Tim Wienk's dashboard

Tim Wienk marked one of Ted Grubb's replies in Get Satisfaction as useful. Ted Grubb replied to the question "Does GSFN.show() still work for text links?".

Tim Wienk replied on June 03, 2009 09:04 to the problem "I'm unhappy because you removed my topic" in Get Satisfaction:

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure you fully understood my reply. So don't get me wrong, and please don't feel offended, as I'm going to put things in words that are a bit more straight forward.

Google search results do not associate you or your site's name with 'crass' as a direct result of the removal of your topic, nor the pages which were created by GetSatisfaction as a direct result of the removal of your topic.

Google search results associate your name with 'crass' due to the fact that you started this topic and the fact that you wrote about it on Blogger. If you would have kept this problem private (e.g. in a private conversation between you and GetSatisfaction employees), instead of putting it on popular public websites, Google would not have had any of those results.

I have a feeling (like Jen mentioned as well), that it's just a matter of principle right now. You feel hurt and want to hear that you're right. But you mentioned "professionalism", so please act professional yourself. Your excessive use of CAPITALS is getting a tad bit annoying, as is your "celebrity behavior" and especially your threat to organize a law suit does not show any "professionalism" at all.

Tim Wienk replied on June 02, 2009 23:47 to the problem "I'm unhappy because you removed my topic" in Get Satisfaction:

If the main concern is Google search results, I don't believe there is (or at least was) any kind of problem here.

GetSatisfaction has their search engine accessibility set up pretty good. The change logs (in which the removal of Xray's topic would be mentioned, and perhaps the reason with the term 'crass') contain meta tags preventing search engines from indexing the page (meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow"), like they should.

However, when concerned about Google search results, it's always a bad call to start an open topic on a popular, heavily changing website (which means a lot of Google crawls and a high page rank) in which you mention your name and the term you don't want to be associated with. The best thing would have been to resolve this problem over email.

In fact, if you would do a Google search for 'xrayyoursoul crass' (click), the only thing that pops up is this very topic (and perhaps in the near future Xray's profile, since this topic will be mentioned there under 'Recent activity')! The removal of the topic or its reason would not have been picked up by Google.

I hope I'm not offending anyone or firing up any discussions once more, and I realize I probably sound like I'm defending GetSatisfaction (even though I'm just trying to defend facts, while being quite independent), I do feel that these things had to be pointed out before people start killing people for damaging their reputation.

Now, I do agree with the point that 'crass' commercialism might be a bit too strong. Perhaps 'unwanted' or 'unapproved' commercialism would be a better choice of words (assuming GetSatisfaction is trying to cover more than just advertisement with the term commercialism).

So that's it for me adding 2 a-bit-more-technical cents.

Tim Wienk replied on June 02, 2009 18:21 to the problem "I'm unhappy because you removed my topic" in Get Satisfaction:

Seeing as I'm neither with GetSatisfaction, nor with any Ning-related thing, please allow me to throw in my two independent cents.

I think this issue revolves around a simple misunderstanding. Xray feels that the term "crass" is mentioned in relation to his work, while it really isn't. The topic wasn't removed because the work displayed was "crass", but because the reason of posting was thought to be "crass commercialism" or the way the topic came across was a "crass commercial" way, or in less posh (but more understandable) English "meant as nothing else than advertisement".

Perhaps the terminology chosen wasn't the best, and perhaps the reason really wasn't advertising, but the term "crass" wasn't directed at you or your work, but refers to the 'severity' of the commercialism the topic felt like to some Ning-users. (The Ning-users who flagged the topic.)

I haven't seen your work, but from the amount of soul and passion you put into resolving this matter, I'm sure your work is far from unsensitive or crass. As I mentioned, this issue looks to me like a big misunderstanding.

Tim Wienk replied on June 02, 2009 16:40 to the problem "GetSatisfaction looks like crap in Firefox. No CSS?" in Get Satisfaction:

Looks like your firefox cached an empty stylesheet. Try using Ctrl+F5 (a refresh which skips cache) to refresh your browser, it should be alright then.

The fact that it happened two times is a little awkward, but perhaps bad luck.. It's generally caused by a server hiccup, or connection issue at the wrong moment.

Eric's response made me laugh.. "Sorry our site looks like crap to you".. haha!

Tim Wienk replied on June 02, 2009 16:26 to the question "how to change the logo" in Get Satisfaction:

You're gonna have to do the resizing in an external application, I guess. I happened to have Photoshop open, so here ya go:



(Right click + Save image as... or something similar, to save the image.)

