Wouldn't It Be Nice...

[piercer]

Hi,

given the IMMENSE amount of confusion and problems that they are having with order, wouldn't it be nice to:

Have a page on a website where you can check the status of your order

I ordered in the UK using a debit card with Protx. I have absolutely no way of knowing if I will receive a refund and if I have to reorder, except by waiting for an email (that may or may not arrive), or by looking at my bank account for a refund (that may or may not arrive).

How do I know if the email has been removed by a spam filter somewhere?
How do I know if there has been a problem with my refund?
Is there somewhere I can ask the simple question: Excuse me, but do I have to reorder?

Conrad

 

[mali]

Hi Conrad
Having a page to check the status, would be excessive additional work, and seing that the devs are getting only 3-4 hours sleep at night at the moment(a quote from ED from the German blog), there is no manpower left to do it. Read the bottom part of this quote:

I think that info supplied by the Dev more frequently (even with some of the info being out-of-date soon after) is better than leaving all of the HUNGRY daily (some more frequent than that) visitors with nothing.
There have been nine updates in the last two weeks. Is that still not enough for you? What will it take to sate you desire for knowledge? What "info" would you like?

• When will the Pandoras start shipping? Probably in December.
• How long will it take to ship them all? Nobody knows.
• Why aren't there any pictures / videos of a finished Pandora? There isn't a finished Pandora yet.
• When will there be one? Don't know. Probably soon.
• Why aren't there any pictures / videos of parts? Because they're sitting in a factory waiting to be assembled somewhere in North America. The only hardware dev in North America is MWeston. North America is a big continent. What are the chances that the factory just happens to be within driving distance from his home? Perhaps he or another dev will be taking a trip to the factory to document the process, but there are a lot of more pressing issues at the moment.
• When will we see the final UI? When it's finished.
• What's going on with the bank / credit card problems? I've already explained it all at length. I cannot be any more specific than I have been, but it shouldn't take a rocket scientist to read between the lines.
• When will it be taken care of? See the link above.
• How do we know if we need to re-order? See above. If you get an email, you have to re-order.
• But how do we know if we're getting an email? You won't know until it either shows up, or you see an announcement here that says all refunds have been sent.
• Can't you just post a list? No. It is a much bigger pain in the ass than you could possibly imagine. The process is really simple: Get email = re-order. Don't get email = do nothing. That's it. We're not asking you to do long division here.

Is there any more "info" I can provide?

 

[joa]

though updates are very welcome when they do come. order status would be pointless are we're all in the same boat. So it would be the same for all.

Meaning, they may aswel post updates on the forums (which they are doing).

 

[BeefJerky]

Well, we're not all in the same boat. Some of us will have to reorder. Others won't. Some will have had their refund processed. Others won't. Then some will have had their new order processed at a certain point. Others won't.

It's not the same for all and having your status clarified one way or another would be most welcome.

 

[piercer]

We are not all in the same boat.

Just because a refund email is sent to you it does not mean that you receive it.
Just because you do not receive an email about reordering does not mean that it was not sent.

Just because they try to refund your money to you does not mean that you will receive the money.
Just because you do not receive a refund does not meant that you do not have to reorder.

All of this is a 'push' technology and it is impossible to be sure of the negative (It is not correct to assume that because you have not received an email about reordering by the time CraigX calls the all clear then you do not have to reorder).

How do I know whether or not something has gone wrong on the process?

 

[joa]

Yes we are, those who have all pre-ordered.

We are aware of the delays and splitting hairs about whose card has or hasn't been refunded is silly. If at the end of the week you still have no email. You know what conclusiont to, if at that time you're still in doubt (email got lost).

then email the team and they'll give you 'status of your order!!' - voila.

chillout fgs.

 

[mali]

We are not all in the same boat.

Just because a refund email is sent to you it does not mean that you receive it.
Just because you do not receive an email about reordering does not mean that it was not sent.

Just because they try to refund your money to you does not mean that you will receive the money.
Just because you do not receive a refund does not meant that you do not have to reorder.

All of this is a 'push' technology and it is impossible to be sure of the negative (It is not correct to assume that because you have not received an email about reordering by the time CraigX calls the all clear then you do not have to reorder).

How do I know whether or not something has gone wrong on the process?

I think there is no solution to this uncertainty. But the 4000 Pandoras will be produced anyhow and IF something goes wrong with your re-order, you can still drop Craig a line and claim your Pandora.
Chances are very high, that everything goes well. If you got the order confirmation mail in your inbox you will very likely get the re-fund/re-order mail in your inbox too, if it is sent.

 

[BeefJerky]

There's a lot of 'if's there, Mali. And you're right that chances are high that everything will be fine. But, with all that's going on, it would make all the difference to have confirmation to avoid the wondering or worry or the inevitable posts that follow this process from people who aren't sure where they stand.

 

[mali]

There's a lot of 'if's there, Mali. And you're right that chances are high that everything will be fine. But, with all that's going on, it would make all the difference to have confirmation to avoid the wondering or worry or the inevitable posts that follow this process from people who aren't sure where they stand.

I totally understand the situation and it is really bad that all this has happened. I'm just trying to light up the situation a little bit. There is nothing we can do except to wait. In my opinion the re-fund/re-order has to be processed fastest possible and the next step should be taken after that is finished, what will be probably end of the week.

 

[Dunny]

Let's assume for a moment that they do put up a page where order numbers and their status is posted. One of two things will occur:

1) Orders will say "no problems" right up until they're refunded. People will notice that this is happening, and clamour on the forums that they don't know what's going on.

2) All orders that will be refunded are flagged as "refund" from the get-go, so we can see if our order will be refunded at some point this week. People will see this and start clamouring on the forums that they've not received their refund/email etc.

I don't see that a page listing order status is going to cut down on the confusion around here, especially with so many people cheerfully ignoring what Chip/Squidge/CraigIX have posted.

D.

 

[piercer]

Let's assume for a moment that they do put up a page where order numbers and their status is posted. One of two things will occur:

1) Orders will say "no problems" right up until they're refunded. People will notice that this is happening, and clamour on the forums that they don't know what's going on.

2) All orders that will be refunded are flagged as "refund" from the get-go, so we can see if our order will be refunded at some point this week. People will see this and start clamouring on the forums that they've not received their refund/email etc.

I don't see that a page listing order status is going to cut down on the confusion around here, especially with so many people cheerfully ignoring what Chip/Squidge/CraigIX have posted.

D.



At the moment I have:

No webpage with no idea if I will get a refund and have to reorder or not. I also have no idea whether I have been sent an email about such things or not. I have no idea whether a refund has been issued or not. Surely that is worse than what you describe above.

If I could see a web page that told me whether or not my order was affected, whether or not an email had been sent (although this would of course no longer be necessary as i could read the instruction on the same web page)and whether or not a refund had been issues then there would be far less confusion - What is your problem with that?

 

[mali]

If I could see a web page that told me whether or not my order was affected, whether or not an email had been sent (although this would of course no longer be necessary as i could read the instruction on the same web page)and whether or not a refund had been issues then there would be far less confusion - What is your problem with that?

Your opinion is absolutely valid, no doubt. But it seems, that there is no manpower left for it and so it's just wait and see. Every hold-up would make things worse in the end. Patience is the only sensible option here IMO.

 

[Chip]

Have a page on a website where you can check the status of your order

That would require hand-writing four thousand web pages.

I don't think you guys appreciate the difference between ordering something at, say Amazon.com, and your pre-order with Craig. It's not like the merchant account with the bank has features like mass-mailing or report generation (at least not the kind that would be helpful here). It's not like they provide a comprehensive database of customers / orders. Openpandora certainly doesn't have a programmer on staff to generate reports from a database, even if one existed.

The tools provided by the bank are probably similar to what you get with Paypal. You get an online page where you can view order status, but no way to do anything in batches or generate complex reports. Any list or status page or anything like that would have to be compiled by hand - just like the refunds and emails are being done now.

