weirdosmurf

dabigkahuna said:

alexonline said:

You act as a proxy for Mark, or at least have in the past. Many would characterise your actions as much more than a mere “messenger”.

I act according to what I want to say. But didn't you just make an issue about focusing on the person rather than their arguments?

I don't care about what "many" would characterize me as. They've been consistently wrong.

I'm totally open about what I say, think, and the reasons for how I post. Yet a whole bunch of you folks keep insisting on your own meme instead.

Whilst you are certainly entitled to an opinion, it is not one which is universally shared... nor is it established fact...

alexonline said:

All this talk of "ethics"... one would have thought it grossly unethical to market a product as ready for release in mere weeks, and then string the public and paying customers along for four+ years.

Personally, I wavered because I wondered what the free gift was, and whether it was worth it. I tried asking what it was, but, apparently having taken ethics into equation, no-one would tell. After a few weeks, at the time, I simply decided it wasn't worth the trouble, and the money was better in my pocket than MK's - plus why reward an unethical person for whom it was no trouble to be unethical to start with?

I think that’s fair.

I also wonder whether it’s ethical to place unenforceable things in a contract (or an NDA...) - that in and of itself is problematic. I worked for an organisation which had a “get out of jail free...” clause in it which basically said “if anything in this contract turns out to have been illegal, then we didn’t mean it...” Now that was the most hilarious contract clause I’ve ever seen...!

We all accept there are limits; “I was just obeying orders...” has been demonstrated to be entirely illegal if the orders given were illegal ones. Illegal or inappropriate contract clauses are likewise entirely meaningless other than to cow someone in to behaving in a way you want them to even if you know you’re not supposed to be able to cow them in that regard... the act of knowingly doing so causes people to get in to significant trouble... They’re not worth the paper they’re printed on...

Not all Non Disclosure Agreements are equal... 

TextBladeDenied said:

Another way to consider the issue is in the context of 'whistleblower' scenarios.

If an organization is doing something harmful, and you are party to that organization, or have non-disclosure agreements with that organization, you can legally and ethically disclose information about the organization if it would benefit the greater good.

There's always shades of gray of course, and obviously Mark Knighton's little operation doesn't rise to the level of Wikileaks vs NSA, but it's the same principle.

Ask yourself:

How/why is it essential/ethical/justified for 10,000+ customers to not know what the 'gift' is at this point, after everything that has happened thus far?

Give it some thought. 

I hadn’t actually thought of whistleblower protections... Many jurisdictions have them specifically to ensure people in positions of power don’t have the ability to engage in unethical conduct using the fear of a power imbalance as a lever to have people remain silent.

I’d agree that it’s perfectly acceptable to enforce patent or commercially sensitive data that may put a company at a competitive advantage/disadvantage, but having something in there “because we don’t want to ruin the surprise...” is probably more of a goodwill issue rather than an NDA-specific issue - I’d seriously be surprised if it’s in any way enforceable (please don’t take my word for it though; I’m not a lawyer... not even playing one for pretend on TV )

TextBladeDenied said:

AnthRD said:

I was banned on the forums for “misrepresentation” when I tried to estimate when would finally be released (estimated 2016). They were right I was wrong, I was overly optimistic on when would be released. 

Wow. Mark Knighton clearly hates optimists. Thanks for sharing that perfect example of his nasty narcissistic authoritarian attitude towards his customers.

Hopefully some brave Treg tester will soon anonymously reveal the 'top gift'. I'm hoping there's at least one out there who can understand the rationale of chipping away at some of Mark's manipulative control of the situation. If the 'gift' is known, then customers can make a more informed decision about whether to continue waiting or not, after waiting for so long already, and as a bonus, perhaps Mark might be motivated to modify his behavior in a constructive way if he no longer wields the 'carrot and stick' and simply has to be judged based on what he can, or more likely, cannot accomplish. 

100% agree.

I think even if they’d do get started (and I’d dearly love to be wrong and to receive my rider...), they have significantly burned a significant number of their early supporters/adopters and created a poor trust relationship. That’s a hard issue to overcome. Even then, they have had zero inertia for 4+ years, so moving out of a state of zero point energy will be possibly a bridge too far...

A 2yr old necro-post was just revived on Waytools forum with a very long and impassioned post at the end (https://forum.waytools.com/t/are-the-delays-understandable/4909/19?u=weirdosmurf) trying to rationalise why the delivery delays for the TextBlade might be “understandable”. Whilst it might be theoretically possible to “understand” why Waytools have not been up to the task of delivering a product, that does not conflate to being in any way “acceptable”...

The post mentions customer service and support post-release and the difficulties Waytools might face; from what I’ve seen, they’re in a world of hurt on that score as they can’t even get an update out on time...! What on earth makes anyone believe they are remotely capable of doing the infinitely more complex and difficult task of actual customer support...?

i suspect we are in for a long, long wait before anyone sees an actual purchased TextBlade (if ever...). Who knows, it may happen one day, but perhaps another company with expertise in actually realising products might need to buy up the company and take over the product release... Waytools have shown no evidence that they have any ability to actually achieve general release... (and when they say they’re going to do something, they invariably don’t follow through, so anything they say regarding... pretty much anything... should be taken with a grain of salt - basically; “believe it when you see it... until then, it’s just vapour and unfulfilled promises...”)

*Mark, don’t you dare cancel my order; that decision rests with me, not you - your responsibility is to deliver me two TextBlades... if you’re annoyed at my post or tone, channel that rage in to actually releasing the product... or failing that; a progress update (preferably in plain, not-jargon-peppered English...)