You are playing on IWON, & you think something is wrong: the game is somehow cheating you, or your coins are not being registered, or you do something HUGE, and the team totals or your MVP score, don't budge, even after a refresh and a wait past the 15-minute cycle for some updates. OK, time to complain!
Near the bottom of all IWON pages, in the small print of that bottom bar, is the title "Help".Click that, & you are off on a Marco Polo journey into the enchanted lands of "Who can fix this problem?"
Note with dread the bleached skeletons of past travellers as you approach the outskirts of this strange kingdom, littering your passage through the traps & toils of "Top 5 Questions", "How To Play", and the enticing "Technical:". You will not fall prey to such obvious time-wasters, for you have a complaint, and you are seeking someone to fix the problem.
Travel instead to the very bottom of the page, locate "Contact Customer Support for Assistance", and click that.
A new vista confronts you, the enchanted city at the heart of this mystical land. First, you must provide some details: your email, a topic (my usual is "Technical", for most of my complaints are not about simple glitches such as the game froze, how do I get the coins I had won, once I x that game out, and restart?). You may choose any that seem more similar to the precise complaint you wish to file; if in doubt, "Technical" is probably the best overall choice. Next, the title of the IWON game, if the complaint is specific to only one game - most of mine are not. Your IWON username=playername, so type that in. Security Software: if your issue is connections, or inability to load any games, this might fit: otherwise, choose from the list, but ignore the choice once made. (Note that Spybot DOES NOT LIKE IWON, and should that be your security software, or even running on your system, you may have serious problems with the site.) Select your Operating System from the drop-down menu, mostly some version of Windows. Finally - you arrive at the castle at the center of this city: "Question:". Yes, we know you came here to complain, but, be nice: this IS the royal court & there must be a question that presents your complaint as reasonable, and which with some details describing exactly what is happening, and a date/time or dates/times, will allow the IWON personnel to locate the incident or incidents in their computer logs.
Provide the information first, then refer to supporting documents, screen-shots, or whatever you have that will substantiate your interpretation of what IWON has done to you. The more detail, and the more supporting evidence you present to the court, the greater the chance that the King will agree to hear your complaint. Copy the text of your complaint to notepad. No special need at this time to save that document, which is as yet incomplete; however, it is sometimes a wise thing to save, just in case your machine freezes. When you have finished copying the text of the submission, click "Continue" at the bottom of the box into which you posted your complaint - errr - "question". (One never complains in the presence of royalty.)
That is but the first step to submission, however.If your "question" is long, which mine always are, and involves a lot of fact-gathering to provide the sense of security of knowing that everything in the "question" can be backed by documentation, or is explicitly stated to be an approximation, you may find yourself confronted now by the challenge from the court guards - "submission failed due to timeout" was, I think, the most recent phrasing of the insistence by IWON that this process cannot allow you to reach the King's ear. What that means, is to use the back button to the page containing all that text over which you labored so long as to earn the "timeout". Then you must refresh that page. Now you discover that the text is vanished, and you are back to a blank starter page. This is why we saved the text before submission, though, so a few seconds to re-answer that collection of the inane that IWON passes off as pertinent data, and copy back the text from Notepad to the blanked box, and you are ready once again to "Continue".
The next page will offer some alluring distractions in the apparent hope that even the intrepid supplicant will leave the court without ever actually pleading a case - those mechanically chosen links to things that might resemble your "question". Ignore those links for now. Were you to pursue them, you might either get lost, and never complete the submission, or, finally finding your way back, find that you have once more earned a "timeout". So then you would need to back up all the way past the text box, refresh, and start over. At the bottom of that list of links, click the button "Finish Submitting Issue". NOW you have submitted your "question"!
Copy the "reference number" from the screen to the Notepad copy of the question text, NOW save everything, and begin to wait for the King's messenger.
In a day or so, you will receive an auto-reply message from IWON at the email you provided, which is not intended to be an answer, but only an acknowledgement of the "question" you have filed. If you did not copy the text you submitted prior to submitting it, or did not get the number assigned by IWON, those will be included in the acknowledgement. I save those, in a separate email folder, for easy reference & access. In a while (10 days to three weeks) there will be another email - this one is the attempted answer. It may not be what you wanted, and sometimes will appear totally irrelevant to the "question" - but now you have the means to reassert your question.
Repeat the process above - DO NOT reply to their email to you, for those replies appear to be ignored. Copy in relevant information from the original "question", add refutation or rebuttal to the answer provided. BE SURE to cite the reference number of the original "question" as the header to this "question". I will not guarantee that a linkage will be established, but the very mention of that earlier submission will help them to see that you are not going to accept any nonsense without protest.
