From: Chad Perrin <code@...>
Date: 2012-04-21T03:19:17+09:00
Subject: Re: Google Group is Back

On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 10:10:48PM +0900, Intransition wrote:
> Well, like some sort of psychotic girlfriend, the Ruby-Talk Google Group is 
> back.
> 
> I was this close (*holding fingers up*) to terminating the group 
> -- thoroughly dismayed and frustrated. Everything I had researched and 
> tried turned up nothing. All I know for sure is that every mirrored list on 
> Google Groups was no longer working. I spent two hours on hold with Google 
> main office (don't ever bother calling them they simply do not answer the 
> phone). The only clue I got at all was from Matz who said he heard that 
> Groups was rejecting messages with List-ID header. So I was down to 
> creating a intermediate gateway to strip out headers and pass messages 
> along, but I really did not want to have to support that. Then lo! On the 
> 17th, messages magically started arriving again.
> 
> I have no idea what transpired over at Google. It would be interesting to 
> know. Was it a mistake? If so, it was pretty big one that took them two 
> months to catch and fix. Was it a plan, but they got so much flack they 
> backed off? We might never know. But at least the service is back. As bad 
> as Google can be in the way of support, I have found nothing remotely 
> comparable to the usability of Google Groups.

Google's tendency, from what I've seen over the years, is to look like
it's completely ignoring all complaints.  When complaints reach a level
of noise and popularity that Google decides it's worthwhile, it quietly
fixes whatever's wrong, and doesn't ever tell anyone, or let the
complainers know that their complaints made any difference.  This
behavior makes it seem like Google is trying to train people to not feel
that their complaints are addressed so they will not complain, but at the
same time doesn't want the complaints to get too loud and widespread so
that eventually Google will fix things if enough people complain loudly
enough.

It may be that Google fixed things for you in part because someone at
Google noticed the discussion on this list.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]