From: barrett@math.uh.edu
Subject: ADMIN: Responses to my "vendor comments" policy
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Keywords: administrative, vendor comments
Reply-To: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 19:02:15 GMT

	Thank you everyone who responded to my question of what to do with
vendor comments about reviews.  I have not received any new responses in
several days, so I am posting the results.  11 people wrote and said:

	Agreed 100% with my proposal as stated:		9
	Mostly agreed, with minor corrections:		2
	Disagreed with most or all of the proposal:	0

	Therefore, I conclude that nobody has any strong objections to my
proposal.  I'm going to assume that anyone who didn't respond either agrees
with the policy or doesn't really care one way or the other.  ("If you
choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." - words of wisdom from
Neal Peart.)

	To summarize the proposal:

	o	Factual corrections get posted and inserted into the review.
	o	Disagreements of *fact* between reviewer and vendor, which
		I cannot verify, get posted and (maybe) inserted into the
		review, clearly marked as not part of the original review.
	o	Disagreements of *opinion*, and other subjective matters,
		don't belong in the reviews newsgroup.  They may be posted
		freely in other comp.sys.amiga newsgroups.

Some additional suggestions were:

(1)	Before posting any vendor comments, send them to the reviewer who
	can possibly verify them.  The vendor and reviewer can discuss these
	topics offline and come to an agreement.  Then post the final
	results.  If there is no agreement, then just post the vendor's
	contrasting report.
	(bchivers@smiley.mitre.org)

		This has been replaced by idea (2), below.

(2)	Post the vendor's comments immediately, but don't insert them into
	the archived review without first consulting the reviewer.
	(My idea, inspired and OK'd by bchivers@smiley.mitre.org)

		I will do this; it's simpler and faster than (1).

(3)	Do not insert vendor comments into the review.  Instead, put them in
	a separate file, also posted and archived.
	(orovner@sdcc13.ucsd.edu)

		I have mixed feelings about this.  When the information is
		spread into two separate files, there is no guarantee that
		the files will travel together.  I think it's too easy for
		someone to see one file and not the other.

		Similarly, someone suggested putting the vendor's comments
		at the end of the review.  Again, I have mixed feelings.
		People often refer to a small part of a review -- say, one
		or two paragraphs.  In such a case, the reader is likely not
		to notice comments at the end of the review.  I could insert
		a message saying "See the vendor comments at the end of the
		review"; but if I'm going to insert these messages, I might
		as well insert the actual vendor comments instead.

(4)	Send a copy of the review to the vendor before posting it, so vendor
	comments can appear quickly after the review.
	(zerkle@cs.ucdavis.edu)

		This is fine with me, but I think it should be the
		reviewer's choice whether to do it or not.  In other words,
		I'm not going to send a review to the vendor, but the
		reviewer is welcome to do it, and I'll be happy to post any
		hype-free vendor rebuttal.

	So, I will add a new section to the monthly posting "Introduction
to comp.sys.amiga.reviews" describing the new policy on vendor comments.
Thank you again to everyone who responded.

---

   Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews
   Send reviews to:	amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews