To be fair, people on the forum often mention they should take their business somewhere else (e.g. Anki), so that might be a feature, not a bug?
More seriously, yes, obviously, the users on the forum aren’t the official way for WK to deal with feedbacks, nor should it be. Users do provide appropriate answers too (as mentioned by others in this thread), but at the end of the day, only the answer from the team matters. (Still, if it’s something the team has said countless time they won’t change, like allowing to skip levels or items, well, I think it’s fair to point out that it won’t happen).
But… that’s one random user giving that answer, while the majority of others have given appropriate answers.
yes, that’s why I’m saying having a feedback section here might not be appropriate. Feedback is meant to be addressed to the company, not to other users. Users are going to give an inappropriate response, which might leave the feedbacker unsatisfied, and that’s bad for business.
But you do make a good point that it might be useful in some cases like that one about regional use. And maybe I just had bad luck regarding the fact that I bump on those threads every time I’m here, since that other active user did say they are rare.
Also, more than bad luck, threads with a lot of answers are the ones that are going to be bumped up. Feedback threads that get sorted out quickly will die after two answers and a tick mark saying the issue is closed. Flamewars will remain constantly on the top page.
I think the reason can be found with “bump.” Poorly worded threads or those by angry users are going to get bumped to recent threads every time someone posts. That’s how I found this one. Because it shows up more often in recent/new threads, more people will see it and it continues to blow up. Reasonable and agreeable feedback probably isn’t getting the same level of response and therefore fades into invisibility much more easily.
There are several similar replies. And you can notice that some users are clearly irritated by the tone of the OP, which isn’t very nice, but not necessarily wrong for the kind of thing they’re doing, which might end up escalating and becoming an unpleasant time for everyone.
You can correct me if I’m misinterpreting what you’re saying, but it seems like you’re saying that as long as there are any amount of people using the forums, that makes the email useless?
If you provide people with multiple ways to express their issues, there are going to always be people who use both ways. Some of the time people may even do both. You’re never going to stop everyone from complaining via the forums, especially when there’s an easy to access feedback section. And for the size of the WK team compared with the number of users, it makes sense for the community to help solve problems. While I agree there’s improvement to be made, I don’t see how removing the feedback section would help either side. It’d be much better to put a notice for anyone posting in the feedback section to make sure they know they have the option to contact via email.
True, past that point it seems things are degenerating quickly.
Well, I guess all the useful conversation was pretty much done in the early stages of the thread
I do believe the feedback category is useful in general, but I also have no idea about the best way to address that issue. People can (and will) flag posts when they get over the line but that’s kinda suboptimal as well
Plus, people would just start posting in the WaniKani section or something like that. At least, it’s easy to mute the feedback section as a whole if one feels like it.
You are misinterpreting. I was voicing my impression that getting feedback from the forums seemed to go wrong a lot.
That makes sense. I still think they could make it clearer though. If the message isn’t getting through to everyone they should keep trying. But then again, I might be picturing the problem as bigger than it is lol
I find it ironic that all of us, by taking it personally and defending wanikani against an “annoyed customer” who wants to vent in a public forum instead of sending an email to the staff, are making the exact scenario that all of us were talking about ways to avoid. This is the reason why these threads keep happening.
companies with good marketing privilege. If you go to the Apple Support Community people are also passionately defending the company for free.
I mean, why did I even make this thread? Why do I care if WK loses business because of unsatisfied costumers? I’m not getting anything for this, in fact I’m the one paying. Koichi’s got us all by the leash.
This is heavily why I don’t particularly care for participating in the forums. It’s too much of an echo chamber. The email & chat support though is top notch though and I highly recommend it. They’re open to feedback, polite, quick to respond when they can and even humble (when a certain issue was entirely my fault).