On Sun, 17 Sep 2023 12:17:11 +0100, Java Jive wrote:

> On 17/09/2023 06:43, Ralph Fox wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 21:02:40 +1200, Ralph Fox wrote:
>>>
>>> Google Groups' mechanism for _users_ to request additions
>>> seems to have disappeared many years ago.
>>
>> Here is an archived link to that mechanism, from July 2005.
>> <https://web.archive.org/web/20050721035854/http://groups.google.com:80/googlegroups/help.html#added>
>>
>> See item #14, "How can I ask for a newsgroup to be added?"
>>
>> That mechanism seems no longer to exist.
>
> That is pretty standard Google behaviour. I've known other examples
> where their documentation has remained online despite being a decade or
> more out of date, and therefore had become downright misleading.

Note the word "archived". Google took that documentation down
long ago, back in 2005.

It is not Google's behaviour that the Wayback Machine has
archived copies of old web pages. You can go to
<https://archive.org/web/web.php>, type in an old URL, and
look for historical versions of a web page archived at
various dates in the past.

--
Kind regards
Ralph Fox

Betere byþ oft feðre þonne oferfeðre.

On 17/09/2023 19:38, Ralph Fox wrote:
>
> On Sun, 17 Sep 2023 12:17:11 +0100, Java Jive wrote:
>>
>> That is pretty standard Google behaviour. I've known other examples
>> where their documentation has remained online despite being a decade or
>> more out of date, and therefore had become downright misleading.
>
> Note the word "archived". Google took that documentation down
> long ago, back in 2005.
>
> It is not Google's behaviour that the Wayback Machine has
> archived copies of old web pages. You can go to
> <https://archive.org/web/web.php>, type in an old URL, and
> look for historical versions of a web page archived at
> various dates in the past.

https://groups.google.com/g/google-ajax-search-api/c/UaaE7bw2WfA

I rest my case, m'lud.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 17/09/2023 12:17, Java Jive wrote:
>
> That is pretty standard Google behaviour.� I've known other examples
> where their documentation has remained online despite being a decade
> or more out of date, and therefore had become downright misleading.
> Problem is: too much Artificial Stupidity, not enough real live humans.
>
Blame the archive portal NOT Google. Google hasn't got that document
online. Nothing about "too much Artificial Stupidity". How did you come
to this conclusion?

Google still has many live humans but they don't want to support their
forums any more because all the solutions are online using their highly
popular search engine.

The last I heard was that google wants to disband their forums and free
up space on their servers because not many people are using them. Google
is a business NOT some hobby project so they need to generate revenue.
spammers don't share their ethos so the best they can do is to shut it
down and let others take it over.

They have recently sold (given away) their Domains portal to SquareSpace
because Google don't see any value in selling domains to the general
public. <https://9to5google.com/2023/06/15/google-domains-squarespace/>

On 17/09/2023 20:00, Jack wrote:
>
> On 17/09/2023 12:17, Java Jive wrote:
>>
>> That is pretty standard Google behaviour.  I've known other examples
>> where their documentation has remained online despite being a decade
>> or more out of date, and therefore had become downright misleading.
>> Problem is: too much Artificial Stupidity, not enough real live humans.
>
> Blame the archive portal NOT Google. Google hasn't got that document
> online.

I was speaking generally.

> Nothing about "too much Artificial Stupidity". How did you come
> to this conclusion?

Very simple. Ask yourself the following question, when was the last
time you were able to report a fault or complain about their services to
a real person actually employed by Google? To all intents and purposes,
it's impossible. That's why there is still misleading documentation
online labelled Copyright 2023 about services that they deprecated 13
years ago and stopped 9 years ago.

> Google still has many live humans but they don't want to support their
> forums any more because all the solutions are online using their highly
> popular search engine.

Which is exactly the problem I was highlighting. See above.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 17/09/2023 22:56, Java Jive wrote:
>
> Very simple.� Ask yourself the following question, when was the last
> time you were able to report a fault or complain about their services
> to a real person actually employed by Google?� To all intents and
> purposes, it's impossible.� That's why there is still misleading
> documentation online labelled Copyright 2023 about services that they
> deprecated 13 years ago and stopped 9 years ago.
>

I do all the time. The products I use are Google Cloud and I report
problems almost immediately when I see one. I get response from them
within an hour. by the way I like to contact them by email or their chat
line. I don't like speaking to them in person because I like to have a
record of what they are saying. The chat line and email are answered by
real, live human beings because the questions are quite specific to my
service that I pay for.

