I know you are, but what am I?

Free speech is an interesting concept and not one I’m completely sure of my opinion on any more.

I think that I’m in favour of it at a legally regulated level, as long as we have the weight of social pressure on people to keep them in line. Free speech is great for not restricting proper scrutiny of elected officials. I’m not sure it’s having a net positive effect in other aspects of life.

Do I really want to defend other individual’s rights to voice opinions that I feel are toxic? I always have the choice, if I don’t like a particular converstation, to stop listening – to stop visiting a particular internet forum, or hanging around with a certain group of friends. But popping in to read this forum has the same emotional resonance to me as going to visit my parents’ house, and if I turned up one day to find odious posters on their living room walls I couldn’t in good conscience sit there quietly and neither look at nor acknowledge the position. And I really don’t want to stop visiting my parents.

Do heavily moderated boards encourage greater attendence? How about better participation?

Whilst being open and letting people post what they like has a certain poetic integity, the medium of the internet blinds us to the nature of speech. If people splashed graffitti on the front wall of LL’s head office saying “Win3 is vapor - Quit Scriv” no-one would question their integrity for having it cleaned off. It’d be better for staff morale, better for visiting regulars and better for new customers. Given that this forum is LL’s head office, I can’t help but think that my net emotional wellbeing as one of those visiting regulars would be improved if there was a policy of scrubbing the graffitti as it emerged.

Perhaps my personal circumstances skew my opinion here. I work in a field that invites some of the most toxic, deliberately antagonistic and hurtful hateful rhetoric I’ve seen or heard on the interweb, directed against some of the nicest, well-meaning and charitable individuals you could ever meet. That exposure doesn’t blunt your response to such vitriol. It makes people sad. It makes people cry. It makes them wonder why they bother.

What’s my point? I don’t know. I guess what I’m trying to say is, for the love of Keith, can we all just try to be nice and polite when we’re in my parents’ house?!

And now, here is a picture of a cat:

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Here is a very cool cat…

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The history of the internet says that yes, moderated boards are better. Any unmoderated internet forum quickly becomes an open sewer.

And this forum is moderated.

We just don’t consider legitimate criticisms of L&L products or practices to be “graffiti.” While we do appreciate those loyal users who spring to our defense in situations like this, the less loyal users who express frustration have valid points, too. Most of the vitriol in these threads appears to come from irreconcilable clashes between the two world views, and could be avoided if all parties were more willing to accept that their own opinions are not universally shared.

Katherine

Thing is, free speech (at least the American version) only protects you from government sanctioning. I can’t speak for the legal issues elsewhere. Private entities hold no such compunction to entertain whatever a fool wants to say.

That having been said, sure, it’s the internet, and you can say whatever you want, but that doesn’t mean that A.) people are compelled to read it or B.) that you’re free of consequences of that speech. Like Keith could tell us all that he doesn’t want posts about purple sweet potatoes, and he’d be well within his rights to ban anyone who brings up purple sweet potatoes.

That having been said, there’s been quite a bit of critical viewpoints about the beta. I don’t remember any of them being moved/closed/or otherwise censored. Is it annoying that the beta has gone on this long? I’m sure it is. Long betas aren’t out of the ordinary for L&L, though.

I’ve noticed an increase of these types, too, and the forums have been less fun this beta cycle. I tend to keep to the coffee, beta, and linux forum, though.

I feel like a cautionary tale from the game world is in order…

Once upon a time, there was a game dev, who lived in Germany with his spouse. They created a game called Cube World, and populated it with incredible (for cubes) NPC’s , mobs, and landscapes. People clamored for him to release the game, so he did–an alpha version. People played the game, and liked it. But the dev wasn’t overly happy with it, so he pulled it for sale to work on it.

During this time, snippets of new things being worked on would be posted occasionally, and the fans speculated about how wonderful the game would be when it was finally released.

Six years later, the dev comes back and says, “I’m going to release this thing! Beta starts next week!” And the fanbase whipped themselves into an ungodly frenzy over the game. And…it wound up being very different than what they had played and got used to for the past 6 years.

Now, when it was finally released, it wasn’t a bad game–it took a lot of risks, structurally, and played with ideas of progression. But the fanbase had hyped it so much in their minds that absolutely nothing could ever live up to the idea of the game. And…they review bombed it, most of which only played the new version for less than an hour.

What’s the lesson of this? Depends. Are the fans entitled? Or are their death-threats just an expression of frustration? Should the dev have been more open in the development, or is this a cautionary tale of closed development? Is L&L’s model better than that? (It’s as closed as Cube World is, but we’re involved in bugfixing sooner–the features of it aren’t really up for negotiation.)

And, for the record, I like Cube World. I like Scrivener 2.9.whatever. And I’m going to go eat a slice of pie for lunch.

