and “free gift” (I do wish to continue with it btw...) should belong entirely with me. I can understand you freely offering a refund (entirely fair and appropriate), but enforcing one unrequested is not ethical behaviour; it is very “no soup for you...!” [Seinfeld, Soup Nazi] behaviour and is not “normal” business practice...
If I’m willing to live in frustration and angst, then that’s entirely up to me. Your end of the purchase contract is to deliver on the items I purchased - if it upsets you that I’m an upset customer then the two mechanisms open to you are a) engineering and development or b) customer service offer of a refund... If I refuse an offer of a refund and you’re still bothered at me being upset, then you really only have engineering and development to get the thing out the door to fall back on... If you want to be insanely generous and give me my money back whilst still delivering my multiple TextBlades and free gift when they’re ready (without needing me to pay a second time), then I really can’t see how I could refuse, but since I can’t imagine anyone being that generous, I’d be happy to settle for you leaving the purchasing and refunding decision to remain with the customer (in my case; me) - you have a very simple and straightforward refund mechanism (very efficient and effective btw) and I have no problem with you directing people toward it if they wish to avail themselves of it, but this whole “force refund” business appears quite capricious and brittle. If that isn’t how you intended to appear (and I certainly believe you don’t want to be viewed that way), then may I suggest not capriciously forcing refunds on people who don’t want them* and going down a route that leaves the purchase/refund decision entirely in the hands of the customer...
(Even if I wanted to blow a couple hundred bucks with no hope of getting anything for it, that’s a decision for me; at best you could, by all means, offer a refund, but if I choose not to, you really shouldn’t be forcing one on me... nobody should be forcing things on to anyone quite frankly...)
The idea that people actually need to specify “please do not cancel my order and force-refund me...” on any post remotely critical of you really is “Empire-Strikes-Back-Imperial-March-theme” kinda stuff; I’m sure you don’t want to be viewed that way. Those statements appended to their posts should have rung alarm bells that “I don’t think people are taking this forced refund thing the way we intended... maybe it was a miscalculation on our part...”
Just to be clear, please do not refund my order, please maintain my place in line along with my “free gift” status - and if I knew whether the free gift was worthwhile, it might change my decision, but I’ve read from Treggers that it’s extremely generous... I’m prepared to continue going through quite a bit of frustration if it means Waytools end up treating me to their generosity... I’m still open to you refunding me but still delivering two TextBlades along with my “free gift” whenever you get to general release, but if not (and I’m guessing not...), I’ll still settle for my order being fulfilled...
*How do you know if people want a refund or not? Best way is to ask them first... if they say yes, then go ahead, but if they say no, then no means no...
[edited an errant asterisk...]
We checked the exchange rate, and it looks like he’s ahead about 8 % on his preorder. So it would cost about 8% more yen to buy today because the dollar is higher than when he ordered. And that’s before we implement the price increase for the infrastructure upgrade.
He’s a native Japanese speaker, so we’ll discuss with him what he prefers.
Sira-San -
シラ -私たちはあなたの命令に協力してくれる電話を持っている
Mark makes a statement about customer money furthering the release of the product, which directly contradicts the quote in the article that the development is funded without customer money. You ignore that contradiction entirely, because you are a Waytools shill with a narrative to defend. Fail.
Every point of criticism rendered on this thread exists similarly on Macrumors, Reddit, and the Waytools forum, and were publicly available to research before this article. You know that, but again fabricate a straw man argument to further your narrative. And your choice of all-caps does not make your lame argument stronger. Fail.
I appreciate your view, I really do, but I got in early and was promised a free gift - I want my gift and I can afford a couple hundred bucks...
(I actually think the “free gift for early orderers” is pissing a lot of people off... they got in early but now don’t know if getting out will deprive them of something sufficiently valuable that they’d be kicking themselves once they discover what it is... after 4 years, it might actually help if Waytools drew a line in the sand (end of the early adopter bonus...) and announced what the early-adopter bonus is so people can make an informed decision... I don’t imagine Waytools initially figured they’d be holding off on it for 4+ years...)
