I think these are excellent ideas, and I would love to help pursue them. The current documentation does have tutorial-style sections, but there are lots of other media at our disposal, e.g. as you say, video. A standard intro webinar that could be arranged on a request basis would be pretty spectacular.
--- A. Soroka The University of Virginia Library > On Oct 23, 2016, at 6:06 PM, Stian Soiland-Reyes <[email protected]> wrote: > > OK, I think that is a good idea to get in touch with the teachers; perhaps > so they can give us an advance notice and we can understand what their > course is meant to teach. So a more friendly request for the teachers to > get in touch (or we ask directly the name/email of their teacher), but > without the "so you stop irritating us" bit :-). Presumably the teachers > dont want us to do the assignment for their students! > > There could even be opportunities to do like a webinar or video with a > short Jena intro, there are is probably some material from Elixir's Bring > Your Own Data training events and similar that we could link to; if the > teachers have better background materials and tutorials it can hopefully > reduce our email load. > > On 23 Oct 2016 10:43 pm, "A. Soroka" <[email protected]> wrote: > >>> Then there are the obvious school examples, which seem to ask us the >> actual assignment rather than Jena questions. It is fair for us to dodge >> those, but perhaps in a less hostile way. >> >> It seems to me that this is the entire question: there aren't really the >> kinds of problems Colin Maudry raised _except_ with these examples. And the >> messages that worry me are not the initial questions that amount to "please >> do my assignment" but the fact that helpful voices on the list give in >> response to such questions good advice and next steps which are repeatedly >> ignored. >> >>> I think we are friendly (perhaps sometimes too helpful!), but I wouldn't >> go to a "go away and talk to your teacher" route, but rather in general >> respond with what is expected of a good question and what the poster should >> try first. >> >> I'm not sure if this particular remark is in response to my suggestion, >> but just in case, I will clarify: I don't want to tell the students to go >> away, I want to tell them to ask their teacher(s) to contact Jena directly >> (instead of inadvertently and indirectly by giving assignments that show up >> immediately as questions on the user list), hopefully to help create a more >> appropriate kind of engagement for their students with the Jena community. >> >> --- >> A. Soroka >> The University of Virginia Library >> >>> On Oct 23, 2016, at 5:24 PM, Stian Soiland-Reyes <[email protected]> >> wrote: >>> >>> Agree to not go too aggressive in general, it could also strike down >> users >>> who like Jena as a tool (remember we have command lines and servers!) or >>> have been recommended Jena, but who have not before used Java as >>> programming language before. Here, tutorials and examples is what we >> should >>> point to. >>> >>> Then there are the obvious school examples, which seem to ask us the >> actual >>> assignment rather than Jena questions. It is fair for us to dodge those, >>> but perhaps in a less hostile way. Many students and researchers I have >>> interviewed in the Big Data community say they struggle to post their >>> questions on mailing lists for the tools they use, as they get hammered >>> down for basically not being geeky enough. Consequently they don't come >>> back when their skill sets have improved and they could potentially have >>> contributed back. >>> >>> Also remember that students have perhaps never before used a public >> mailing >>> list and already struggle to separate what is RDF, what is OWL, what is >>> Java, what is Jena, what is just a bug in their own code. >>> >>> I think we are friendly (perhaps sometimes too helpful!), but I wouldn't >> go >>> to a "go away and talk to your teacher" route, but rather in general >>> respond with what is expected of a good question and what the poster >> should >>> try first. Point to gist.github.com or similar as a way to paste code >>> rather than getting it in the abstract ("I tried setting the literal") >>> helps a lot. >>> >>> Also I think we can reply shorter (but friendly) as a bounce, rather >> than a >>> complete reply to help them with the more obvious assignment side. We can >>> point to tutorials for coding as well; Software Carpentry has many great >>> starting points. >>> >>> On 23 Oct 2016 7:43 pm, "Paul Houle" <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> I find this thread disturbing. Many people in the RDF community have >>>> worked a long time and it's just recently that the uptake has broadened >>>> (people are looking at JSON-LD and starting to understand what it means, >>>> not what any particular authority says that it means, but what it >>>> actually means.) >>>> >>>> I do believe that problems should be made reproducable and as a group we >>>> could industrialize that. For instance, a test project that can be >>>> forked in github would be a great place to put in a query, put in a >>>> graph, and then put in some rules at which point they could ask good >>>> questions. >>>> >>>> I carefully read the answers to the bad questions because I am intensely >>>> curious about strange details in Jena that trip people up. >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Paul Houle >>>> [email protected] >>>> >>>> On Sun, Oct 23, 2016, at 06:07 AM, Colin Maudry wrote: >>>>> Dear Jena developers, >>>>> >>>>> Upon Andy Seaborne’s suggestion, I would like to share with you a >>>>> concern we have with certain posts shared on [email protected]. >>>>> In the last couple months, we have seen certain users repeatedly >> sending >>>>> questions that are either: >>>>> >>>>> * hardly related to Jena and Fuseki >>>>> * very basic questions about RDF or SPARQL >>>>> * betraying the lack of common knowledge in Java programming and >>>>> coding good practice in general >>>>> >>>>> What’s worse, these users, in spite of repeated remarks, keep on being >>>>> very vague in their questions, requiring the most patient subscribers >> to >>>>> ask many questions just to obtain a decent understanding of the >> problem. >>>>> A problem that is, again, often not much related to Jena or Fuseki. >>>>> >>>>> As a subscriber, I’m tired of their consistent failure to propose clear >>>>> and concise questions and I wish the patient people who answer them >>>>> spend their mailing time on more interesting threads. I also fear it >>>>> makes certain subscribers silently go away because of this “noise”. >>>>> >>>>> I first thought of publicly complaining to these users, but I thought >>>>> that the managers of the Jena lists should discuss it and take the >>>>> appropriate measures. >>>>> >>>>> My suggestion is to: >>>>> >>>>> * inform the subscribers of an upcoming enforcement of the publishing >>>>> rules (relevance, clearness, completeness, etc.) >>>>> * stop answering the vague/off-topic/badly presented questions >>>>> * if they insist, remind them the topic of the list and good practices >>>>> in problem reporting, and warn them of a possible ban. >>>>> >>>>> Thanks for your attention, >>>>> >>>>> Colin Maudry >>>>> https://twitter.com/CMaudry >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >> >>
