Dead Threads Recommendation to List./SuSE
I wonder if SuSE would consider assigning/hiring an employee to respond to unanswered requests to this list on a weekly basis. I suggest an employee, because I assume that if anyone on the list KNEW the answer, they would have already provided it. I'd guess, but don't know, that if this employee just devoted Mondays to cleaning up the prior week's dead threads that might be all the time it required (assuming a fairly knowledgable SuSE employee.) Or, it could be someone's full-time job and they could simply stay 1-week behind the list. If something was posted last Monday and hasn't gotten a response by this Monday, then the SuSE-Support-Guru tackles it. (And so on for Tuesday...) OR, in the open source collaborative spirit, perhaps a team of more experienced SuSE list-readers could volunteer to tackle this project. If one person took last Monday's dead threads, and one person took Tuesday's dead threads, etc., we'd only need 7 or so experienced SuSE users to make a go of this. In the case where you've stumped the expert, they should simply respond to the list that this is the case, and this might catch the eye of one of our other resident experts, and push things towards a solution. I'm defining a "dead thread" as a question that receives absolutely no responses. This doesn't handle those threads which receive numerous responses that don't resolve the problem. (I myself have started more of those than I care to think about right now.) But until list-users more actively posted [SOLVED] at the end of a successful thread, it would likely be too difficult for one person (especially a volunteer) to pour over every thread and then guess whether it was solved. That then leads to another recommendation I welcome comment on. While, an e-mail that just says "Thanks" adds to the already high volume of the list, if people more actively replied with Re: [SLE] My Topic [SOLVED] and then described which solution worked for them, it would become possible for us to more easily track which questions never got adequately addressed, and would make archive searching more valuable for those who come after us. P.S. If you think "dead threads" are a non-issue, I can count over 60 requests to this list, in just the last week, that received ZERO responses. (Some are not yet a week old and may yet be answered, but I think even a 3-4 day old request with no answer would likely alienate a newbie to the list. My 1-week plans above wouldn't address this exactly, but newbies could observe that dead-threads are tackled at the 1-week mark and would then be less likely to lose hope.) Anyway, I think it's in SuSE's best interest to hire people for this purpose as it could contribute significantly to the general opinion users have of the quality of the distribution. Or, if we users want to give back to SuSE and its users, then we need only find 7 SuSE gurus who are willing to devote one day a week to answering on average 9 or so questions that slip through the cracks. (I'd also be open to an area-of-expertise guru system, but then assigning the dead threads becomes a little more complicated, but workable.) Comments welcome. -- Brian Support EFF! http://www.eff.org/ They're defending YOUR rights online.
On Tuesday 25 June 2002 15:40, Brian W. Carver wrote:
P.S. If you think "dead threads" are a non-issue, I can count over 60 requests to this list, in just the last week, that received ZERO responses. (Some are not yet a week old and may yet be answered, but I
Hi, OT, not commenting on your idea, but could be it (dead thread) be cause by different timezone? Because I feel when I post at arround midnight (I'm in Asia), my questions usually get responds. Regards, Verdi
Comments welcome.
-- Brian Support EFF! http://www.eff.org/ They're defending YOUR rights online.
On Tuesday 25 June 2002 09:40, Brian W. Carver wrote:
I wonder if SuSE would consider assigning/hiring an employee to respond to unanswered requests to this list on a weekly basis. <SNIP>
Maybe I am misinterpreting what you are saying, but neither SuSE nor the list
members have any obligation to answer questions. I have personally asked
questions before to which I never received an answer, even after reposting
it. It's frustrating, but that is the way it is on any list.
Often the questions that I see that are either too vague ("<whatever> is not
working correctly. What's wrong?") or too complex ("How do I set up a
firewall?"). In the first case, the list has no idea what the user has
already done, what error messages appear and so forth. Should we really waste
our time by repeating the comment dozens of times a days "Give us more
information"? In the later case, it is unclear what the technical level of
the user is. I have seen questions along those lines where the poster did not
even have an understanding of basic networking concepts. Should we really
spend our time explaining what a netmask is or what different protocols are
even before we start explaining how to set up a firewall?
While I support your idea to post a [SOLVED]-message, the entire rest bothers
me. You said "devote one day a week". Do you have the time to devote an
entire day, as that is what it would take? If you are the Tuesday-person and
there is a dead thread on a subject you know nothing about what do you do? If
you have some "obligation" to solve the problem, you will probably need to
do some research to find the solution. Why shouldn't the poster do the
research? Personally, considering the amount of time many people devote to
this list **for free** we all need to be very grateful.
I remember a question several months ago about some error when the driver for
a specific network card loaded. It was first posted to the SuSE and a few
days later to the Linux-Newbie list. Neither was answered. I did not know the
answer, but I was still curious just what the posted had done to find the
answer himself. I did a search on Google for the complete text of the error
message. Sure enough, I found dozens of pages that directly answered the
question. Why should SuSE pay someone to search Google or why should the list
members do it for someone else?
I don't think it is the responsibility of either SuSE or the list to "push
things towards a solution", but rather the original poster. If a message has
gone unswered for a week and the original poster has done nothing during that
week to find an answer himself, why should SuSE or the list take the time to
do the research?
Another problem I see is that some list members get annoyed and publically
voice their annoyance when they post a question and the answer is simply
man
James Mohr wrote:
Maybe I am misinterpreting what you are saying, but neither SuSE nor the list members have any obligation to answer questions.