I do not want a refund (unless there’s no choice i.e. I end up being a creditor after a bankruptcy or something equally unfortunate...). I want my products. I also want my free gift (I just like presents...
From the point of view of a customer who has offered twice to meet with WT at their choice of venue to dispel their fears, only to be met with no response, I get the impression that any attempt to communicate with WT is more or less pointless. There are too many unknowns when talking to "Waytools_support". Some here have assumed that the hands behind the keys are those of Mark himself. Which presents a few interesting questions to ponder.
- Why would the CEO of a multi-million dollar funded company get involved in an increasingly petty slanging match on a smallish forum? I am certain that between now and 2019-06-21 at about 10 am. PT, Mark is going to be quite busy.
- Would it not make more sense to have a social media body to do that? You know, someone good at this sort of thing.
- If the posted comments are not the typed words of Mark, then can someone let actual Mark know what a poor job his representative is doing?
- If these are the words of the CEO of WT then they do more to damage the company image than protect it. Should we be concerned regarding potential Musk-Toxicity? Tesla is a an oft cited example for WT's talking points, but isn't the CEO of that firm in a spot of bother for accusing people of stuff on the internet?
- Whoever is typing the responses to comments here only fact checks transaction information sometimes, can anyone see a pattern as to what gets verified and what doesn't before comments are made? I'll give you a clue what may be going on here rhymes with "Scores a ball, his nigh ability's key".
- Is there any benefit for WT not to explaining in short and clear terms what the current state of development is when asked here? The answer to "is it done yet?" is "no." work from there perhaps? That is the current news reduced to a 4 word question and a single word answer but I am sure that someone at WT can manage something in between a single word answer and Tolstoy.
- There are a great many questions regarding the product development status left unanswered in this thread with only a vague statement to the effect that WT will update their forum with details at some point. We as customers are in the odd position of waiting for updates regarding updates regarding the timing of the latest update.
I'll be back tomorrow to see what has been forthcoming, from the WT account. It would be refreshing to see some engagement on the topic of their product, it's development roadmap, and the timescales on which that will be delivered. But then why engage with you paying customers when you can just turn not into ex-customers and/or start flinging accusations around? It's far easier to point to horizon and shout "Look there. Elephants. Thousands of them" than give a passerby directions, but It wears paper thin very quickly.We already have the marketing quote of the decade right here:
That's not even lifted from inside a comment, it is the whole comment.
Alex, I wish I could write half as well as you. You see, when I sit to type I am simply all fingers and thumbs...
R
Just on this point: do not invest time in a war of words to right any wrongs, attack or defend. As I said, perhaps it would be better (& smarter) to take it with good natured humor and even publish some of these things at your site. If you laugh at yourself you defuse your critics.
You might be passionate but I think you are also very smart, and you are doing it all wrong. Leave emotions out the door and talk ONLY about the TB, and its status.
(BTW, my last comment on this is: I do not read any bad intentions from Alex. It felt quite conciliatory specially at the beginning. He is for sure a fun guy to keep around. It would liven up the WTF forums. Peace)
Suggestion: Why don't you hold a product & project Q&A / AMA session for example after you publish the next update this month ? or now or whenever you want.
Another topic: I do not know if you are familiar with Alfred for Mac, but I use it quite a lot with different keyboard shortcuts to start workflows and a lot of other stuff, ie: I have configured CTRL+ALT+k to every morning open all my usual apps & websites in their own spaces, or use double pressing cmd to open docs finder window, the same with alt that opens de App window, etc etc. I have 10/12 that I use very often and 10 more I use only occasionally.
I was always intrigued on what would be the best way to use keyboard shortcuts as they are part of my workflow. There is the programming layer (which I am not that clear on how to use), and now DBK mentions the sticky keys.
What would be the most practical way to work with shortcuts on your opinion? Is there a video that could help illustrate so that I might understand better ?
Why do you try hard so hard to placate the person on the other end of this line? Do you really think it will work? He has been behaving this way since the beginning, for over 4 years.