Which products do you use from google? I use gmail and Google Drive
(free service) but there I have not had any problems. They just work
when I use them. The person has to be really stupid if they have
problems using gmail or Google Drive.

I bought some domains from google and there also I haven't had any
problems so far. With domains you buy once for say 10 years and forget
about them unless you want to change your website host. But generally,
they are self serviced so again anybody can use that service. I will
move this service to some other registrar or to Microsoft because I
don't know anything about Squarespace who have acquired this part of
Google service.

>> Google still has many live humans but they don't want to support their
>> forums any more because all the solutions are online using their highly
>> popular search engine.
>
> Which is exactly the problem I was highlighting.� See above.
>
You didn't say which service you are talking about. For most service a
search engine is all you need so can you elaborate on which service
requires human intervention. for free services they have their own
dedicated forums where some staff [sometimes] and community members can
answer in person. Don't tell me you expect google employee to answer
your questions for a free service. Forums are the best place for them.

If you are a corporate then you can ring up Google's local office for
quotation and further clarification but this is for corporates using
their cloud service. Google has their hardware support department but I
haven't used that nor do I use any of their hardware. are you using
anything from google? Some are using Android phones but do you need a
human to solve your problems for that? I thought Android phones must be
quite intuitive like other phones.

On 18/09/2023 00:42, Jack wrote:
>
> On 17/09/2023 22:56, Java Jive wrote:
>>
>> Very simple.  Ask yourself the following question, when was the last
>> time you were able to report a fault or complain about their services
>> to a real person actually employed by Google?  To all intents and
>> purposes, it's impossible.  That's why there is still misleading
>> documentation online labelled Copyright 2023 about services that they
>> deprecated 13 years ago and stopped 9 years ago.
>
> I do all the time. The products I use are Google Cloud

As explained in the link in my reply to Ralph Fox, try using their
services on your website. It was such a nightmare over many years that,
for the moment at least, I've given up - I have more important things
to do than keep updating otherwise perfectly working webpages because
Google keep changing, or even worse withdrawing, services.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

"Java Jive" <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote

| As explained in the link in my reply to Ralph Fox, try using their
| services on your website. It was such a nightmare over many years that,
| for the moment at least, I've given up - I have more important things
| to do than keep updating otherwise perfectly working webpages because
| Google keep changing, or even worse withdrawing, services.
|

I agree about the bots. Most big companies are now
looking for ways to replace humans. Tech companies
most of all because they operate on very simple profit
motive basis. The more they can automate, the more
they can just go home and let the money roll in. This past
week I had to call my cable service company. It's several
minutes of inane recordings and choices that are all trying
to tell me that I don't really need to call them, before finally
being assigned a spot for an 18 minute wait... And that's
a good one. Some companies now only pretend that they'll
ever answer the phone.

On the other hand, you're using free services. Why
should you get tech support? And your use of free services
on your website is helping Google to spy on your visitors.
So the rest of us have to block Gooogle domains. (I also
block statcounter, which is a lazy way for you to get
free website stats, and allow more 3rd party spying,
without having to learn how to read your own server
logs.)

I was using the free Google REST API for awhile for my own
map software. Then they changed the deal and required
a credit card. That was frustrating, but I can hardly
fault them. I was getting maps for free, with aalmost no benefit
to them. My use of their maps was nothing more than a cheap
ad for Google. I switched to Bing maps, which turned out to
be a bit better except for the streetview. For now Bing
maps are still free to access without letting them hold my
credit card and threated sudden charges. But all of these
companies have profit strategies. They're not just there
to serve us.

At this point the entire Internet arguably runs on scam.
A scammer tempts you with a free bauble and tries to pick
your pocket while you grab it. You try to get the bauble
while protecting your wallet. Neither side is being honest.
Even the big media companies and retail stores, who should
be above the fray, are constantly coming up with new scams
to improve spying and ad income.

