Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 20:47:52 11/14/00
Go up one level in this thread
On November 14, 2000 at 20:02:13, Mogens Larsen wrote:
>On November 14, 2000 at 19:33:24, Ed Schröder wrote:
>
>>You can not be blamed liking a program. Objective vs Subjective. Nobody
>>is objective once you fall in love with a program and I don't see any
>>bad in that as long as you were objective and reserved before the program
>>came.
>
>The inability to recognize that your objectivity is failing low :o) is one of
>the hazards when you test a program. The credibility before and after is very
>important and "losing" your objectivity too many times won't help keeping the
>credibility intact.
>
>>Missed chance? I hear Gandalf is good. Why not write about it?
>
>I've written about the program when there have been questions or if someone
>posted highly inaccurate information in all the relevant fora. That is fair IMHO
>as long as the term inaccurate is an objective criteria and not a personal
>opinion. I've most likely posted a few subjective comments along the way as
>well.
>
>>Not true. Note that many of the Rebel beta-testers a) also beta-test other
>>programs b) are as positive on other products as well.
>
>If beta testers circulate from program to program credibility is undermined.
>Someone could easily argue that they just want free programs and praise every
>product because of that.
>
>>Also you forget a main important point, from the beginning we (Christophe
>>and I) have told the beta-team: no secrecy you can write about the beta's
>>in public forums. That is quite risky don't you think?
>
>Not really. I think you underestimate the element of gratitude as in "Yes! I got
>selected! I won't disappoint them". At some point most of the beta testers will
>identify themselves with the product and take defeat and victory of the given
>program personally. There are plenty of examples from this forum and not just
>Rebel. Or maybe I'm just a cynic :o).
>
>>What if Rebel 11.0
>>would have been a product they disliked? And if a review comes in I dislike
>>it will be published too. Beta-testers have the freedom to include their
>>dislikes as a matter of fact I have pointed to an old review of Rebel8 at:
>
>I'm glad to hear that, but I doubt it'll be a common occurance unless the
>program is really awful. A couple of the reviews are quite good, but they still
>lack what characterizes a real review, ie. both sides of the coin.
>
>>But the beta-testers go their own way and I am not going to censor them.
>
>Of course not. I never implied that you would.
>
>Mogens.
I'm concerned that people can believe that the published reviews are
advertisements, because that's not what they are.
Ed, it's up to you to decide, but I would personally offer Mogens to write a
review of the Rebel 11 CD, and I would promiss to publish it on the Rebel site
and on CCC.
That would of course imply to send to Mogens the product for free, but I guess
this wouldn't bias Mogens' review.
I do believe Mogens tries to stay objective. Sometimes he does not manage, but
generally he is rather objective.
I'm sure that because he is a rather objective guy, he would not write a
negative review of the Rebel 11 product. By letting Mogens write a review we
take a risk, but anyway we are taking this kind of risk everyday.
By letting the beta testers express themselves during the beta period we have
taken a risk that no other chess software publisher dares to take.
As soon as we publish our chess programs, we take the risk that they get beaten
by other programs, the risk that people don't like the way they look, the risk
that people criticize it in an unfair way, and so on...
I don't think Mogens would write an unfair review. So why couldn't we ask him to
write a review and publish it?
Christophe
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