You will be assigned a new number for the new submission, so you will repeat the entire auto-response, later response, decision, and possibly even a third submission before you ever get a response that answers the question, or at least states clearly that your self-interest does not permit you to understand the answer already provided, and you are therefore beyond all help. You may then decide whether you wish to pursue the matter further.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Follow-Up: 090118-000225
'090103-002818'
Your answer is another dodge. You dodged last month, when I complained that I was improperly placed in the MVP standings / top 16 - far higher than my coins warranted. That complaint was dodged, and finally you just dropped it. Now you are once more trying to dodge the facts - the FACTS - that clearly to all involved, indicate that somehow, somewhere, IWON failed in its duty to accurately and accountably gather and accurately report the numbers for the players. Face it - the basis of the Team Challenge, the promise and the premise, is that you will actually count the coins, as opposed to the practice that seems visible here, of guesstimating, and then dodging. 200000 coins is not a minor matter, and the coins should neither appear from nowhere on the 3rd day of the competition, in such fashion as to propel the recipient to the MVP lead (which by the way is PUBLIC property, visible to all, relied upon by all, and complainable by all - YOU created that problem for yourselves in the very act of posting the information, and legally, you cannot avoid the problem); nor should they vanish from the personal and MVP totals for another player after having been earned, AND partially posted.
Get real, and fix the problems, rather than continuing to attempt double-talk to dodge them. As de facto team leader, it is not only my right, but MY DUTY to call your bluff - you fouled up this month, regardless of what the numbers really are, in posting one time or the other, the wrong numbers for one or more competitors for our top 16; just as you had visibly posted and maintained inaccurate numbers throughout the prior month, while dodging my personal inquiry as to my personal involvement in that inaccuracy relative to my own account; and by extension, you at least appear to have fouled up insofar as the team totals derived from the sum of those guesses you posted. *I* did not post them - YOU did. *I* cannot fix them, and certainly cannot attest to the accuracy of your hidden "computation"s (guesses again) since you also hide all the data whence those are derived.
If you cannot find someone to fix the counting process, and fix the numbers posted, then hire someone whose guesses remain consistent one to the next.
Oh. By the way - if not I, then WHO should complain about that misrepresentation of the member numbers as elements of the team totals? We will be sure to get whomever that might be as angry as am I, prior to allowing them to inquire - and that is VERY angry, since you repeat not only the same errors month after month, but the same dodges when you are called on those errors.
Response (T.G.)
02/04/2009 12:27 PM
Thank you for the well thought out, and detailed letter. It is obvious that you are very passionate about your contribution to your Team and we would like to thank you for your support.
Let me first assure you that we are just as passionate and committed to supporting these wonderful organizations, and to ensuring that all users, and teams, receive the coins and credit they are entitled to. As with anything worth doing, there are going to be a number of hurdles and obstacles to overcome, and we have had our share. Obviously, our system is not without fault. We are intimately aware that some users, and some teams have not received all of the coins they were entitled too. Though this is no comfort, the issue you are reporting does affect the majority of our users, however it is obviously more pronounced for ‘Power Users’ such as yourself.
Please understand that it is of utmost importance to us to resolve these issues, and we are working hard to do so. Unfortunately this has not been an easy task. In addition to closing the gaps which prevent the correct awarding of coins, we also work to correct those shortages that have already occurred. In order to ensure that no one is taking unfair advantage of our system, we must first consult our logs before making any coin corrections. As you can imagine, this is a very time consuming process, which is compounded by the number of users we have on our site.
In the interest of fairness, for those cases where we are unable to verify the users claims, we must unfortunately err on the side of caution, and not issue the coin correction. Obviously this is the worst case scenario and we try to avoid it as much as possible.Ultimately, while we cannot offer you a ‘quick fix’ for the issues you addressed in your letter, we just want to assure you that we have ‘heard’ your frustration and are working to resolve the issues you are experiencing. We continue to ask for your patience and understanding, and we offer our most sincere thanks for your participation and your passion to help others in need.
Your answer is another dodge. You dodged last month, when I complained that I was improperly placed in the MVP standings / top 16 - far higher than my coins warranted. That complaint was dodged, and finally you just dropped it. Now you are once more trying to dodge the facts - the FACTS - that clearly to all involved, indicate that somehow, somewhere, IWON failed in its duty to accurately and accountably gather and accurately report the numbers for the players. Face it - the basis of the Team Challenge, the promise and the premise, is that you will actually count the coins, as opposed to the practice that seems visible here, of guesstimating, and then dodging. 200000 coins is not a minor matter, and the coins should neither appear from nowhere on the 3rd day of the competition, in such fashion as to propel the recipient to the MVP lead (which by the way is PUBLIC property, visible to all, relied upon by all, and complainable by all - YOU created that problem for yourselves in the very act of posting the information, and legally, you cannot avoid the problem); nor should they vanish from the personal and MVP totals for another player after having been earned, AND partially posted.
Get real, and fix the problems, rather than continuing to attempt double-talk to dodge them. As de facto team leader, it is not only my right, but MY DUTY to call your bluff - you fouled up this month, regardless of what the numbers really are, in posting one time or the other, the wrong numbers for one or more competitors for our top 16; just as you had visibly posted and maintained inaccurate numbers throughout the prior month, while dodging my personal inquiry as to my personal involvement in that inaccuracy relative to my own account; and by extension, you at least appear to have fouled up insofar as the team totals derived from the sum of those guesses you posted. *I* did not post them - YOU did. *I* cannot fix them, and certainly cannot attest to the accuracy of your hidden "computation"s (guesses again) since you also hide all the data whence those are derived.