In any case, you don't need Google on your site, but you
could stand to have some design help. Dark navy background
with turquoise text? Is that left over from your teen gamer
days... chartreuse text faded to turquoise? :)

On 18/09/2023 13:39, Newyana2 wrote:
>
> On the other hand, you're using free services. Why
> should you get tech support?

All the more reason to remove outdated tech support from their site,
rather than leaving extant to confuse people for more than a decade
afterwards.

> And your use of free services
> on your website is helping Google to spy on your visitors.

No, I've read Shoshana Zuboff's book 'The Age Of Surveillance
Capitalism', so I'm very well aware of how Google tries to monetise
everything in sight, but they were very limited in what they could
achieve through users of my site, because it's free, cookie-free, etc.
I'm pretty sure that all that Google could know is that they had a
request via my site for the code to load their maps, and that
subsequently that code loaded certain map tiles. I don't think they
would have had any way of identifying the browser, because as a
developer I could see the traffic coming in and going out of the browser
when loading a page on my site, so if Google had been spying on my
customers, I would almost certainly have known about it.

> So the rest of us have to block Gooogle domains.

If you block Google domains (even if you spell them correctly) then any
page on my site that uses Google Maps will not function. As those pages
are primarily built around the use of maps, that would completely
nullify the point of visiting them in the first place.

> (I also
> block statcounter, which is a lazy way for you to get
> free website stats, and allow more 3rd party spying,
> without having to learn how to read your own server
> logs.)

You're welcome to block StatCounter.

I'm perfectly capable of reading server logs, but the statistical
information that you get from that is limited. Alternatively I could
use the software provided by my web-host, but the same considerations
would apply as for StatCounter.

> I was using the free Google REST API for awhile for my own
> map software. Then they changed the deal and required
> a credit card. That was frustrating, but I can hardly
> fault them. I was getting maps for free, with aalmost no benefit
> to them. My use of their maps was nothing more than a cheap
> ad for Google. I switched to Bing maps, which turned out to
> be a bit better except for the streetview. For now Bing
> maps are still free to access without letting them hold my
> credit card and threated sudden charges. But all of these
> companies have profit strategies. They're not just there
> to serve us.

Yes, and that's why, if I do try and fix my web-pages that Google have
broken, I almost certainly will not be using any service provided by Google.

> At this point the entire Internet arguably runs on scam.
> A scammer tempts you with a free bauble and tries to pick
> your pocket while you grab it. You try to get the bauble
> while protecting your wallet. Neither side is being honest.
> Even the big media companies and retail stores, who should
> be above the fray, are constantly coming up with new scams
> to improve spying and ad income.

Yes, but that is nothing to do with me or my site, so go rant about
somewhere else.

> In any case, you don't need Google on your site, but you
> could stand to have some design help. Dark navy background
> with turquoise text?

It's white text, turquoise is only the colour for unvisited links.

> Is that left over from your teen gamer
> days... chartreuse text faded to turquoise? :)

Look up about colour vision, colour blindness, and visual glare.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

"Java Jive" <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote

| No, I've read Shoshana Zuboff's book 'The Age Of Surveillance
| Capitalism', so I'm very well aware of how Google tries to monetise
| everything in sight, but they were very limited in what they could
| achieve through users of my site, because it's free, cookie-free, etc.
| I'm pretty sure that all that Google could know is that they had a
| request via my site for the code to load their maps, and that
| subsequently that code loaded certain map tiles. I don't think they
| would have had any way of identifying the browser, because as a
| developer I could see the traffic coming in and going out of the browser
| when loading a page on my site, so if Google had been spying on my
| customers, I would almost certainly have known about it.
|

If someone visits your site and views a Google map, they're calling
the Google server. At the next site they might get Google fonts,
google-analytics, googletagmanager... Nearly every commercial site
has Google links, using their services or selling ads. That allows Google
to trackindividuals around the Internet. It's not so much about spying
on your webpage. It's an aggregate process.
| > So the rest of us have to block Gooogle domains.
| | If you block Google domains (even if you spell them correctly) then any
| page on my site that uses Google Maps will not function. As those pages
| are primarily built around the use of maps, that would completely
| nullify the point of visiting them in the first place.
| Yes. I don't see Google maps. On sites I design where a map
is needed I get one from OpenStreetMap. There's no sense at all in
making every visitor call Google, all to get the same map.

| You're welcome to block StatCounter.
| | I'm perfectly capable of reading server logs, but the statistical
| information that you get from that is limited.

