@MisterM2402 [Michael]

Well have you actually emailed koichi about a refund? Did he deny your refund?

Your analogy kinda implies that you’ve emailed him for a refund and he said no, if thats the case then fair enough but I don’t expect that is true, i’m sure koichi would come to an agreement of some kind with you.

Oh I don’t think analogy is needed, you paid for something and you aren’t receiving what you paid for (or at least you don’t feel you are receiving what you paid for), the reason of why you aren’t receiving it isn’t relevant here. So it doesn’t matter if the chef is moonlighting, or catching a fish, or if he doesn’t exist at all.

What you are saying is like you bought a TV from Sony, but its not working so they should give you a PS3 and a digital camera, and a hi-fi. No they should give you a working TV, because thats what you bought and asking for other things is just a form of extortion.

If you are really not happy email koichi for a refund, if he fails to give you one go to the consumer rights people, and make them, make him give you a refund. There’s a special one for the internet which deal with international companies, apparently they’re real ball busters too.

I think in truth you believe that textfugu is worth the money even if you have to wait longer for lessons, because otherwise why would you not have already done the above?

In which case if you believe it is the case then spending the time to try and get koichi more motivated aka my first post is what you should be doing.

@ isocracy

Agreed, we don’t want this thread turning into a flame war or an argument. I’m going to check out the ebook very soon. The ebook’s price after today or tomorrow will go upto $30 for non TextFugu members. For TextFugu members, it will always be $10.

I was always a family man.

I was about to buy the ebook, but there is a problem with the coupon code us TextFugu members get to receive $19 off. I’ve notified Koichi about it. I hope to order it again soon.

@Andrew: If you want to use the TV analogy, then no, it’s not like buying a TV then demanding they give you free stuff because you don’t like it (sorry if I’ve oversimplified or misconstrued that). The key element of my fish analogy was the time it took being a lot longer than previously specified, or more appropriately the process of completing the meal was going slower than specified. When you buy TextFugu, yes, you understand it’s a work in progress, but you don’t expect things to be moving so slowly (well, at least I didn’t).

“So it doesn’t matter if the chef is moonlighting, or catching a fish, or if he doesn’t exist at all.” – it *does* matter, that’s the *main* thing that matters haha. One of the main reasons it takes so long to get new lessons out is because he’s doing all this other stuff on the side. I’m not saying Tofugu isn’t a good site, but it takes time away from Textfugu, even if he has happy little elves working for him.

So in your TV analogy, it’s not asking for free stuff, it’s more asking them to repair it sooner rather than later. I’m not saying there should be compensation for the slow progress, just that the progress should hurry up a little.

Y’know, the best analogy for the situation is like this: you buy an e-book that’s a work in progress and you think “It’ll probably take a while, but it’ll be worth it”. You finish all the current content and think “OK, I’ll do something else while I’m waiting for new material to be written”. You wait. And wait. The waiting’s taking too long so you go somewhere else to learn. A new lesson gets put up after weeks and weeks and weeks (if not months) of delay and you say “Oh, I already learned that while I was waiting…”. Then you learn more while waiting for the next chapter, and the same thing happens: you covered that shit months ago. You stop using the book because, no matter how slow you go, it never catches up. You could take a 6 month break and there’ll still only be a couple of week’s worth of new content to go through. Oh wait, that’s not an analogy…

He says on the FAQ TextFugu is going to be about 6 seasons long, minimum (bear in mind, when the FAQ was written, each season was as long as around two of the current ones). That’s about equal to 12 of the new-style seasons. I think last Spring/Summer, he was finishing up his overhaul of season 3 (they’ve overhauled the site design/lesson design/kanji lesson design/Anki deck design what must be about 3 times each in the past year, more for the site design). So about 3/4 of a year ago at least, he finished what’s now season 5, I’d say – I said 2 new seasons per old season, but that’s a little off. Almost one year later, he’s only just starting season 7. It’s taken the best part of a year to write one season. Does that not seem a bit slow? He’s written a lot of kanji lessons in that time too, but the “core” content is more important, I’d say. Compare all that to the hundred bajillion (no hyperbole) Tofugu articles that have been written in that time. Hashi joined at the end of Spring last year, John during the Summer, and Viet relatively recently (I don’t know when), so it’s not like they’ve been writing for him for ever. He is still very involved in Tofugu, which leaves less TextFugu time.

*long post, sorry*

As for refunds, the FAQ says: “If you don’t like TextFugu within the first couple weeks, send an e-mail to refunds@textfugu.com to get a 110% refund. To get the extra 10%, please write 100-200 words of feedback to help make TextFugu better! Normal refunds can be gotten with a lot less hoo-ha. Just make sure you try the free lessons out first to see if you like it!”.
>>”within the first couple of weeks” – I take that to mean you can only get a refund relatively recently after you’ve bought it. You don’t notice the slowness until at least a couple of months, which by then it’s too late. I’m not looking for a refund anyway; I didn’t really pay all that much for it. That doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t live up to promises. He’s a great guy and the content was good when I first started out, but he just doesn’t write fast enough. Anyone else dissatisfied with the speed shouldn’t have to need a refund – they don’t want the money back, they just want the content.

I doubt I’d even bother if it was free. Rather read actual learning material than study tips and what not.