It's bad enough that all the refunds have to be processed manually, but creating status pages would take weeks.

 

[joa]

Your opinion is absolutely valid, no doubt. But it seems, that there is no manpower left for it and so it's just wait and see. Every hold-up would make things worse in the end. Patience is the only sensible option here IMO.

Agree fully

I do exactly that too, help manage web services. Theres 3 of us and it takes quite a long time to develop asp.net pages, serverside, clientside, testing (Ie,firefox,etc). maintaining an sql db - It doesn't happpen overnight and bearing in mind there is only a few people running the pandora project.

Doing all of that on top of what the devs are having to do already - doesn't look feasible unfortunately in my opinion.

 

[jdh2550]

Have a page on a website where you can check the status of your order

That would require hand-writing four thousand web pages.

Just for the sake of exploring this just a little bit more. The pro is that if this were done then there's an easy self serve process which removes spam from the board and helps to calm things down. The cons appear to be (1) it's said to be a lot of work and (2) it's said the development team doesn't have the time to develop this.

Addressing (1) - I find it hard to believe that it would take coding 4,000 web pages. This would seem to imply that the order team is having to individually visit each order to know whether it needs re-ordering or not. If it does then they go ahead and process it, if not they move to the next. If someone asked me to do that 4,000 times the first thing I'd do is write a script to do it for me. Bottom line, I just don't believe there isn't a way to get an automated tool to build a list of orders that need to be re-ordered. It's even possible that they (the pandora order team) are already in possession of said data (i.e. they already have their to-do list).

Addressing (2) - the last thing I want is the developers spending any time on this, or in fact on any order issues. I want developers developing. That's why I and others have offered to do this for them. All one needs is an hour (at most) of their time and being granted access to the appropriate data. Heck, we can even host it somewhere other than their servers.

So, in general I think it is more feasible than you good folks make it out to be. However, I don't know if the benefits truly outweigh the costs. Of course the simple answer that has been put out so far is "it's not worth it because the problem will be solved soon" - to which I say "nothing so far on this project has happened when it was first predicted to happen - I'm not complaining - just stating a very common fact. So, be wary of the statement "things will be OK real soon now"...

Just my 2 cents worth. I think it's a worthwhile extension of the conversation - but at the end of the day if the devs (the owners of the information) have no interest in this then that's that.

 

[mali]

QUOTE
That's why I and others have offered to do this for them. All one needs is an hour (at most) of their time and being granted access to the appropriate data. Heck, we can even host it somewhere other than their servers.


I wouldn't share that data with anyone outside the team, seriously.
Edit:
And thinking about the ddos attack I wouldn't even set up a site with order numbers and re-fund confirmation. What if someone starts collecting the numbers and sends out delivery-address change requests to the Pandora team? The whole project could drift into confusion and could come to a total halt.
Don't fix it if it isn't broken. They do their best and that is what counts. The discussion is starting to bug me, really.

 

[jdh2550]

QUOTE
That's why I and others have offered to do this for them. All one needs is an hour (at most) of their time and being granted access to the appropriate data. Heck, we can even host it somewhere other than their servers.

I wouldn't share that data with anyone outside the team, seriously.
Edit:
And thinking about the ddos attack I wouldn't even set up a site with order numbers and re-fund confirmation. What if someone starts collecting the numbers and sends out delivery-address change requests to the Pandora team? The whole project could drift into confusion and could come to a total halt.
Don't fix it if it isn't broken. They do their best and that is what counts. The discussion is starting to bug me, really.

True, the last thing one wants to do is make the problem worse. However there's no reason why they can't use outside contractors for stuff - I'm not suggesting there wouldn't be some form of contractual obligations and some way of safeguarding the data. All I'm just suggesting is that I (or someone else) would do it for free.