?? I process my logs and read them directly so that I can
see visitors in real time, which tells
me about what people are interested in, how long the stay
on a page, etc. I do a hostname call on each IP and run each
through a location database. So I typically get the originating
domain, though not always. I usually get city/state/country.
Then of course I get userAgent. I don't know what else one
could expect to get. The nice thing with actually reading the
processed logs is that I'm not just seeing numbers. I'm seeing
that someone on Win10 with Firefox came from Munich and
landed at page x, where they looked things over for a couple of
minutes, then maybe downloaded file y, then maybe looked at
page z and left. Or they might have downloaded another file
10 minutes later.

I learn useful things that way. One of the oddest things I've
noticed is that time and again someone tries to download
my software from a free download site. But the link is out of
date, for an earlier version, so it doesn't work. They then come
to my website to see if the software is real. They find the webpage
for it, then they go back to the download site and try again!
Invariably these people then give up. They seem to think that
the author's website may not be legit. So if they can't get it
from freedownloads.com then they give up. It never occurs to
them that freedownloads.com is just linking to my files!

Newyana2 wrote on 18/9/23 10:39 pm:
> "Java Jive" <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote
>
> | As explained in the link in my reply to Ralph Fox, try using their
> | services on your website. It was such a nightmare over many years that,
> | for the moment at least, I've given up - I have more important things
> | to do than keep updating otherwise perfectly working webpages because
> | Google keep changing, or even worse withdrawing, services.
> |
>
> I agree about the bots. Most big companies are now
> looking for ways to replace humans. Tech companies
> most of all because they operate on very simple profit
> motive basis. The more they can automate, the more
> they can just go home and let the money roll in. This past
> week I had to call my cable service company. It's several
> minutes of inane recordings and choices that are all trying
> to tell me that I don't really need to call them, before finally
> being assigned a spot for an 18 minute wait... And that's
> a good one. Some companies now only pretend that they'll
> ever answer the phone.

Last week, I had to pass some information to a Government Department so
gave them a ring, fully expecting to be on hold for about half an hour!

But first I needed to make it past the Robot "Have you tried to access
the required Department using your MyGov facility??"

Then "In a few words, tell me what you want to do."
"Sorry, I did not get that."
"Sorry, I did not get that. If you want '#$%^&*'", say '#$%^&*'"
"Sorry, I did not get that. If you want '#$%^&*"', say '#$%^&*' or Press
'1' If you want '*&^%$#', say '*&^%$#' or Press 2"

(Why I didn't get the Keyboard options first up, I've got no idea.)

After I pressed 1 ... "Sorry, all the Operators are busy. BYE!!" and the
bot hung up on me. No "IF" No "BUT" Just hung up on me, straight up!!

Being determined to do the right thing, I rang back and was told,
straight up "Sorry, all the Operators are busy. BYE!!" and the bot hung
up on me AGAIN ..... so I then drive the 20-odd kilometers (12 mile,
give or take) to go to the Government Services office and talk to a human!!
--
Daniel

"Daniel65" <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote

| Last week, I had to pass some information to a Government Department so
| gave them a ring, fully expecting to be on hold for about half an hour!
| | But first I needed to make it past the Robot "Have you tried to access
| the required Department using your MyGov facility??"
| | Then "In a few words, tell me what you want to do."
| "Sorry, I did not get that."
| "Sorry, I did not get that. If you want '#$%^&*'", say '#$%^&*'"
| "Sorry, I did not get that. If you want '#$%^&*"', say '#$%^&*' or Press
| '1' If you want '*&^%$#', say '*&^%$#' or Press 2"
| | (Why I didn't get the Keyboard options first up, I've got no idea.)
| | After I pressed 1 ... "Sorry, all the Operators are busy. BYE!!" and the
| bot hung up on me. No "IF" No "BUT" Just hung up on me, straight up!!
| | Being determined to do the right thing, I rang back and was told,
| straight up "Sorry, all the Operators are busy. BYE!!" and the bot hung
| up on me AGAIN ..... so I then drive the 20-odd kilometers (12 mile,
| give or take) to go to the Government Services office and talk to a
human!!