If you cannot find someone to fix the counting process, and fix the numbers posted, then hire someone whose guesses remain consistent one to the next.
Oh. By the way - if not I, then WHO should complain about that misrepresentation of the member numbers as elements of the team totals? We will be sure to get whomever that might be as angry as am I, prior to allowing them to inquire - and that is VERY angry, since you repeat not only the same errors month after month, but the same dodges when you are called on those errors.
Response (T.G.)
02/04/2009 12:27 PM
Thank you for the well thought out, and detailed letter. It is obvious that you are very passionate about your contribution to your Team and we would like to thank you for your support.
Let me first assure you that we are just as passionate and committed to supporting these wonderful organizations, and to ensuring that all users, and teams, receive the coins and credit they are entitled to. As with anything worth doing, there are going to be a number of hurdles and obstacles to overcome, and we have had our share. Obviously, our system is not without fault. We are intimately aware that some users, and some teams have not received all of the coins they were entitled too. Though this is no comfort, the issue you are reporting does affect the majority of our users, however it is obviously more pronounced for ‘Power Users’ such as yourself.
Please understand that it is of utmost importance to us to resolve these issues, and we are working hard to do so. Unfortunately this has not been an easy task. In addition to closing the gaps which prevent the correct awarding of coins, we also work to correct those shortages that have already occurred. In order to ensure that no one is taking unfair advantage of our system, we must first consult our logs before making any coin corrections. As you can imagine, this is a very time consuming process, which is compounded by the number of users we have on our site.
In the interest of fairness, for those cases where we are unable to verify the users claims, we must unfortunately err on the side of caution, and not issue the coin correction. Obviously this is the worst case scenario and we try to avoid it as much as possible.Ultimately, while we cannot offer you a ‘quick fix’ for the issues you addressed in your letter, we just want to assure you that we have ‘heard’ your frustration and are working to resolve the issues you are experiencing. We continue to ask for your patience and understanding, and we offer our most sincere thanks for your participation and your passion to help others in need.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Coin Counts
It is ever more clear that there are a multitude of problems with the IWON accounting of even individual coins accumulation. That is exacerbated by the absolute certainty that some of the individual coins are not being properly credited in the MVP races, and possibly not to the team for which one plays. I have had a personal case of near-certainty that my first day of play in January did not add to the team total, and wound up leaving, then re-joining Tigers in order to gain the certainty that they were from that point, credited. Although the team feed has improved so greatly that it now has become useful, there is still such a lack of transparency in the individual totals versus the credits awarded the team from those individuals, that I feel a need to push an earlier informal proposal for a solution to this issue.
This proposal has the advantage of allowing individual players to monitor their contributions to the team. That will relieve us, and IWON, of the vast number of complaints about what those contributions are. Better, when there is a problem, if this proposal is carried through to include the daily totals, both the date of the problem, and the extent of the problem, become visible to the individual. That is a detail of vast import in defining the cause of the problem and seeking to resolve it. It would allow the individual to file a useful complaint - errr, "question" with support, and allow them to look at a specific portion of the log for confirmation or explanation.
Following is the text of the question filed to IWON support:
'090108-002647'
Highlighted by recent problems with team credit for individual player coins, we need a new tool from IWON. I suggest on the profile page, near the Team Name link, that those who are members of teams have a gadget added to show the current (MTD) coin credit contributed to the team by that player. Ideally, it would have a popup either showing or offering, a table by date of the days that month, with a coin total contributed for each.
That would relieve your support of the uncertainty of whether an individual's coins were credited for a given day, and would allow the player, upon review, to specify precisely the date in question, together with any supporting evidence (s)he may offer that the total is incorrect. The elimination of numerous ill-founded, or ill-documented, complaints that I know are being filed on this very issue, would offset the work involved in installing that feature.
Since there are most assuredly some of those complaints that are indeed well-founded, whether or not well-documented, those would be visible to address, leading possibly to getting the numbers right, and the process for accumulating the numbers right, for all time. Sorry, that sounds as though it might threaten downsizing the support staff - but there are so many other problems that require focused effort, that there is surely no immediate danger of staff cuts due to this implementation.
My next step is to see if some Team Founders and/or leaders from other teams will join Tigers in pushing this suggestion (unless I find a better suggestion from them, or other reader's comments).
This proposal has the advantage of allowing individual players to monitor their contributions to the team. That will relieve us, and IWON, of the vast number of complaints about what those contributions are. Better, when there is a problem, if this proposal is carried through to include the daily totals, both the date of the problem, and the extent of the problem, become visible to the individual. That is a detail of vast import in defining the cause of the problem and seeking to resolve it. It would allow the individual to file a useful complaint - errr, "question" with support, and allow them to look at a specific portion of the log for confirmation or explanation.
Following is the text of the question filed to IWON support:
'090108-002647'
Highlighted by recent problems with team credit for individual player coins, we need a new tool from IWON. I suggest on the profile page, near the Team Name link, that those who are members of teams have a gadget added to show the current (MTD) coin credit contributed to the team by that player. Ideally, it would have a popup either showing or offering, a table by date of the days that month, with a coin total contributed for each.
