Re: it's all up to you users

[Graham Percival]

On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:08:48 -0700
Patrick Horgan <address@hidden> wrote:

> I don't really know who the seven are, but
> there are more than seven people that regularly answer questions. The
> ones I see the most are you, Trevor, Valentin, Robin, Carl, the other
> Patrick, Han-Wen, Neil, Peter, Dominic, Ralph, Werner, YIKES almost
> forget Mat!, John, Reinhold, Joe, Jonathan, and Morten.

I wouldn't say that all those are "regular", but all apart from 4
of them, they're all working on docs or bug fixes or new features.
If they're answering simple questions -- and I *have* seen most of
them doing so -- then that's a horribly inefficient use of their
time.

BTW, the name is "Mats".

>    I'm trying!  I answer the ones I know the answers too, and take
> the opportunity to RTFM on many, learn the answer, and then share
> it.  That helps me learn.  But, I don't have the seat time in yet.
> I'm not the only one either.

Maybe I should expand on what I mean by "RTFM questions".
Here's a list of topics from Aug that I consider "RTFM-ish":

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-08/msg00381.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-08/msg00219.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-08/msg00205.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-08/msg00146.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-08/msg00129.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-08/msg00128.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-08/msg00120.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-08/msg00096.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-08/msg00033.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-08/msg00009.html

And here's the stuff from Sep:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-07/msg00595.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-07/msg00557.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-07/msg00535.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-07/msg00519.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-07/msg00518.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-07/msg00511.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-07/msg00510.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-07/msg00499.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-07/msg00490.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-07/msg00480.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-07/msg00474.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-07/msg00353.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-07/msg00270.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-07/msg00118.html

If you think you could answer one third of those questions, please
do.  You'll see that most of these were answered by very advanced
users, documentation people, or even programmers.


We now have a good documentation team for lilypond, and a good
number of them are gradually moving into bugfixing and
programming.  The thing we lack -- one of the last "unhealthy"
portions of the lilypond project -- is an "email support" team.
We need more people answering these simple questions, so that
advanced programmers don't do it.

If we could get a dozen people signing up for such duties, it
would be great.  Assuming they're spread across the world and/or
check their emails at random times (ok, that's not realistic, but
bear with me), then simple questions would receive an answer
within two hours.  And since this "User Support Team" wouldn't be
overworked doing documentation, they'd be really polite and
friendly and fuzzy feelings would abound.

Frankly, the answer doesn't even need to be correct.  I mean, if
you /think/ you have the right answer, but aren't completely
certain... answer anyway!  In the worst case, you'll make a
mistake, and advanced user will send a correction in a few hours.
You'll learn from that.  And the questioner will still get a warm
and fuzzy feeling from seeing both your attempted answer and the
correction.  It'll emphasize that you're just another user who is
trying to help out.


I'd love it if we could get an official "User Support Team", or
whatever name you want[1].  All it requires is that you answer any
emails you can, as soon as you can do so (within reason,
obviously).  I mean, if you see a question you can answer, don't
say "oh well... if nobody gets that before tomorrow, I'll do it
during my lunch break" -- spend the 5 minutes *right then*
answering the question.
Ideally this group would also know how to search and add new
material to LSR, but I wouldn't make that a requirement.


[1] Personally, I'd go for the "Fuzziness Force", devoted to
making confused people feel warm and fuzzy.  But I suspect that
other people aren't as fond of fuzzy things as I am... and
besides, people would start calling you "the FF" or "FFers", and
this whole thing started with a rant against abbreviations.  :)

Cheers,
- Graham