Hi Adnan, On Tue, 17 May 2011 19:03:52 +0200, Adnan Hodzic <ad...@foolcontrol.org> wrote: ... > Now, is that enough INFORMATION for you?
I'm rather reluctant to get involved, as I know you're tired and stressed, but the diagnostic piece of information which I never found, and which tells me that we have a problem, is the answer to this question: How far is the bus stop in Novska from the railway station? Now, that's not really an important question in it's own right but without knowing the answer to that question, it's becomes impossible to decide whether it will be nicer to stay on the train until Novska, or whether it's better to get off at Zagreb (when coming from Munic by train). There are loads of similar unanswered questions: How likely is the bus to be full by the time it arrives at Novska? How often are busses cancelled? Where do I buy a ticket? (at the staion? on the bus?) Which currencies are accepted? etc. etc. etc. These are all trivial for a local to answer (particularly if they live in Novska) but impossible for a foreigner to discover. Until most of these are answered, we have a problem. Without that level of detail, it's impossible to make a comfortable decision about which route to choose, with the result that everyone ends up using the safe option of Zagreb, but feeling like they've failed to make the best choice. Meanwhile, if train travellers stayed on the train longer (to Novska or Okuani) we would only need to organise a shorter bus ride for them, but we're not providing them with the detail that would let them make that decision, so everyone looses. =-=-=-=- How do we fix this? You say that you're visiting LUGs drumming up enthusiasm, and being offered help? Remember, the people volunteering see you as the boss. If you tell them to do things, they will probably do them, particularly if the thing you tell them to do is simple for them, and you tell them it's important. I'd suggest that they start by going through the web site, and the wiki, looking for bits that are obviously just best guesses, and replacing those with real information derived from local knowledge. You could also tell one or more of your new volunteers to look through the archives here for unanswered questions, to see the sorts of information people need to make their plans, and go and find the answers. If you end up with a lot of volunteers, some could actually start asking people to submit new queries to them. This should be really easy for the locals to do, once they realise the level of detail people want. I don't think it would take that many people to make a real difference. Note, I'm not expecting _you_ to do anything more than you're already doing. You're already spreading enthusiasm. Just take advantage of it when it's standing in front of you, and tell people to do simple things NOW. Good luck :-) Cheers, Phil. -- |)| Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560] http://www.hands.com/ |-| HANDS.COM Ltd. http://www.uk.debian.org/ |(| 10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London E18 1NE ENGLAND _______________________________________________ Debconf-discuss mailing list Debconf-discuss@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-discuss
