[gozmike]

My experience with WPEngine : Jason Cohen saved my ass.

We went live on a WebbyNode VPS, thought we had configured our system well and suddenly we hit the top spot on HN. The server was on fire and Jason personally showed up and worked on migrating our site over.

Your configuration may have posed problems, you may have had what seems like a shitty support experience, but this public bashing doesn't help anyone in the startup community and reads as if it's motivated by emotions rather than a real problem-focussed attitude.

Give these guys a break and work with them one on one to find a solution to your problems. I'm SURE they'll move mountains to make you happy because that's in the team's DNA.

[jacques_chester]

I worked "one on one" with them for weeks.

Weeks.

They did not move mountains. It was a parade of apathy. As soon as they could flick pass me to WebSiteMovers, they did.

Your positive experience is every bit an emotional one as my negative experience was.

[gozmike]

I can totally understand your negative experience, I have email threads between myself and WPEngine as well as between common customers and WPEngine that prove quite the opposite.

It really sucks that you went through this. I'm just suggesting that you refrain from the public flogging and find another solution. I'm not affiliated with these guys other than as a client and I can tell you that I respect what they bring to the market.

[jc4p]

>I'm just suggesting that you refrain from the public flogging and find another solution.

If you've spent more than a day in any online community you should have already learned that this, although it may not be preferable for the company at fault, is the fastest way to get something fixed or something changed.

It'd be irresponsible for Jacques to stand by silently and suck up all the time and money he wasted days after there was a great PR piece for WPEngine on the front-page of this site because it would lead to others having his issue which he could help prevent.

This is a community. It's not an advertisement source. People vote on things they find interesting and discuss them, it's not a place to only post positive things about up and coming companies and hide all sources of negative news.

[gozmike]

Fastest != Most appropriate

You're advocating revenge. I'd just like discussions to be discussions. Not attacks.

The blog post read (to me at least) like an attack on a company with some obvious growing pains.

There are ways to write a complaint that doesn't involve pointing out Cohen's self congratulation. The way the post is ended wreaks of jealous hatred. That is not the way you constructively criticize.

[jc4p]

Are we reading the same thing? I really don't think this post was an attack. It was someone describing a disappointing experience with a service that was supposed to make his side-projects easier to manage and having the exact opposite happen. It's a post about disappointment with a service written on his personal blog, I don't see any pitchfork calling or attacks or jealous hatred. Are you projecting something here?

[JonLim]

Considering how well Jacques presented his arguments and experience, I'd say that this is one of the better examples of public flogging.

It seems like he's spent an extended amount of time complaining to internal channels, and he just needed to let other people know about his experience of not receiving the promised levels of service.

[jacques_chester]

I feel that I managed to control myself fairly well, all told. Nobody's parentage was questioned, nobody called "unsound", nobody excluded from the gentlemen's club etc etc.

[Karunamon]

>You're advocating revenge.

Wait, what? Where? I saw nothing in that entire diatribe that sounded like a call to arms.

[jacques_chester]

This man speaks with special authority, given that I have sometimes publicly flogged his employer too.

[jacques_chester]

I'm sorry, why is it my obligation to be nice to an expensive, specialist business who utterly let me down?

Especially given the content and tenor of their marketing.

[bravoyankee]

This is important information to me (I manage many wordpress sites). The author is just being frank, and that's a rarity in this world of shilling and murketing.

Where else am I going to read this?

[robgough]

    Give these guys a break and work with them one on one to find a solution to your problems.

In the article it sounds like instead of them trying to work one-on-one to fix the problems, they just outsourced it to a digital removal firm. If that's the response he got, in what way would you expect the OP to be able to work with them one-on-one?

[gozmike]

I think it's a matter of how one approaches the issue. With WPEngine, we didn't bounce around e-mail after e-mail.

It took a 10 minute phone call. I knew the names of everyone on my case and they kept me updated through the process.

I'm SURE there was a big fuck up in the support process for the OP. I just feel that there are other ways to skin a cat, particularly in our community where we should be working hard to find constructive solutions to things like this instead of creating a cloud of negativity around young businesses.

[jacques_chester]

I didn't mention it in the blog post, but I also rang them. Several times. Mostly I got placed on hold until I gave up.

I am in Perth, Australia. This means I need to stay up until 10pm in order to speak to them.

Like I said, that part is on me for not finding out their hours in advance.