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2007 01 25
Crazed Monkey Shreds Our TTC Spreadsheet - Ouch!
For those readers who have followed the TTC website challenge we put forth to TTC Chair Adam Giambrone, we have an update. We produced an Excel spreadsheet listing our readers' ideas from the four Toronto blog sites. It was designed for the TTC but some of our reader's asked for a link and we gave it to them. While that document worked for some people, Ian Stevens thought it could be better - and, of course, he was right.

Ian just didn't criticize and do nothing (how often do we have people tell us they can do something better than us and disappear, leaving nothing behind except their negative thoughts?), he did make it better.

Go to the new, improved version of the reader suggestions here.

Many thanks for this improvement Ian!

BTW Ian, could you post my comments to your original critique? Here it is for those of you who hate to follow links:

Hi Ian, thank you for your critiques of the spreadsheet I put together. First, my apologies for getting your URL wrong! There were so many postings to go through that, since this is not the only project I'm involved in, I had to do it during those hours I might otherwise do useful things like, say, sleep.

When I wrote "Easy to use" what I meant was that it takes a lot of information and organizes it in a graphical way - prioritizing it by the most desired recommendations to the least. According to the people who have looked at the document it succeeds in conveying that information in an "easy to understand" way.

The one anomaly was as follows: Many people offered web sites they thought were examples of how to do it right. Since they are references they were put in the first row and are highlighted by a darker border.

As to the website comments references being hard to understand, this is a function of time available. Still, everyone I showed the spreadsheet to understood the references so I did not commit any further time to making a legend. Remember, the spreadsheet was not originally meant for the greater community but when people asked for it we decided to make it accessible.

I think that the overall initiative generated some great input. I'd be happy to work with you Ian if you have the time to further enhance the document. As a volunteer effort we have all done something worthwhile that may just help make the city a little bit better.

Cheers,


Robert Ouellette
[email this story] Posted by R Ouellette on 01/25 at 02:05 PM
  1. It’s nice that he remixed it for you, and didn’t just criticize. But I did click over to his critique, and what an asshole. He could have said all that without sounding like a jerk. Don’t think i’ll go back to his blog.

    Posted by Jimmy  on  01/25  at  03:51 PM
  2. If you want people to solve your problems for you, ask them. Of course, another option is to be competent enough to propose a plausible solution in the first place.

    Like, you know, not using a closed, proprietary file format to sum up comments on Web sites about a Web site. That sort of thing.

    Posted by Joe Clark  on  01/25  at  08:44 PM
  3. Good grief, can’t you guys just let well enough alone… who made you the final arbiter of “competency?” These blogs tried to improve the city and all you can do is nitpick.

    Posted by  on  01/25  at  10:58 PM
  4. No matter what people do with their good intentions, there are people who tear it down, and will find whatever angle they can to do so. So easy to do, eh Joe Clark? You have lots to say about things, but for some reason you can’t pull anything off like this yourself (though your histrionic dramatics about people who do give us all a kick).

    Figure out the social side of things too (whether you like it or not), because when you insult people first, or while you’re doing it, you’re as ineffective as excel or Wordperfect or whatever software you’ve got a dirty bone for that day.

    Posted by Jimmy Fullerton  on  01/26  at  10:54 AM
  5. I wonder if we might skip the flame wars and get back on track—everyone who has contributed their ideas and sweat-equity to this project deserves a pat on the back but we can all learn something from criticism. So, let’s keep it constructive not destructive.

    Many thanks.

    Robert

    Posted by Editor  on  01/26  at  04:41 PM

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