It sounds like you may not be in the US, but it works exactly
the same here. Sometimes repeatedly pressing 0 works to get
a person. Other times it doesn't. And sometimes I've got what
you got -- a sadistic runaround ending with something like,
"Ha ha! We tricked you! Fuck off!"

I was calling RCN last week
and each call followed a slightly different pattern. It turns out they
have a secret code word. At certain points, if I clearly shout
"agent!" then the computer will put me in the waiting line for
actual service.

Once I actually
get through to a human, I've found RCN to provide intelligent,
friendly help almost without exception, but the process I went
through was maybe 90 minutes, just to have them recognize
a modem swap. On the bright side, I have no doubt that Comcast
or Verizon -- other big ISPs -- would be worse.

I'm sometimes reminded of the movie Brazil. I never saw the
whole thing. It was too tedious. But in the opening scene a
SWAT team of black suited officials breaks into a man's apartment
and pulls numerous vent hoses out of the walls, then leaves,
forcing him to buy repair services. The man is distraught, but
just then a "non-union plumber" swoops down onto his balcony,
like Superman, and fixes the damage. :)

On 19/09/2023 03:10, Newyana2 wrote:
> "Java Jive" <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote
>
> | No, I've read Shoshana Zuboff's book 'The Age Of Surveillance
> | Capitalism', so I'm very well aware of how Google tries to monetise
> | everything in sight, but they were very limited in what they could
> | achieve through users of my site, because it's free, cookie-free, etc.
> | I'm pretty sure that all that Google could know is that they had a
> | request via my site for the code to load their maps, and that
> | subsequently that code loaded certain map tiles. I don't think they
> | would have had any way of identifying the browser, because as a
> | developer I could see the traffic coming in and going out of the browser
> | when loading a page on my site, so if Google had been spying on my
> | customers, I would almost certainly have known about it.
> |
>
> If someone visits your site and views a Google map, they're calling
> the Google server. At the next site they might get Google fonts,
> google-analytics, googletagmanager... Nearly every commercial site
> has Google links, using their services or selling ads. That allows Google
> to trackindividuals around the Internet. It's not so much about spying
> on your webpage. It's an aggregate process.

They couldn't track the individual via my website. I can't speak for
others.

> | > So the rest of us have to block Gooogle domains.
> |
> | If you block Google domains (even if you spell them correctly) then any
> | page on my site that uses Google Maps will not function. As those pages
> | are primarily built around the use of maps, that would completely
> | nullify the point of visiting them in the first place.
> |
> Yes. I don't see Google maps. On sites I design where a map
> is needed I get one from OpenStreetMap. There's no sense at all in
> making every visitor call Google, all to get the same map.
>
> | You're welcome to block StatCounter.
> |
> | I'm perfectly capable of reading server logs, but the statistical
> | information that you get from that is limited.
>
> ?? I process my logs and read them directly so that I can
> see visitors in real time, which tells
> me about what people are interested in, how long the stay
> on a page, etc. I do a hostname call on each IP and run each
> through a location database. So I typically get the originating
> domain, though not always. I usually get city/state/country.
> Then of course I get userAgent. I don't know what else one
> could expect to get. The nice thing with actually reading the
> processed logs is that I'm not just seeing numbers. I'm seeing
> that someone on Win10 with Firefox came from Munich and
> landed at page x, where they looked things over for a couple of
> minutes, then maybe downloaded file y, then maybe looked at
> page z and left. Or they might have downloaded another file
> 10 minutes later.

So you do a lot of work that StatCounter does for free. That's why I
use it, so I don't have to do that work. If you and a few others want
to block it, fine. It won't make much difference to me in the long run.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

