about the owner.

It's enough to make a grown man cry. Strangers don't actually care about helping you catch problems. I've run my own web site for years, but it still pains me every time a problem happens. One time, my Internet provider made a software change that caused some of my feedback forms to stop working. Did my customers bother to tell me they were seeing error messages? Nope, they sure didn't. It was four months before I caught the breakdown. Now I check my web site whenever I have time.

I was raised to help people. When someone has a bumblebee on their back or a snake attacking their boot, or any other kind of a problem they don't know about but would correct right away, I speak up. Of course I treat them with the same tact I would want to be treated with: if people think I'm fat or ugly, or they don't like the color of my home page, I don't want to know, but if my web site has broken down, I expect to be told, or else I lose faith in mankind just a bit. I always write to webmasters to let them know about broken links. I thought it was just common courtesy. But the only people who write me about my web site problems try to bite my head off. Like I'm the bee or the snake! They speak to me in that immature tone of voice that says they were looking for someone to kick, not to help. That's just ornery.

That's not how it was in the Old West. If your wagon wheel broke on the trail, the other wagon trains didn't just look and pass you by, they stopped to help you. And they didn't give you dirty looks, neither.

I won't treat you like that, and I won't leave you stranded. You and I, we're both webmasters, we're both in the same boat. Tactful feedback is the cornerstone of all improvement, and that's what you'll get from me, every time. I'll keep your web site running, and you won't have to rely on the kindness of strangers.

    -- J. E. Brown