That would relieve your support of the uncertainty of whether an individual's coins were credited for a given day, and would allow the player, upon review, to specify precisely the date in question, together with any supporting evidence (s)he may offer that the total is incorrect. The elimination of numerous ill-founded, or ill-documented, complaints that I know are being filed on this very issue, would offset the work involved in installing that feature.
Since there are most assuredly some of those complaints that are indeed well-founded, whether or not well-documented, those would be visible to address, leading possibly to getting the numbers right, and the process for accumulating the numbers right, for all time. Sorry, that sounds as though it might threaten downsizing the support staff - but there are so many other problems that require focused effort, that there is surely no immediate danger of staff cuts due to this implementation.
My next step is to see if some Team Founders and/or leaders from other teams will join Tigers in pushing this suggestion (unless I find a better suggestion from them, or other reader's comments).
Thursday, January 22, 2009
January Start-Up Complaint: Coins Credits
Please note: the text of complaint copies is edited to add enhancements - bold or italics - since the complaint per se lacks those means of emphasis. The intent is purely to clarify for the reader.
[Incident: 090103-002818] Text Follows:
Is it possible to verify credit to the team for coins won this month? I played Jan 01, despite the glitchy site, to total 999,9xx coins for the day. For whatever reason, the casino maxed me at that figure - but small matter.
However, during the entire day, I never hit the team feed, despite being far from the top 16. So, the following morning, I became suspicious that my coins were not being credited to the team; and began by watching for the million-coin milestone. That never appeared.
Concurrently, since I was at that time one of very few players online, I watched the team coin total. That proved distressing, since during one of the few smooth periods of play experienced since December, I racked just over 200,000 coins in about 24 or 25 minutes. The team total, even refreshed, showed an increment of only 40,000 (roughly - I did not use the calculator).
That seemed to me to be verification of some problem with credit of my coins. I stopped play, then, and went looking around other teams for complaints of similar problems. Lo, A Fresh Start not only had many complaints similar to mine, but also that extraneous billion-coin head start for January. After reading a few other teams, and waiting a while, I found a suggestion that the best way to check or solve the problem with credit, would be to leave the team momentarily, then rejoin.
I tried that, and behold: suddenly, I got feed credit of each milestone, the 10ks, the 100ks and ultimately (next day) the million. Plus, although the site was getting so much better that it became difficult to "see" my coins, the team total did begin to reflect what I felt must include mine, other than that initial 1.2 million.
Others with similar problems and suspicions (from members of Tigers Against Diabetes) include gypsysnow (possibly partially cloaked by her place in the top 16), thegoodmommy, fivehole, and bubbles_71.
I feel that the complaint last month about shorting the team more than 5 million coins in the start-up mess was too quickly marked solved. Perhaps that was my own fault, for replying to your email, rather than coming here to re-up the complaint; however, I still do not believe that we (the team) were ever credited for those coins, and I KNOW that the MVP / top-16 included at least 3 players who endured that shortfall right to the final standings in the MVP race. I was not one of those, but rather beneficiary of your boo-boo. I wound up at least three positions higher in that ranking than my coins would have warranted. However, we were more than 11 million coins out of the money, so five million more or less does not greatly matter.
This time, please get it right. Actually DO the verifications, and DO the adjustments where necessary.
Do not expect to get away totally with simply sloughing me off this time, for I will not hesitate to complain publicly and loudly should I not get more than the traditional "we are sure we got it right, but we will look into the matter" response that you issue so freely.
The premise of the Team Challenge is that you will provide accurate counts, and accurate totals. And that if those counts or totals are questioned, that you will reliably investigate the issues, and reliably report the results. Please do so this time.
First Response: Text follows:
"Thank you for writing. Team Activity feed does not broadcast all user activity. You will only appear on the feed as follows:
* once when you reach over 5,000
* from over 10,000 to 99,999 in increments of 10,000, that is 20K, 30K, ...90K
* from over 100,000 to 999,999 in increments of 100,000, that is 200K, 300K, ...900K
* from over 1,000,000 to 9,999,999 in increments of 1,000,000, that is 2M, 3M, ...9M
We regret any confusion this may have caused you.
[Incident: 090118-000269] Text follows:
Gosh, those are EXACTLY the postings that I complain were not posted - none of mine at all, for the first day and a half. NONE OF MINE - I was watching, since it had been an entire month since seeing any of them, & I wanted to verify what those intervals were. (I had just posted in the team page exactly the same guidelines you provide below [above, now], but wanted verification since complaints of non-credit and non-feed-postings were virulent that day.
OK, the site was glitchey, so maybe something kept day one from producing the postings? The problem continued into day 2: I passed the million milestone early ( having been only a few coins short when I got short-maxed the day before ) and quickly plowed through another 200,000+ coins watching the team totals on the page I keep behind the game page.
Not only did the million not hit the feed, but those 200,000+ coins produced, more than an hour after I finished them, refreshed the team page, and started to wait in case your glitchey was simply delaying them in reaching the team total, only a 40,000 coin increase in the team totals. I would guess the 40,000 were someone else struggling through a few games.
