Ric Hayman said the following:
I participated in the thread, and was perhaps a cause of it going on too long. I only occasionally post to either [users] or [discuss], since there are many others who are quicker to offer answers to the small number of issues on which I can be a help. I saw two elements of the discussion I think we would do well to understand and analyze.Diane Mackay wrote:
<BIG snip/>Hi,
I am writing to point out some of a recent users list thread and to open the
discussion here. There has been a huge discussion ongoing for about three days
on the users list, and I believe threads like this are detrimental to the value
of support provided to the OpenOffice.org user: not because of the original
requester's post, but because of some of the discriminating answers that were
provided, and the length of the thread itself, which did not focus on actual
help information for OOo users.
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=users&msgNo=89593
I just went and read the whole thread - it was a little disappointing. Apart from the fact that most of the discussion, as Di suggests, should have taken place on another list (if it should have taken place at all), I think a number of the participants lost sight of the customer - who is after all the reason for that particular list. While I take GRS's point (and those who supported him), I think the damage is done not by the CONTENT of the point (which was essentially similar to Peter Kupfer's - try and tell us the version and the environment, perhaps contact the vendor first, download for free the latest stable release, etc.) but by it's tenor. Newbie users are ALWAYS going to ask what seem to be dumb questions - I do a lot of second level support for applications at work, and it's not just the newbies that 'get dumb' sometimes!
Where a project like OOo is going to get bigger/better is to involve new users in the community - by being welcoming, friendly, supportive. Whatever the beef with PPP or Luxuriosity - take it up with them, not some poor sod for whom it was the first introduction to OOo (and COULD become a long and fruitful association with the appropriate responses early).
The first element can be characterized by a term I have used in past lives - "support fatigue." I have seen this in internal IT help desks and see it on occasion in the Mozilla support forums where I spend a good deal of my free time. This is a situation where many, if not all, of the regular participants and lurkers have a pretty good idea where to turn for help. They know the resources that are available and where to look for answers. These individuals also see a regular parade of "the same old" questions that, as each of them becomes more and more proficient in OOo, are more and more basic. After a while, a certain amount of frustration sets in with seeing the same questions day after day. Sometimes the innocent users suffer a bit of teasing at the hands of those to whom they have come for help. Depending on the initial posture of the original poster, such teasing can be come mean-spirited. It's not always necessarily unjustified, but should still be avoided.
I believe this happens because the network of individuals has little in the way of recognition aside from supporting a cause we believe in - and we *all* believe in it, or we wouldn't be here. Save each other, there is no independent source confirming whether or not the support being offered is even adequate. To be honest, some are internally driven enough to provide this assistance and outside confirmation is neither sought nor necessary. However, I am convinced this "fatigue" can allow the group to spin off in wrong directions at times.
From my experience, the only way to "fix" this situation is to allow the team to blow off steam on occasion. However, that is from my experience as an IT team leader and I could control the direction and size of the steam cloud. I am eager to hear others on the topic.
The second element is related to the first. There are different ideas and concepts as to how, to whom and under what circumstances support ought to be provided. I think this was actually a very healthy part of the discussion. Diane is correct in stating that it should have taken place in [discuss] instead of [users], but the discussion itself seems to be necessary. However, the difficulty comes in again because we are solely a group of peers. There is no structure, process or procedure to which we can turn when we seem to be stuck on a concept. This is one of the less efficient facets of open source applications support via mail lists.
Is it time to revisit the lack of support hierarchy? Had we a few designated individuals - both trusted by the group to know their stuff and have solid support credentials - also participating or even lurking, who could had stepped in to say "let's take this to [discuss]" earlier in the process, would that have helped? Diane, that is exactly what you did and I think you did us all a good service with your "knock it off, guys" message. It was needed. Is it time to create something similar to Microsoft's (is it late and lamented or still in existence?) MVP designation so that all of us - newbies and OOo veterans - can know to whom we can turn when a thorny problem seems intractable? Is such a thing in existence already and I am unaware?
I am eager to see more posts in this thread.
oldgnome
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