LQ should open a consumer-satisfaction forum.

In our democratic countries, we live in a world where all politicians watch each other, including those of other countries, in order to find the political slogans and policies that are most popular to remain in power. They apply them and they make sure they only offer to the voters a little more or a little better or more convincing promises than their opponents so they can remain in power at the lowest cost and the lowest political risk.
We also live in a world in which businesses also watch each other to apply the most profitable business practices and ensure that, to profit as much as possible, they do not offer to the customers what their competition does not offer but which the consumer may want, which allows them to remain in business at the lowest cost. The two, politicians and businesses, combine in mutually profitable arrangements at the expenses of the consumers.

The consumers have only one option to oppose this continual shrinking of product/service numbers or the lowering of quality of products/services by uniting and fighting back both the politicians and the exploiting businesses. It is completely unsatisfactory in the long run for us to accept how we are imposed business behaviour that we know could be much better for a negligible increase in cost and accept their permanent lowering of the quality of product or service simply to appear more attractive than the competition.

For example, a long-time user said in one forum about an ISP: "..they have been pretty good when I needed them.." but things have changed (deteriorated) and the new user found that the same ISP recently removed "tickets" and their email address leaving only the phone if you "need them". And we know how we all love to waste time in phone queues as if it was our purpose in life as they all want us to ring them for anything we like in the knowledge that the chances of getting a good answer, even any answer, are pretty remote, cost them nothing but cost you a lot.

By having a consumer-satisfaction forum, we could at least establish with certainty what the majority of consumers want from businesses with whom they deal and from the politicians and convey the message to them - because they will be watching in order to do a bit better than the competition or the opponents. And as far as businesses are concerned, such forum would only establish a standard to be met by all which would not affect their profit prospects at all since they were all doing very much the same in the past and they will all have to do very much the same in the future but with a higher benchmark.

Yet another consumer-satisfaction forum might be seen as a waste of resources.

The potential/imaginary difference between such a forum on LQ and the others will not suffice to “establish a standard to be met by all which would not affect their profit prospects at all since they were all doing very much the same in the past and they will all have to do very much the same in the future but with a higher benchmark.”

Rather in the contrary. AAaah. Here it comes again. The wonderful word which often helps me come to terms with IT, these days:

Oblivion

If you don't like it, vote with your feet. Lots of options elsewhere these days.
I don't see the need for the modern propensity for ego-stroking, but maybe I'm the wrong demographic.

As for multiple Tom Cruise' running around ... arggghh !!!!

This covers part of that:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/

Thanks for the feedback. This seems well outside the scope of LQ.

--jeremy

I agree with and support Jeremy's decision.

I agree that this is outside the scope of LQ.

Also do note that this thread originally started in General. And perhaps it was intended to be free talk as opposed to a request for a change in the LQ site.

I read the original post.

It says a lot of stuff that I "fast read".

I attempt to "cut to the chase" to wonder what rblampain is proposing.

Which is to say that I jumped to the last paragraph.

And then I have to go back and read that post in more detail.

After successive reads, the whole discussion point and/or request here is still eluding me.

After successive reads, the whole discussion point and/or request here is still eluding me.

The important point is that there is a tacit collusion between politicians of any colour and big business to exploit consumers as much as possible by progressively turning consumers into powerless mindless robots, this has developed for at least half a century. If consumers do not effectively start to oppose it, it can only encourage its increase.

Linux is made of professionals who freely and publicly point mistakes made in its development and quickly get an OS of quality in the process, the same principle can be adapted to our consumption and the way we consume which would provide a quality of supply and computers are a major item of consumption in terms of impact on society.

Somebody said: " A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves."
In this case, the "nation" is the whole "democratic" community and the wolves are only beginning to nibble.

Originally Posted by rblampain Linux is made of professionals who freely and publicly point mistakes made in its development and quickly get an OS of quality in the process, the same principle can be adapted to our consumption and the way we consume which would provide a quality of supply and computers are a major item of consumption in terms of impact on society.

so grassroots reviews of all sorts of consumer products.
you can always post something specific to General. In fact this is already happening.
and imo Linux is a step in the right direction anyhow, because it encourages recycyling devices.

so grassroots reviews of all sorts of consumer products.

Products and services but it can easily be limited or split into areas of expertise and done professionally or scientifically, what I have in mind is not repeating people's discontent in order to draw popularity ratings. But it dawned on my that already having a policy skeleton for something similar in another project, I can do it myself. If anyone is interested, I can keep you informed of the progress in a few months.

Originally Posted by rtmistler I attempt to "cut to the chase" to wonder what rblampain is proposing.

That we start competing with dslreports (specifically) and sites like that.

I was unaware of the existence of dslreports and had a look at it, if my idea is successful, the two would complement each other rather than compete.