My 200,000+ were still not surpassed by team totals for another six hours - that makes more than seven hours after I stopped play. The increases were smallish, and spread through the entire time I waited - not at all like the quick burst in which I had scored mine, so again, reason to doubt that they represented mine.
Once I left the team, then immediately rejoined, I began to hit the feed exactly as you describe in your non-answer to this inquiry: each of the postings there were close in time to the scoring that I did, and fairly prompt to the feed. Of course, I could not finish the million milestone that day, having started over nearly 230,000 into the daily casino max - but it appeared right on time the 3rd morning. I am not interested in competing for MVP, so there is no great loss to me in the severance of the 1.2+ million in that count; but there is a desire to verify that those 1.2+ million were actually credited to the team. THAT is what the complaint asks, and what you should check into.
Second Response: Text follows:
We appreciate you contacting us regarding the error you experienced on the iWon website.
We are aware of the problem you reported and hope to have it corrected shortly. Since 1/2/09 you have contributed 18,911,620 coins towards your team's total. In addition, please note that the Team Activity Feed will only display 10 stories at a time. These stories are replaced in real time.
We appreciate your patience and regret any inconvenience this may have caused.
Result of Complaint?
Despite the partial success involved in this persistent pursuit of "real" numbers for my MTD total team coins contribution, please note that there is absolutely NO mention of the coins for 01012009 - they are not included in the totals to date provided as a part of the second response; nor accounted for in any other fashion except that "we are aware . . . and hope to have it corrected shortly."
Lessons Learned:
1. Record your personal IWON Achievements totals at the end of each month, after completion of play for the last day of that month. You will thus also have the beginning totals for the succeeding month. Do NOT rely, as I have done in the past, upon memory: that will be inexact, and will not serve to document adequately any subsequent complaint regarding IWON's persistent monthly start-up problems.
If you then DO have a problem, you will be forced to provide the support staff "rounded" numbers as the foundation of the complaint. That will not usually be persuasive that you are not simply another cranky Tiger, looking for a few extra coins.
2. Compare the increases in your personal Achievements totals each day, to the changes in your numbers in the MVP race, if you are a contender. If you happen to take the lead in that race at any time during a day, you will have an exact number provided by IWON to assist in the comparison there; otherwise, only the "Max" function will allow such comparison. Each max plaque, whatever the category, allows an easy determination of whether your team numbers are incremented appropriately; and affords another check on the increases in personal Achievements.
3. If there is a Team Totals issue involved, then let me know. Although it makes sense that IWON has declared that I cannot protest YOUR numbers as an individual, I have insisted that insofar as public postings of MVP numbers, or the implications of personal numbers of Tigers upon Tigers totals, I will insist upon investigation and resolution of the problems reported to me by Tigers. (The answer to that insistence is still pending, but I do expect to win that argument: IWON chose to display those MVP numbers in the public area of the Team, and have thereby made those numbers public property; the team totals are likewise publicly displayed, and are thereby both public property, AND Team property. Certainly I have at least a claim to protest either or both - since even though I am not the leader, we currently have no contact with our leader.)
4. If it becomes necessary to protest your numbers, without a clear link to an effect upon Team Totals, then YOU must write that complaint. I will post some pointers to using IWON help separately. See those, if you dread dealing with that, ummm, helpful, group. You may or may not succeed, but at least half the time, on the second or third volley concerning an issue, I have received either a useful answer, or a demonstration of what is lacking from the original complaint that would have allowed a useful answer.
[Incident: 090103-002818] Text Follows:
Is it possible to verify credit to the team for coins won this month? I played Jan 01, despite the glitchy site, to total 999,9xx coins for the day. For whatever reason, the casino maxed me at that figure - but small matter.
However, during the entire day, I never hit the team feed, despite being far from the top 16. So, the following morning, I became suspicious that my coins were not being credited to the team; and began by watching for the million-coin milestone. That never appeared.
Concurrently, since I was at that time one of very few players online, I watched the team coin total. That proved distressing, since during one of the few smooth periods of play experienced since December, I racked just over 200,000 coins in about 24 or 25 minutes. The team total, even refreshed, showed an increment of only 40,000 (roughly - I did not use the calculator).
That seemed to me to be verification of some problem with credit of my coins. I stopped play, then, and went looking around other teams for complaints of similar problems. Lo, A Fresh Start not only had many complaints similar to mine, but also that extraneous billion-coin head start for January. After reading a few other teams, and waiting a while, I found a suggestion that the best way to check or solve the problem with credit, would be to leave the team momentarily, then rejoin.
I tried that, and behold: suddenly, I got feed credit of each milestone, the 10ks, the 100ks and ultimately (next day) the million. Plus, although the site was getting so much better that it became difficult to "see" my coins, the team total did begin to reflect what I felt must include mine, other than that initial 1.2 million.
Others with similar problems and suspicions (from members of Tigers Against Diabetes) include gypsysnow (possibly partially cloaked by her place in the top 16), thegoodmommy, fivehole, and bubbles_71.
