Very aptly described. On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 20:23 +0000, Alan Pope wrote: > On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 19:33 +0000, Matthew East wrote: > > On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 17:45 +0000, Alan Pope wrote: > > > On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 14:54 +0100, Matthew East wrote: > > > > On Mon, January 29, 2007 1:10 am, London School of Puppetry wrote: > > > > > is there a list somewhere of Ubuntu experts > > > > > > > > There isn't such a list for the UK. However, developing one would be a > > > > very worthwhile task for this team to carry out - face to face help is a > > > > very important type of help which is much more difficult to find for > > > > Ubuntu than it should be. > > > > > > How would you envisage such a list operating? > > > > > > Would this be a "not an Ubuntu official partner, but willing to help" > > > type list? > > > > There is already one of those: http://www.ubuntu.com/support/marketplace > > > > Yes, I was aware of that, wanted to clarify what you were suggesting. > > > What I had in mind was more something by way of freely available > > community support. > > I always find that a little tricky. > > For me (whether right or wrong) I like to choose how and when I > contribute to the community. As with everyone else I have a limited > amount of time to spend between this/that/theother. I also (as with > everyone else) have requirements to pay bills and feed myself and the > family. So this leads to a careful(ish) balancing act between:- > > a) Work - stuff that pays bills > b) FLOSS stuff - contributing to the community for free > c) Other - family stuff etc > > If someone were to pay me to do b) then I could do less of a) in order > to do c). If I were to advertise my free services then the balance might > tip more towards b) detracting the attention from those vital c) and a) > sections. > > At the moment I can walk away from a computer, not looking at the > support tickets, mailing lists, email (to do a) or c)) knowing that they > will either pile up and I will have to go through them when I get back, > or someone else will deal with them. > > If the contact is direct via email/phone/IM/whatever then the system of > one-to-many turns into one-to-one. This is of course potentially > beneficial to the recipient of the help, but less useful for the helper. > More of my time would be dedicated to helping one individual - and > whilst that would be a fulfilling task, it's not time efficient. Think > of all the other people who have the same problem now or in the future > who will not benefit from the private conversations between myself and > the person I am helping. > > I would say we are better off pointing people to the support ticket > system, as there are many eyeballs on it. For example I was going like e > demon on that between October and December last year, but this year have > barely touched it due to other commitments. Do the people asking > questions get no support as a result? No, because there are loads of > other committed people who the work load-balances around. > > Compare that with the person down the road who needs some one-on-one, if > I am away doing a) and c) then they are left in a situation where they > may mail/phone/IM/whatever me and get no response, or get a very delayed > response. How does that look/feel for them? In addition as I focus my > attention on them, talking them through whatever issue they have, what > happens to all the other people who are waiting for their support > tickets to be answered in a way that will benefit future google-users? > > I appreciate some people need a little hand-holding, I really do. But > when someone is desperate for help (machine wont boot) they will expect > the person helping to drop stuff to come over to help won't they? That's > how I often find people with problems. > > I know I have worded this mail from my perspective, but I am pretty sure > it's not far off how many people feel about helping with the community. > > Am I out of order / hypocritical / wrong? Please tell me. I would like > to offer as much time and support to the community as I can, but I like > the idea of time-inefficiency built-in. > > Cheers, > Al. -- Help me get to Venezuela! http://tibsplace.co.uk/venezuela
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