Haven't you realized yet that your definition of "it isn't broken" is different than mine (and others). Obviously, if one thinks the problem doesn't exist then one might get bugged by a discussion of how to solve it. You have two choices open to you (1) recognize that a problem does exist (as evidenced by repeated discussion of all things ordering and status related) or (2) ignore it and just hope it will go away by itself (hasn't worked very well so far, has it?)

 

[mali]

QUOTE
That's why I and others have offered to do this for them. All one needs is an hour (at most) of their time and being granted access to the appropriate data. Heck, we can even host it somewhere other than their servers.

I wouldn't share that data with anyone outside the team, seriously.
Edit:
And thinking about the ddos attack I wouldn't even set up a site with order numbers and re-fund confirmation. What if someone starts collecting the numbers and sends out delivery-address change requests to the Pandora team? The whole project could drift into confusion and could come to a total halt.
Don't fix it if it isn't broken. They do their best and that is what counts. The discussion is starting to bug me, really.

True, the last thing one wants to do is make the problem worse. However there's no reason why they can't use outside contractors for stuff - I'm not suggesting there wouldn't be some form of contractual obligations and some way of safeguarding the data. All I'm just suggesting is that I (or someone else) would do it for free.

Haven't you realized yet that your definition of "it isn't broken" is different than mine (and others). Obviously, if one thinks the problem doesn't exist then one might get bugged by a discussion of how to solve it. You have two choices open to you (1) recognize that a problem does exist (as evidenced by repeated discussion of all things ordering and status related) or (2) ignore it and just hope it will go away by itself (hasn't worked very well so far, has it?)

Oh my. In the time they call a lawyer and set up a contract, they can instead process the next 300 re-orders. In the time they set up a script to collect the data, the next 150 and so on.

The handling of the situation isn't broken in any way IMO

 

[jdh2550]

Oh my. In the time they call a lawyer and set up a contract, they can instead process the next 300 re-orders. In the time they set up a script to collect the date, the next 150 and so on.

The handling of the situation isn't broken in any way IMO

Right - the last three letters of your post are all that really bear talking about, "IMO", that's the whole point isn't it? Your opinion is just that, your opinion. It's no more or less valid than anyone else's. However, we have some data to look at - and facts are facts. Here's what I see (1) about 10 days ago Craig started this with some ambiguous posts; (2) ever since then there's been a steady stream of chatter about this. Regarding this chatter there are basically two camps (1) those pissed off with the "whining" & (2) those pissed off with the lack of certainty. You can go round and round telling folks to "quit whining or just cancel your order" OR you can try and be pro-active about it. I favor the second approach and was simply suggesting what seems a reasonable way forward.

There are so many holes in the rest of what you just posted to really bother commenting on it. Why are you trying to pour gasoline on the fire rather than discuss it sensibly?

 

[mali]

Oh my. In the time they call a lawyer and set up a contract, they can instead process the next 300 re-orders. In the time they set up a script to collect the date, the next 150 and so on.

The handling of the situation isn't broken in any way IMO

Right - the last three letters of your post are all that really bear talking about, "IMO", that's the whole point isn't it? Your opinion is just that, your opinion. It's no more or less valid than anyone else's. However, we have some data to look at - and facts are facts. Here's what I see (1) about 10 days ago Craig started this with some ambiguous posts; (2) ever since then there's been a steady stream of chatter about this. Regarding this chatter there are basically two camps (1) those pissed off with the "whining" & (2) those pissed off with the lack of certainty. You can go round and round telling folks to "quit whining or just cancel your order" OR you can try and be pro-active about it. I favor the second approach and was simply suggesting what seems a reasonable way forward.

There are so many holes in the rest of what you just posted to really bother commenting on it. Why are you trying to pour gasoline on the fire rather than discuss it sensibly?


I really can't follow you there, where is that gasoline?
I have fun discussing things but there is always a point beyond that it's just starting to run in circles.
I've just discussed your suggestions and they fail IMO.

Edit:
To be honest, I really understand your concerns, but still the way it is being worked on is the best possible IMO.

Edit2:
And I'm not in the whining camp, nor in the pissed off camp. I just post my opinions, and try to judge on common sense.