I feel that the complaint last month about shorting the team more than 5 million coins in the start-up mess was too quickly marked solved. Perhaps that was my own fault, for replying to your email, rather than coming here to re-up the complaint; however, I still do not believe that we (the team) were ever credited for those coins, and I KNOW that the MVP / top-16 included at least 3 players who endured that shortfall right to the final standings in the MVP race. I was not one of those, but rather beneficiary of your boo-boo. I wound up at least three positions higher in that ranking than my coins would have warranted. However, we were more than 11 million coins out of the money, so five million more or less does not greatly matter.
This time, please get it right. Actually DO the verifications, and DO the adjustments where necessary.
Do not expect to get away totally with simply sloughing me off this time, for I will not hesitate to complain publicly and loudly should I not get more than the traditional "we are sure we got it right, but we will look into the matter" response that you issue so freely.
The premise of the Team Challenge is that you will provide accurate counts, and accurate totals. And that if those counts or totals are questioned, that you will reliably investigate the issues, and reliably report the results. Please do so this time.
First Response: Text follows:
"Thank you for writing. Team Activity feed does not broadcast all user activity. You will only appear on the feed as follows:
* once when you reach over 5,000
* from over 10,000 to 99,999 in increments of 10,000, that is 20K, 30K, ...90K
* from over 100,000 to 999,999 in increments of 100,000, that is 200K, 300K, ...900K
* from over 1,000,000 to 9,999,999 in increments of 1,000,000, that is 2M, 3M, ...9M
We regret any confusion this may have caused you.
[Incident: 090118-000269] Text follows:
Gosh, those are EXACTLY the postings that I complain were not posted - none of mine at all, for the first day and a half. NONE OF MINE - I was watching, since it had been an entire month since seeing any of them, & I wanted to verify what those intervals were. (I had just posted in the team page exactly the same guidelines you provide below [above, now], but wanted verification since complaints of non-credit and non-feed-postings were virulent that day.
OK, the site was glitchey, so maybe something kept day one from producing the postings? The problem continued into day 2: I passed the million milestone early ( having been only a few coins short when I got short-maxed the day before ) and quickly plowed through another 200,000+ coins watching the team totals on the page I keep behind the game page.
Not only did the million not hit the feed, but those 200,000+ coins produced, more than an hour after I finished them, refreshed the team page, and started to wait in case your glitchey was simply delaying them in reaching the team total, only a 40,000 coin increase in the team totals. I would guess the 40,000 were someone else struggling through a few games.
My 200,000+ were still not surpassed by team totals for another six hours - that makes more than seven hours after I stopped play. The increases were smallish, and spread through the entire time I waited - not at all like the quick burst in which I had scored mine, so again, reason to doubt that they represented mine.
Once I left the team, then immediately rejoined, I began to hit the feed exactly as you describe in your non-answer to this inquiry: each of the postings there were close in time to the scoring that I did, and fairly prompt to the feed. Of course, I could not finish the million milestone that day, having started over nearly 230,000 into the daily casino max - but it appeared right on time the 3rd morning. I am not interested in competing for MVP, so there is no great loss to me in the severance of the 1.2+ million in that count; but there is a desire to verify that those 1.2+ million were actually credited to the team. THAT is what the complaint asks, and what you should check into.
Second Response: Text follows:
We appreciate you contacting us regarding the error you experienced on the iWon website.
We are aware of the problem you reported and hope to have it corrected shortly. Since 1/2/09 you have contributed 18,911,620 coins towards your team's total. In addition, please note that the Team Activity Feed will only display 10 stories at a time. These stories are replaced in real time.
We appreciate your patience and regret any inconvenience this may have caused.
Result of Complaint?
Despite the partial success involved in this persistent pursuit of "real" numbers for my MTD total team coins contribution, please note that there is absolutely NO mention of the coins for 01012009 - they are not included in the totals to date provided as a part of the second response; nor accounted for in any other fashion except that "we are aware . . . and hope to have it corrected shortly."
Lessons Learned:
1. Record your personal IWON Achievements totals at the end of each month, after completion of play for the last day of that month. You will thus also have the beginning totals for the succeeding month. Do NOT rely, as I have done in the past, upon memory: that will be inexact, and will not serve to document adequately any subsequent complaint regarding IWON's persistent monthly start-up problems.
If you then DO have a problem, you will be forced to provide the support staff "rounded" numbers as the foundation of the complaint. That will not usually be persuasive that you are not simply another cranky Tiger, looking for a few extra coins.
2. Compare the increases in your personal Achievements totals each day, to the changes in your numbers in the MVP race, if you are a contender. If you happen to take the lead in that race at any time during a day, you will have an exact number provided by IWON to assist in the comparison there; otherwise, only the "Max" function will allow such comparison. Each max plaque, whatever the category, allows an easy determination of whether your team numbers are incremented appropriately; and affords another check on the increases in personal Achievements.
3. If there is a Team Totals issue involved, then let me know. Although it makes sense that IWON has declared that I cannot protest YOUR numbers as an individual, I have insisted that insofar as public postings of MVP numbers, or the implications of personal numbers of Tigers upon Tigers totals, I will insist upon investigation and resolution of the problems reported to me by Tigers. (The answer to that insistence is still pending, but I do expect to win that argument: IWON chose to display those MVP numbers in the public area of the Team, and have thereby made those numbers public property; the team totals are likewise publicly displayed, and are thereby both public property, AND Team property. Certainly I have at least a claim to protest either or both - since even though I am not the leader, we currently have no contact with our leader.)
