Campaign for Release Notes?

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No, you're right, my post was confusing. I had a quoting issue; in this post you said:

I was attempting to respond to that, and carelessly grabbed the wrong portion. I stand by my statement that nothing TivoPony has said indicates that he has done any market research on or related to this issue. You ask of wmcbrine, "what have you got?", but it seems to me the same thing can be asked of TivoPony. You assume his market research has covered this issue; I do not.

What on earth has suggested I would do that? I'm interested in honest poll results. I'm going to send my questions to you, GoHokies, and someone who is yet undetermined to review. I guess I hadn't formally asked either of you, haha, but I couldn't imagine either of you declining. Ideally, I'd have 2 pro (incl myself) and 2 con to review. Anyone else on the pro-release-note side want to proof the survey? CosmoGeek, maybe?

And I've been planning on doing this since I started writing the questions; it's not a response to your (which I feel is baseless) accusation. A dishonest/biased poll is as useless as a Tivo-bashing thread, and I think my questions, so far, are neutral. As I said previously, I'm going to make a fuss regardless of the poll results. I will only lose credibility on this board if I create a biased poll, and I'm not interested in forcing everyone to agree that release notes are needed -- but I am interested in seeing why those do/do not agree with me (in a non-inflammatory manner).

I have worked in companies that range from 6 to 2300 (so not quite 5000), and I've stayed several years at both those companies. So, I will not believe you (no disrespect intended; I've enjoyed most of your posts). In my experience, the software processes make more of a difference than the size of the sw development department. While larger companies tend to have better processes in place, that doesn't always hold true. And the customer shouldn't pay the entire cost associated with Tivo improving their software development processes.

Let's agree to disagree. I am interested in different points of view because those can be factored into the poll, but I really don't want this thread to devolve into flames or pointless arguing (pointless, because neither of us are going to change our minds because we feel our experience trumps the other person's experience).

The poll description can include 1 paragraph explaining my point of view on this (or any) issue, 1 paragraph explaining your point of view on this issue, and the poll-responder can take those into account when responding to poll questions that are related to this issue.

I have no argument there. Obviously, any poll questions (and I'm still not sure if the poll can be formatted in the manner I want) would ask people to quantify things and list specific examples in their responses. Upthread someone mentioned that "lots of companies don't do release notes", but he gave no examples. I just did a quick survey of things I'm running, and the vast majority do have release notes. I'm not listing examples here because I'm saving it for the poll. I'm not calling the other poster a liar, but I would be curious to know what he's running that doesn't have release notes-- but I would rather s/he save it for the poll.

I believe all vague statements (incl. several of my own, such as "it will benefit Tivo") should be quantified in poll responses.

Hmm, let's hope the mods actually agree to put up the poll, because otherwise, this is a lot of typing for no reason.

Edited to add: Obviously, not everyone is going to agree, and I am honestly not trying to force people to change their minds (well, maybe sway some people). I am posting a lot, but am just trying to provide counter-arguments when someone posts something I disagree with. Hopefully, this thread will allow everyone (especially those that have no opinion, or those that have a "weak" opinion) to make more a more informed decision regarding the issues brought up here.