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Comment by ecaron | Hacker News Reader

As much as I'd like to side with the guy getting picked on (Freshdesk), Zendesk is completely right. Ignoring the interface and naming similarities, you can't complain about ZenDesk on Twitter without multiple Freshdesk spammers bombarding you. Sure there's nothing illegal about it, but they're obnoxious with the "a customer of a rival is complaining, I MUST CONVERT THEM!" concept.

(I called them a rip-off of Zendesk back in late October - http://mobile.twitter.com/ecaron/status/123594375560302592 - and it took several days for @vshankar90 and @mrgirish to stop harassing me on Twitter...)

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Something about the whole freshdesk attitude really rubs me the wrong way. Not saying zendesk is in the right either. I just feel like I read the whole ripoffornot page and cringe. Definitely doesn't seem like the type of company I would want to give my time or money.

A couple people complained about their product on twitter and they built a whole page responding to it? In it, they respond to the criticism by making personal attacks against those who complained about them? Really weird.

Stop starting flame wars, start making a decent product.

In an alternate universe it would look like they are complaining about personal attacks on them.

Yeah, I think that's the problem with these kinds of flame wars. Is freshdesk right that the criticism about them was out of line? Yes. Does responding by saying the criticism "reflects poorly on the intellectual ability of the person making the judgement" and "[criticizer should] exercise better judgement and ethics when making negative comments about a company" seem heavy-handed and just as ridiculous as the initial criticism? In my opinion, yes.

I've had people call me every name in the book over my projects: a copy-cat, a sad and pathetic developer taking advantage of people and those are just a couple off the top of my head. Did I respond by calling those people ignorant or stupid or unethical? No. I just let it be. I feel good about what I'm doing and I keep trying to make products I'm proud of. Haters gonna hate.

The full statement is:

> Passing judgement on Product innovation based on the founder’s nationality reflects poorly on the intellectual ability of the person making the judgement.

They are complaining that nationalist insults or racist insults make the speaker look like an idiot. Is this ridiculous, heavy-handed, and unfair?

Perhaps it is simply reflective of the fact that current culture looks down on racists.

Look, I hate racism. I grew up the midwest and saw the terrible things that racism can do to a culture.

But my argument is, what does Freshdesk gain from going back and forth with @cloudgroupsyd? Beyond that, @cloudgroupsyd apologized but still they chose to bring up this quote to rabble-rouse and make personal attacks against him. We all say stupid stuff, we all make mistakes. Especially in this world of 140 characters or less. What more do they want the dude to do? Become a crusader for Freshdesk? Apologize to them in person?

I'm a firm believer in forgiveness. Someone wrongs you and they apologize. What do you do? You move on. You don't write a blog post about.

He didn't apologized.

Really? It looked to me like he did: http://twitter.com/#!/cloudgroupsyd/status/14253941437406412...

You can argue if that apology was enough or if it was a full apology. But I feel like saying "he didn't apologize" is an oversimplification.

I don't know. There's no apology. Just a half assed explanation.

Taking my english skills, calling someone an indian cowboy, is saying indians (posers) trying to be cowboys (the real deal).

Literally, figuratively, metaphorically is definitely saying more than what it's not. And it's not positive.

Instead of discussing facts, @cloudgroupsys' small mindedness to discuss and expose their ignorance (and what likely shows in many other things) simply, cannot, be overlooked.

(Just to explain the "Indian Cowboy" thing:

"Cowboy" is a term a developer often uses to describe someone who develops something without thinking it through properly, often fails to test, and ignores the consequences.

It's often used like this: "He's a real cowboy - he wrote a SQL query that he tested on his own machine and then deleted data when he deployed it to production".

You are correct - it is an insulting term in this context.)

Cool, thanks for the additional example.

Cowboy coding should have been super obvious to me, lol.

How on earth did you get to freshdesk making personal attacks based on this page? I'm gobsmacked you managed to so severely misread the whole thing. The entire point of the page is to point out personal attacks made against them and then respond to the rip-off comment. Supposedly they did make a decent product already.

My point is, they respond to the personal attacks by making personal attacks against the people who made them. An eye for an eye. In my opinion, they sunk down to the level of the people who were criticizing them. Making a good product speaks for itself, you don't have to have this petty back and forth.

Where are the personal attacks on that page? I see none.

Taking a tweet from someone with 73 followers, throwing it front of thousands of people (maybe more) and saying that the tweet "reflects poorly on the intellectual ability of the person making the judgement" is a personal attack to me. You can argue that they're right, but does the punishment really fit the crime? It seems in poor judgement to publicly shame some dude who's comments would of otherwise gone unnoticed.

The someone with 73 followers made a racist comment. Calling a competitor "indian cowbows" does reflect poorly on the intellectual ability of the person making the judgment.

Don't throw all the blame on the Freshdesk people. Everyone is responsible for what they say - and it appears to me that you're eager to let the 'someone with 73 followers' off the hook.

"A couple people complained about their product on twitter and they built a whole page responding to it?"

The CEO of Zendesk made the comment "@benkepes you know what they say. Imitation is the sincerest from of WAIT-WHAT-A-FREAKING-RIP-OFF! ;)"

Even if the allegation is correct, that is no way for a CEO to represent his company. Perhaps he should have contacted Freshdesk (privately) and told them if he thought there were trademark or patent issues, only bringing anything public if they refused to cooperate. If not, he probably should not have replied to the original comment at all.

@ecaron - On that day,I did not know that someone else from my team was responding to you. As a startup we were just too eager to respond. I had sent you a grand total of two tweets and the second tweet was actually to apologize for the inadvertent ganging up - http://twitpic.com/7oh3ly

My point is that Freshdesk's marketing plan (spam anyone who hints at ZenDesk dissatisifaction) adds credence to the "rip-off" claim.

No. The only point I can see here is that you tried to make Freshdesk look like assholes with your comment "it took several days for @vshankar90 and @mrgirish to stop harassing me on Twitter."

Which they aren't. It would seem that you were exaggerating at best and lying at worst.

Poaching dissatisfied customers of a competitor only proves that they're targeting some low hanging fruit (which is a good thing in this case)

Sorry but that doesn't make any sense. Freshdesk operate in the same field and will naturally have some client overlap. If they spot an unhappy Zendesk user surely it is worth making them aware that there is an alternative that may prove to be a better fit? The opposite would also be valid for unhappy Freshdesk users.

In PR right and wrong have different meanings that true and false. Mikkel was wrong here because he acknowledged, supported, and then fueled a competing idea in the market helping establish in some small way Freshdesk.

When you are leading, don't elevate small fry onto the same media frame as you by debating with them. You just give them (potentially) free access to your entire expensively earned PR channel for free.

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