mem@sii.UUCP (Mark Mallett) (01/11/84)
b Netnews has helped me quite a lot in evaluating computer software and equipment, both for personal acquisition and for professional recommendations. A consumer newsgroup, I think, could be useful in the same way (I hope it isn't called net.ripoff or any other negative name). But there could be problems: For every product, there are people who've had a bad time with it. I, f'rinstance, once owned a Subaru that I hated- everything possible seemed to go wrong, right up to getting a bad trade-in value on it. I have never met any other Subaru owner who would admit that they (the cars) were anything other than wonderful. I'm afraid people could go making unbalanced accusations rather than reports of indivual problems, giving products unfounded bad names and perhaps getting themselves into trouble along the way. Saying "yes", Mark E. Mallett decvax!sii!mem
ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader) (01/12/84)
I think a consumer newsgroup is worth a try, and I suggest net.consumer as the appropriate name.
riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (01/15/84)
Another "yes" for net.consumer (and, please, let's not call it net.ripoff).
wombat@uicsl.UUCP (01/17/84)
#R:sii:-37800:uicsl:8200004:000:395 uicsl!wombat Jan 16 15:27:00 1984 I'd like to see a consumer reports notesfile. A local company runs notes and has its own local "conrep" file that sees quite a bit of use. The problem of one unfounded negative review would probably be offset by satisfied people disagreeing; if a product were a real turkey there'd be enough people to say so with few satisfied customers to disagree. Wombat ihnp4!uiucdcs!uicsl!wombat