A comment on the update "What other apps would you like Get Satisfaction to integrate with?" in Get Satisfaction:

+1 for Redmine! – Tim Wienk, on June 02, 2009 06:53

Tim Wienk marked one of Scott Fleckenstein's replies in Get Satisfaction as useful. Scott Fleckenstein replied to the problem "Links in XML feed "forget" browse criteria".

Tim Wienk marked one of Scott Fleckenstein's replies in Get Satisfaction as useful. Scott Fleckenstein replied to the problem "Topic status in API XML feeds".

Tim Wienk shared an idea in Get Satisfaction on June 01, 2009 21:52:

Tiny widget fixes (color code javascript + page widget caption)

Hello GS,

I was just messing about with the Feedback Tab Widget creation thingy, and I noticed my background color didn't show up! A peek at the source revealed that I forgot to put the '#' in front of the hex color code. Assuming I'm not the only one to make those tiny mistakes, a simple addition to the javascript that's executed when clicking 'Update your code' should fix this. Basically the only thing you need is a simple regex:
if (tab_color.match(/^(?:[a-f0-9]{3}){1,2}$/i)) {
tab_color = '#'+tab_color;
}

And while clicking around, I noticed another tiny thing: in the customization options of the Feedback Page Widget, the caption says "Customize your tab", instead of 'page' or perhaps 'widget'.

Tim Wienk shared an idea in Get Satisfaction on June 01, 2009 21:52:

Employee tag in author element, in XML feed entries

Hey GS,

In the topic XML feed, the author element of each entry doesn't tell whether the author is an employee or not. The way to figure it out seems to be to request another document, from which one can figure out if someone's an employee. (Or know your employees cnames, and match against those.)

Nevertheless, I think it's a good idea to throw an employee tag in the author element when someone is an employee, perhaps with a value to indicate their level (admin, official rep, employee).

Tim Wienk reported a problem in Get Satisfaction on June 01, 2009 21:51:

External URLs from the API and https

And aloha again GS,

There doesn't seem to be a way to tell the API to give external URLs (such as avatars) as https-protocol URLs. It's nothing a simple search'n'replace can't fix, but it's still some extra parsing I rather leave up to you guys. ;-)

The reason is that browsers like Internet Explorer will ask for confirmation to load non-https resources when viewing an ssl-secured page.

Tim Wienk reported a problem in Get Satisfaction on June 01, 2009 21:51:

Links in XML feed "forget" browse criteria

Hey again GS,

Another thing I noticed while messing with the API, the links in the root element of the XML feeds (the ones with rel=self, rel=next, rel=last, etc.) don't take into account what other criteria are passed to the API (q, sort, style, etc.).

So let's say you request "http://api.getsatisfaction.com/companies/getsatisfaction/topics?style=talk&page=2"
Then the <link rel="next" /> will have as href only "http://api.getsatisfaction.com/companies/getsatisfaction/topics?page=3", not taking into account the style=talk.

Tim Wienk reported a problem in Get Satisfaction on June 01, 2009 21:50:

Topic status in API XML feeds

Hello GS,

While using the API to generate a topic list inside our product, I noticed that the topic status (e.g. 'Company is aware of problem', 'Company is working on problem') are not in the XML feeds. This seems a little imcomplete to me, and it would be nice to have in there.

(Or if I'm just a bit too blind, please let me know where in the XML it is..)

Tim Wienk replied on June 01, 2009 09:45 to the question "feest- en vakantiedagen" in BlueBear:

Nou, vandaag bijvoorbeeld (tweede pinksterdag).

Tim Wienk marked one of James' replies in Get Satisfaction as useful. James replied to the idea ""Agree with praise" button". Tim Wienk and 4 other people think it's one of the best replies.

Tim Wienk replied on May 31, 2009 22:51 to the problem "givesatisfaction.com?" in Get Satisfaction:

The givesatisfaction.com domain has been around since 2007. It's just another way/location to reach GS.

More domains = more reach = more visitors = bigger community.

I'm quite sure they're not rebranding to GiveSatisfaction.

Tim Wienk replied on May 31, 2009 22:43 to the idea "I No Longer Like This Idea, I Nolonger Have This Problem & I No Longer Have This Question Buttons Would be Good :]" in Get Satisfaction:

When you stop following an idea, a problem or a question, it implies that you no longer like the idea, no longer have the problem or no longer have that question. So it's already there.

What's not there, though, (at least, as far as I know) is the ability to find out how many people still like/have the idea/problem/question. There's follower_count and me_too_count, but there's no me_not_anymore_count kind'a thing. It might be good to add, sounds useful for tracking problems.

Tim Wienk started following the idea "Associating the widget with a specific product/service" in Get Satisfaction.

Tim Wienk started following the question "feest- en vakantiedagen" in BlueBear.