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It is! I was pondering if heavy moderation would be a net positive thing - so the obvious negatives outweighed by a more positive environment that I want to hang around more.

I don’t believe this is a bunch of people with different opinions wondering why their view isn’t shared. I think people like arguing on the internet. That’s what siblings do if Mum and Dad let them.

I don’t have a picture of a cat handy, so everyone go back up and look one more time at the one Lunk posted, which is very lovely.

And you paid how much for the beta? Probably nothing. Just like me.

I’m “about out of patience” with people who are basically given a free program in exchange for reporting any errors, snafus or trouble spots and then complain that the updates aren’t coming often enough for the finisghed product isn’t done.

Sheesh. I’m just shaking my damn head.

“Do something the L&L people specifically told us NOT to do and that it was a bad idea. THEN you’d have a valid complaint !”

Seriously ?

I think that the point the person was trying to make here was the same as Thomas Rabenstein and I tried to make earlier: it’s not about not having any other solution, because there are and Thomas Rabenstein has been one of the first to look for and find them, it’s about having a product that we paid for that works. AKA, basic consumer rights. Especially with professional tools like Scrivener. We are using your workarounds, because we have to because writing is either our passion or or job, but we didn’t pay for having to go through all that process, you see?

Considering that the debate here was drifting into a stale battle over numbers, yes, reporting it again helps, no matter what you chose to believe.

Can we all agree that there is only one team here, people who want their tools (fantastic ones, to be fair) to work without having to find alternative solutions, no matter whether they have the sync issue or not, and stop arguing as if there was sides? Because now, THAT does nothing to help anyone. Thank you everyone.

a) Yes, you paid for a workflow that WORKS … but you didn’t buy it from Literature & Latte alone.

b) Most of your money (by far) went to Dropbox and Apple, not Literature & Latte.

c) So no, there isn’t only one team involved.

d) The bug is in Dropbox or Apple code and Apple code/hardware. Scrivener is a victim, same as you.

e) If they had a reproducible test case in hand, Literature & Latte might find a workaround, but it’s a problem introduced by iOS 13 & iPadOS.

The fact that you didn’t understand anything to what I said would be funny if it wasn’t sad. I never talked about dev teams, but about us, users, here, on this thread. Really, you keep misunderstanding what people say to you, I have no idea what else I can add so I’ll leave it at that.

Are all the users on the same page here, really? Haven’t most people moved on to viable workarounds?

Isn’t far more relevant that Apple, Dropbox, and Literature & Latte are three development teams with zero connection? You bought a workflow that depends on all three, and Apple introduced a bug. If there’s a workaround, Dropbox is better equipped to find it than Literature & Latte (and it’s more nearly their responsibility).

Literature & Latte did NOT tell us not to send a device. One of them said it may be a bad idea, because you have to draw up papers and stuff. Another (or the same in another post?) said users may find it difficult to do without their device for an unknown period of time, trust their content to Literature & Latte, etc. Still, if you’re willing to do it and they’re not, you have a valid complaint for lack of support, IMO. Open a support ticket and make the offer.

Reporting the crash again serves no purpose when, as in your case, you’ve already reported it. One more user, with specifics, may be useful (though I doubt it) … but a few users complaining over and over does nothing.

The only thing that can help is a test case in Literature & Latte custody.

When they have that, they can zero in on a bug report for Dropbox and/or Apple.

What she says above, over many many months. My 11 Pro, fresh out of the box, sync was D O A.
But hey, it’s your thousand bucks, roll the dice! Just don’t trade in your old phone like some of us did, or you’re screwed.

Kinda shocking this is still an unsolved issue

A few months ago I removed all projects from dropbox, re-added one at a time and sync’ed then opened in scrivener iOS, which worked for a few months I guess because today I open Scrivener to sync before heading out, crash. Same as before.

My IP 11 Pro worked fine out of the box with all projects synching.

I did sell my X and wasn’t ‘screwed’.

As AmberV stated it is a VERY small percentage impacted.

I’m happy for you.

Well, don’t bother mentioning it on here. Any minute now you’ll get “worked fine for me” and “your issue is part of a minuscule percentage” with a how DARE you be upset about this attitude in the response.

And I’m pleased you are.

The point is you blanket warning not to get an 11 or if you do keep your old phone has little (or no) validity.

No point in being snarky. L&L have pointed out repeatedly, as have other posters that this is NOT an L&L failure. Get snarky with Apple/Dropbox if that somehow makes you feel better.

Endlessly demanding a fix from L&L and getting shitty with anyone who reminds you of the facts for a problem that is not L&L’s creation achieves nothing other than reflecting on your inability to accept reality.

L&L are attempting to find an example of the failure to work with Apple & Dropbox. Unless they find one on their systems or a customer provides one any attempted fix is a total shot in the dark that may well cause even greater problems.