Newyana2 wrote on 19/09/2023 10:20 pm:
> "Daniel65" <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote
>
> | Last week, I had to pass some information to a Government Department so
> | gave them a ring, fully expecting to be on hold for about half an hour!
> |
> | But first I needed to make it past the Robot "Have you tried to access
> | the required Department using your MyGov facility??"
> |
> | Then "In a few words, tell me what you want to do."
> | "Sorry, I did not get that."
> | "Sorry, I did not get that. If you want '#$%^&*'", say '#$%^&*'"
> | "Sorry, I did not get that. If you want '#$%^&*"', say '#$%^&*' or Press
> | '1' If you want '*&^%$#', say '*&^%$#' or Press 2"
> |
> | (Why I didn't get the Keyboard options first up, I've got no idea.)
> |
> | After I pressed 1 ... "Sorry, all the Operators are busy. BYE!!" and the
> | bot hung up on me. No "IF" No "BUT" Just hung up on me, straight up!!
> |
> | Being determined to do the right thing, I rang back and was told,
> | straight up "Sorry, all the Operators are busy. BYE!!" and the bot hung
> | up on me AGAIN ..... so I then drive the 20-odd kilometers (12 mile,
> | give or take) to go to the Government Services office and talk to a
> human!!
>
>
> It sounds like you may not be in the US,

Correct, I'm in Australia.

> but it works exactly
> the same here. Sometimes repeatedly pressing 0 works to get
> a person. Other times it doesn't.

'0' to get the operator .... I've had that option on some services ....
never thought of trying it straight up on other services!
--
Daniel

On 20/09/2023 06:06, Daniel65 wrote:

>> | Being determined to do the right thing, I rang back and was told,
>> | straight up "Sorry, all the Operators are busy. BYE!!" and the bot hung
>> | up on me AGAIN ..... so I then drive the 20-odd kilometers (12 mile,
>> | give or take) to go to the Government Services office and talk to a
>> human!!
>>
>>
>>    It sounds like you may not be in the US,
>
> Correct, I'm in Australia.
>
>> but it works exactly
>> the same here. Sometimes repeatedly pressing 0 works to get
>> a person. Other times it doesn't.
>
> '0' to get the operator .... I've had that option on some services ....
> never thought of trying it straight up on other services!

In the UK, the Inland Revenue (equivalent of US IRS) is the worst I've
had for customer service. First you have to endure a three-minute
recorded message about how you could have done it online (no I couldn't:
I have questions that I need to ask a human being), before I could even
choose the department from a menu. Then none of the menus matched so I
chose the closest match. I was kept in a queue for 45 minutes, then I
got a message saying (I'm paraphrasing) "You have been in the queue too
long" and the call was terminated at their end.

I phoned back and got a human being after "only" 20 minutes, but it was
the wrong department ("Sorry, that's another department" and dumped into
the queue without even telling me which department/menu option I should
have chosen).

A lot of companies think that all their web site needs to do is to
answer various FAQs, and that they don't need to provide a way for me to
type a free-form email or web form so I can ask a question that is not
one of the FAQs.

NY wrote on 20/9/23 9:43 pm:
> On 20/09/2023 06:06, Daniel65 wrote:
>
>>> | Being determined to do the right thing, I rang back and was
>>> told, | straight up "Sorry, all the Operators are busy. BYE!!"
>>> and the bot hung | up on me AGAIN ..... so I then drive the
>>> 20-odd kilometers (12 mile, | give or take) to go to the
>>> Government Services office and talk to a human!!
>>>
>>>
>>> It sounds like you may not be in the US,
>>
>> Correct, I'm in Australia.
>>
>>> but it works exactly the same here. Sometimes repeatedly pressing
>>> 0 works to get a person. Other times it doesn't.
>>
>> '0' to get the operator .... I've had that option on some services
>> .... never thought of trying it straight up on other services!
>
>
>
> In the UK, the Inland Revenue (equivalent of US IRS) is the worst
> I've had for customer service. First you have to endure a
> three-minute recorded message about how you could have done it online
> (no I couldn't: I have questions that I need to ask a human being),
> before I could even choose the department from a menu. Then none of
> the menus matched so I chose the closest match. I was kept in a queue
> for 45 minutes, then I got a message saying (I'm paraphrasing) "You
> have been in the queue too long" and the call was terminated at their
> end.
>
> I phoned back and got a human being after "only" 20 minutes, but it
> was the wrong department ("Sorry, that's another department" and
> dumped into the queue without even telling me which department/menu
> option I should have chosen).
>
> A lot of companies think that all their web site needs to do is to
> answer various FAQs, and that they don't need to provide a way for me
> to type a free-form email or web form so I can ask a question that is
> not one of the FAQs.

Yeap!! Yeap! Yeap.
--
Daniel