4. If it becomes necessary to protest your numbers, without a clear link to an effect upon Team Totals, then YOU must write that complaint. I will post some pointers to using IWON help separately. See those, if you dread dealing with that, ummm, helpful, group. You may or may not succeed, but at least half the time, on the second or third volley concerning an issue, I have received either a useful answer, or a demonstration of what is lacking from the original complaint that would have allowed a useful answer.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
January Start-Up Complaint
As is now a tradition, I have begun the month (and year) by sumbitting a complaint about the veracity of the IWON coin counting. This time, I even have a personal issue involved (the first coins I suspect missing from the team totals are mine!
Text of the complaint follows.
Is it possible to verify credit to the team for coins won this month?
I played Jan 01, despite the glitchy site, to total 999,9xx coins for the day. For whatever reason, the casino maxed me at that figure - but small matter. However, during the entire day, I never hit the team feed, despite being far from the top 16. So, the following morning, I became suspicious that my coins were not being credited to the team; and began by watching for the million-coin milestone. That never appeared. Concurrently, since I was at that time one of very few players online, I watched the team coin total. That proved distressing, since during one of the few smooth periods of play experienced since December, I racked just over 200,000 coins in about 24 or 25 minutes. The team total, even refreshed, showed an increment of only 40,000 (roughly - I did not use the calculator). That seemed to me to be verification of some problem with credit of my coins.
I stopped play, then, and went looking around other teams for complaints of similar problems. Lo, A Fresh Start not only had many complaints similar to mine, but also that extraneous billion-coin head start for January. After reading a few other teams, and waiting a while, I found a suggestion that the best way to check or solve the problem with credit, would be to leave the team momentarily, then rejoin. I tried that, and behold: suddenly, I got feed credit of each milestone, the 10ks, the 100ks and ultimately (next day) the million. Plus, although the site was getting so much better that it became difficult to "see" my coins, the team total did begin to reflect what I felt must include mine, other than that initial 1.2 million.
Others with similar problems and suspicions (from members of Tigers Against Diabetes) include gypsysnow (possibly partially cloaked by her place in the top 16), thegoodmommy, fivehole, and bubbles_71.
I feel that the complaint last month about shorting the team more than 5 million coins in the start-up mess was too quickly marked solved. Perhaps that was my own fault, for replying to your email, rather than coming here to re-up the complaint; however, I still do not believe that we (the team) were ever credited for those coins, and I KNOW that the MVP / top-16 included at least 3 players who endured that shortfall right to the final standings in the MVP race. I was not one of those, but rather beneficiary of your boo-boo. I wound up at least three positions higher in that ranking than my coins would have warranted. However, we were more than 11 million coins out of the money, so five million more or less did not and does not greatly matter.
This time, please get it right. Actually DO the verifications, and DO the adjustments where necessary. Do not expect to get away totally with simply sloughing me off this time, for I will not hesitate to complain publicly and loudly should I not get more than the traditional "we are sure we got it right, but we will look into the matter" response that you issue so freely. The premise of the Team Challenge is that you will provide accurate counts, and accurate totals. And that if those counts or totals are questioned, that you will reliably investigate the issues, and reliably report the results.
Please do so this time.
The reference number for your submission is '090103-002818'
An amendment or addendum for complaint '090103-002818' :
The counting system continues to do mysterious and blatantly inaccurate things to both the individual totals (MVP race / top 16) and to the team totals. One very strong contender for MVP, chris1743, has just been bumped from the top slot, and in fact fell to 3rd for a while, despite having maxed every category every day. There is the chance that one of the players may have exceeded her take on Spin2Win, or PrizeMachine - but hardly likely that it made the 200k difference that we think existed at the end of day 1. Since that was start-up day for January, and the worst day of the current site problems, we had one other of our stronger players who did NOT max that day. In fact, we think that chris1743 was our only player to max casino, non-casino, and search that day. Nonetheless, both players passed chris1743 at one point, although for strange reasons, one fell back 2 hours after completing play. The other, the one who was at one time, shown as 200k short of chris1743, has not fallen back.
This is the second month in a row that IWON has demonstrably misreported the MVP statistics. Last month, the error persisted throughout the month, and was reflected in the final standings. I know, for I was (one of) the beneficiary(s). It should not persist this month, for you should actually check, and adjust accordingly.
Only by doing so can you demostrate that you do not simply apply whatever numbers you imagine will keep us playing, and quiet.
More, and more a team issue, we still also need the verification that those players listed earlier in the complaint had all their coins credited to the team. The same should be done for chris1743, since that is one very strong possible reason for her to have failed to hold that lead for MVP. There appear to chris1743, to be two separate problems, in that some - not all - of the coins won, reflect in her profile accounting; but even then, not enough to lead to the loss of position; and separately, the loss of position per se, implying a failure to credit the team even all those coins shown as accumulated on her profile page.
Some of the facts listed here I personally observed in the daily posting of MVP totals - right through this morning, chris1743 showed the maximum obtainable, except for Sell-a-friend. As of January 02, the player succeeding chris1743 in the MVP position (irankin64) was 200,000 coins off the pace. How did he gain those coins?
