Lots of good points, Mike. On Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:57:02 -0600, Mike McCallister wrote:
* I have a recurring task on my to-do list to visit the forums weekly, but in practice it's a good month when I get there. When I do get there, often the issues I think I can contribute to are already solved, or I ask followup questions that don't get answered. Still classified as a "puzzled penguin."
An idea that we've kicked around in the forums staff area is a way of identifying project members in the forums. We have done custom titles for a few people that we recognized as contributors - Greg K-H comes to mind because he stops by fairly regularly and helps people out in the tumbleweed forum. We've got a couple package maintainers who we've also done that for. The lack of a comprehensive single sign on solution across the different project areas makes it a very labor-intensive and time-consuming process to identify members in a consistent manner (much less automating the process). It's something I'd still like to pursue. Drop me a PM on the forums or an e-mail off-list and let's chat about ways we might better recognize those who are members/contributors so they don't come in and come across as a 'puzzled penguin'. Just like with Greg and the other contributors we know of in the forums, it didn't seem right to classify him as a 'puzzled penguin'. Those titles are coded into the software with thresholds based on message counts - nothing more. But admin staff have the ability to assign custom titles, and I'm happy to take such requests to staff.
Perhaps now that the Project has a strategy, we should define a strategy for the community.
I think that's an excellent idea. We have a fairly significantly-sized community, but it's also fairly disconnected. I think more coordination between the various venues would be good - but at the same time, community standards in the different venues vary, and that's (IMHO) as it should be.
One more idea: we should look at how users expect to get help, and direct those who want to help/contribute toward those venues. There must be some traffic analytics that can help us figure these things out! Then we can ask members to help.
Agreed. We do occasionally have end-users who wonder how they can contribute - they don't code (often) and are unaware that they can contribute in other ways. There are even those who occasionally ask where they can make donations, and are surprised that the project has no mechanism to accept them. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org