Reminder: http://alturl.com/3qyj5
>There are too many unknowns when talking to "Waytools_support". Some here have assumed that the hands behind the keys are those of Mark himself.
Rolanbek: Do the math. We have a CEO, Mark Knighton, who micro manages every aspect of this operation, who is widely reported to talk to each of his testers for many hours at a time and handles their tech support calls at all hours of the day and night, handles all of the PR, and is the primary financier. The journalists all report interacting with him directly. Nobody ever mentions another key player at the company, that I can recollect. Do you think that kind of guy would delegate all public communications to someone else and let them botch it so badly? Do you think Mark Knighton would empower his social media 'Waytools_Support' employee to force refund customers at will using his own judgement? And then there is the 'dialect' (I use the term loosely) of the Waytools_Support / Waytools character on AI and the Waytools forum. There arent two people in the world who 'speak' the way the Waytools screen name speaks. Its the same person, and that person is Mark Knighton.
So I'm hesitant to say it's Mark Knighton. But I do know:
They came out with an awesome product idea & execution that so far has a ton of people including me following-up after 4 years.
That they are technically adept, might not mean they are also marketing & PR geniuses. (Jobs / Woz capabilities compare comes to mind).
Just trying to help imagining myself in their shoes / company. Also it is professionally case study grade material. So I took it as a challenge.
I have mentioned a different path for them to act in their exchanges with customers (ex, current or prospective). I mentioned this a few times already so I will now stop. That is all. Everybody can learn new stuff. You can always be positively surprised. Call me naive.
When I read back through MR after I joined there I'm sure he said something like "my name is Mark and I make the TextBlade." I may have misquoted slightly because I haven't looked in a couple of years.
It doesn't feel right that someone who calls his Test release group in person, sometimes chalking up a couple of hours on that call, would bother hiding behind an anon account.
If the person you are dealing with is a minor functionary, it might be why there are no real answers and why they keep getting material facts wrong in the first instance.
Obviously you think what you think, and what I've put up in this post is an opinion based on what I've experienced.
You may indeed by right. It would be an interesting trajectory from proudly proclaiming yourself to hiding as a corporate anon.
R
I have no doubt but that some things can be "added" which really aren't much in the way of additions that could cause problems. For example:
We have 6 jump slots. More are apparently coming. Is this a new addition to be concerned about? It would depend on several things, but to take a simple example, consider a spreadsheet where you have a formula which looks a cell in 10 rows. When it finds a match, it takes info from other cells in that row.
But then you decide you want 20 different options. Well, it is no problem to change the formula to search through 20 rows. There is no risk here of screwing up some other routine. Jumps could work like that. It checks the chord you hit for the jump slot and when it recognizes it, it connects to the info that goes with it.
Even if it didn't work that way originally, a rewrite reduces the code may well make it work that way. I have a real life example of that. Many years ago, when we'd get computer magazines which had program listings in BASIC we would enter into our computers manually, I saw one that was about word jumbles. Those were things you saw in newspapers that, I think, had either 5 or 6 letters jumbled up and the reader would try to unjumble each one. Well, the code was written to handle those two situations and it was written so the first thing it did was see if you entered a 5 letter or 6 letter word. It would then jump to the part of the code which dealt with that length - the two parts of the code were essentially identical except for the number of characters it dealt with. Very wasteful and also limited.
So I rewrote it and, by using variables, you could enter any size word (thus not limited) and with no need to duplicate code (thus not wasteful). This means that even if jumps were developed in a way where adding more would be complicated, the necessary change to free up space could also mean they could add more with no additional complication or impact on other things.
The point is, if that is how more slots come about, is that really adding anything new? It could be argued both ways, but since the concern is about adding new things causing delays, in this example, if accurate, I'd say "no". Other things I can't even theorize since I don't have any idea about what they involved.
The 'dialect' and vocabulary of that post combined with his statement of identity at the end proves it is the same Mark Knighton / Waytools / Waytools_Support character we have all been dealing with for the past 4+ years.