Hi Gene,
There is an explanation on the board. The email is sent to "Premiere members," which means they are hand picked. I am a beta tester for three companies and we are strictly prohibited from even letting people know it is out there. We are also given very strict guidelines, e.g. letter writer, script writer, TSP, etc. with many things to do or our beta status does not reward us with free upgrades (WHICH THEY SHOULD)
A lot of this just makes sense. Let's say the beta was sent to 75 users based on AC's knowledge of certain criteria (different hardware and software). They are looking to see if it works with those OS before they release it. You have already told them it needs hardware acceleration, which is important.
Now to the nitty gritty of why it is common sense (and please don't take that offensively).
In the excitement of the worse module in history (script writer), everyone trialed it on standalone machines including me and you. Certain beta issues are to be used on the real environment (not alpha), in order to see its real flaws. Say you hadn't happened to check the consiliation portion (great that you did) and the links got out, hundreds of users would have installed this new beta only to find out on Tuesday that you discovered that not so major bug, but yet one that could easily be fixed, keeping them from now doing a reinstall once AC fixed it.
If on the other hand, five beta testers secretly tell AC about that bug, they are able to fix it, and release a new beta to test.
To be honest, I don't think they have a strict protocol. But, can you see why it would be an issue.
I probably shouldn't say this, but those who went to Tahoe were given a full demo of this beta and except for PMs, it didn't make it to the board, at least not with full description.
I must applaud you as you did what AC wants to do all with one users. You tested it on multiple machines.
I didn't want to come across as arrogant, and I hope I didn't.
I hope this helps. Feel free to PM me.
And, I, as you, am very excited about the new beta, but we need to take it slowly. Now, everyone will want this in a few days, when given the correct process, it may need another week of beta testing.
So protocol, should have been in the Word document in the email.
Common sense (no offense) should tell us not to talk about it.
If you want to start a PM with everyone in the thread, that would be cool, but even then it introduces a bias. But, everyone could try to use reconciliation.