If you could please attempt to verify your numbers, perhaps you can accomplish TWO critical things: find the explanation of these apparently inexplicable events; and restore some faith that you do supply numbers, not merely guesses.
Conley T. Gwinn
The reference number for your submission is '090104-002809'
Text of the complaint follows.
Is it possible to verify credit to the team for coins won this month?
I played Jan 01, despite the glitchy site, to total 999,9xx coins for the day. For whatever reason, the casino maxed me at that figure - but small matter. However, during the entire day, I never hit the team feed, despite being far from the top 16. So, the following morning, I became suspicious that my coins were not being credited to the team; and began by watching for the million-coin milestone. That never appeared. Concurrently, since I was at that time one of very few players online, I watched the team coin total. That proved distressing, since during one of the few smooth periods of play experienced since December, I racked just over 200,000 coins in about 24 or 25 minutes. The team total, even refreshed, showed an increment of only 40,000 (roughly - I did not use the calculator). That seemed to me to be verification of some problem with credit of my coins.
I stopped play, then, and went looking around other teams for complaints of similar problems. Lo, A Fresh Start not only had many complaints similar to mine, but also that extraneous billion-coin head start for January. After reading a few other teams, and waiting a while, I found a suggestion that the best way to check or solve the problem with credit, would be to leave the team momentarily, then rejoin. I tried that, and behold: suddenly, I got feed credit of each milestone, the 10ks, the 100ks and ultimately (next day) the million. Plus, although the site was getting so much better that it became difficult to "see" my coins, the team total did begin to reflect what I felt must include mine, other than that initial 1.2 million.
Others with similar problems and suspicions (from members of Tigers Against Diabetes) include gypsysnow (possibly partially cloaked by her place in the top 16), thegoodmommy, fivehole, and bubbles_71.
I feel that the complaint last month about shorting the team more than 5 million coins in the start-up mess was too quickly marked solved. Perhaps that was my own fault, for replying to your email, rather than coming here to re-up the complaint; however, I still do not believe that we (the team) were ever credited for those coins, and I KNOW that the MVP / top-16 included at least 3 players who endured that shortfall right to the final standings in the MVP race. I was not one of those, but rather beneficiary of your boo-boo. I wound up at least three positions higher in that ranking than my coins would have warranted. However, we were more than 11 million coins out of the money, so five million more or less did not and does not greatly matter.
This time, please get it right. Actually DO the verifications, and DO the adjustments where necessary. Do not expect to get away totally with simply sloughing me off this time, for I will not hesitate to complain publicly and loudly should I not get more than the traditional "we are sure we got it right, but we will look into the matter" response that you issue so freely. The premise of the Team Challenge is that you will provide accurate counts, and accurate totals. And that if those counts or totals are questioned, that you will reliably investigate the issues, and reliably report the results.
Please do so this time.
The reference number for your submission is '090103-002818'
An amendment or addendum for complaint '090103-002818' :
The counting system continues to do mysterious and blatantly inaccurate things to both the individual totals (MVP race / top 16) and to the team totals. One very strong contender for MVP, chris1743, has just been bumped from the top slot, and in fact fell to 3rd for a while, despite having maxed every category every day. There is the chance that one of the players may have exceeded her take on Spin2Win, or PrizeMachine - but hardly likely that it made the 200k difference that we think existed at the end of day 1. Since that was start-up day for January, and the worst day of the current site problems, we had one other of our stronger players who did NOT max that day. In fact, we think that chris1743 was our only player to max casino, non-casino, and search that day. Nonetheless, both players passed chris1743 at one point, although for strange reasons, one fell back 2 hours after completing play. The other, the one who was at one time, shown as 200k short of chris1743, has not fallen back.
This is the second month in a row that IWON has demonstrably misreported the MVP statistics. Last month, the error persisted throughout the month, and was reflected in the final standings. I know, for I was (one of) the beneficiary(s). It should not persist this month, for you should actually check, and adjust accordingly.
Only by doing so can you demostrate that you do not simply apply whatever numbers you imagine will keep us playing, and quiet.
More, and more a team issue, we still also need the verification that those players listed earlier in the complaint had all their coins credited to the team. The same should be done for chris1743, since that is one very strong possible reason for her to have failed to hold that lead for MVP. There appear to chris1743, to be two separate problems, in that some - not all - of the coins won, reflect in her profile accounting; but even then, not enough to lead to the loss of position; and separately, the loss of position per se, implying a failure to credit the team even all those coins shown as accumulated on her profile page.
Some of the facts listed here I personally observed in the daily posting of MVP totals - right through this morning, chris1743 showed the maximum obtainable, except for Sell-a-friend. As of January 02, the player succeeding chris1743 in the MVP position (irankin64) was 200,000 coins off the pace. How did he gain those coins?
If you could please attempt to verify your numbers, perhaps you can accomplish TWO critical things: find the explanation of these apparently inexplicable events; and restore some faith that you do supply numbers, not merely guesses.
Conley T. Gwinn
The reference number for your submission is '090104-002809'
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