Yes, I think my point wasn't clear enough. I don't believe SuSE or the list has any *obligation* to answer unanswered questions. Rather, I think it would be a really *good* thing, and so I suggested it. I *asked* SuSE to consider it, and didn't *demand* it from them. I also suggested *volunteers* not indentured servants. I also have a different perspective on the number of quality researched questions that appear on the list. I don't deny that there are vague or even idiotic questions, and I don't suggest we bother with those, but I know *I* have often done every kind of search in my power to resolve an issue and tried to ask as clear a question as I could to the list and still ended up without a solution, usually despite the list-readers kind and appreciated efforts. Out of the 60+ dead threads from the last week I looked at, I'd say that as many as 85% of them were well-crafted questions with an honest attempt to provide necessary information. I can't say how much research the posters did, but I know that *I* don't know the answer to their questions off hand, and the vast majority of them strike me as reasonable questions. If it turns out that a quick google search answers most of them (I seriously doubt this, as it hasn't been my experience with my still unresolved SuSE problems) then the time required for someone to address these just went WAY down, and so your suggestion that someone will have to devote all day to this contradicts your contention that the questions are mostly easily resolved. I think what I might really want is an easily searchable SuSEzilla, where unresolved list questions could be assigned to someone/some group and tracked until resolved. I think overall user satisfaction with SuSE would thereby be increased, and I also think that increasing overall user satisfaction is likely a goal of SuSE's as well as a goal of its ardent supporters. If SuSE or we users take these questions on as an *obligation*, we do so freely. -- Brian Support EFF! http://www.eff.org/ They're defending YOUR rights online.
On Tuesday 25 June 2002 11:36, Brian W. Carver wrote:
I *asked* SuSE to consider it, and didn't *demand* it from them. I also suggested *volunteers* not indentured servants.
I didn't read any "demand" in there, but so often people make angry post when their question is not answered. (Not that yours was angry.) Even as volunteers, once you volunteer, there is always a certain amount of "obligation". I "volunteered" to coach a little league baseball team. Since I live in Germany and am one of the few Americans with a son on the team, it seem like I was the logical choice to ask me to "volunteer." However, there is a heck of a lot of "obligation".
but I know *I* have often done every kind of search in my power to resolve an issue and tried to ask as clear a question as I could to the list and still ended up without a solution, usually despite the list-readers kind and appreciated efforts.
Are your subjects clear? "PLEASE HELP ME!!!!" is not a post that I read. Sorry, but that's the truth. I am not going to spend the time to even click on the message unless I have something more. This list gets hundreds of posts a day, I have a real job and I am working on my Linux Tutorial (see below). That's what's I spend my time on.
I can't say how much research the posters did, but I know that *I* don't know the answer to their questions off hand, and the vast majority of them strike me as reasonable questions.
Maybe they are reasonable. However, I empty the folder with the list messages every two or three days. Otherwise I end up with thousands of unread messages, which I will never read and is just too much to wade through looking for "dead threads". I would image that others do the same.
If it turns out that a quick google search answers most of them (I seriously doubt this, as it hasn't been my experience with my still unresolved SuSE problems) then the time required for someone to address these just went WAY down, and so your suggestion that someone will have to devote all day to this contradicts your contention that the questions are mostly easily resolved.
Granted quick answers found through google would contradict the all-day research. However, I know for a fact that solutions are found like that. If one (not necessarily you) does not mention that they already searched on Google, I typically won't bother to do a search to save them the time. I am not saying that you should not help. In fact, there have been a couple of times where the question made me curious, so I checked Google and posted the answer. However, these are just several reasons why people might not reply.
I think what I might really want is an easily searchable SuSEzilla, where unresolved list questions could be assigned to someone/some group and tracked until resolved.
"assigned ... and tracked until resolved"?!?!?!? I'm a hotline manager. That's a heck of a lot of work for 60 calls a week! Even if there is some tool. Someone has to set up the tool, someone has to set up escalation rules, someone has to monitor the calls, etc,etc,etc. And we have not even started solving the problem! I'm not going to pay double the price just for that. There is far, far more to organized support than just setting up a database. How are these calls supposed to get into that database? Someone will need to go through the messages **manually** and pick out the ones that have not been answered. What about the cases where someone replied to the poster and not to the list? A week after the call is posted, someone sees it and starts working on it. They post to the list and the original poster says "Oh, I forget to tell everyone I got a solution." What about the case where they finally do find a solution (i.e. Google) and forget to mention it? Both the administrative and problem-solving work are wasted. Who is going to set up the schedule? Is it a FIFO where you work on the oldest call? What if you have no clue about the problem? Do people get to pick and choose which calls? What is the "escalation" policy for calls that are not answered? Are the volunteers assigned a specific hour during the week or a specific quota of calls to work on? How do the "gurus" access this SuSEzilla? You need someway to keep track of the status. Therefore you probably need to create user accounts. How, do you verify that a user is really a "guru" and not a Red Hat or Caldera employee trying to make SuSE look bad and closes all the problems before they are solved?
I think overall user satisfaction with SuSE would thereby be increased, and I also think that increasing overall user satisfaction is likely a goal of SuSE's as well as a goal of its ardent supporters. If SuSE or we users take these questions on as an *obligation*, we do so freely.
The Law of Diminishing Returns. Will SuSE invest $100K to keep ten users happy if they did not pay for the product? Did **you** pay for your copy of SuSE? I sure did, even though I could have gotten it for free. I think it would be more in their interest if SuSE created a low-fee (yes, $$$) email support for registered users. If I could be guarenteed answers in a few days, I would pay a couple hundred dollars a year, even as a private person and not a business. Although I really think the idea behind your suggestion is well-meaning, I really don't think it is practical. Regards, jimmo -- --------------------------------------- "Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others thing you are." -- John Wooden --------------------------------------- Be sure to visit the Linux Tutorial: http://www.linux-tutorial.info --------------------------------------- NOTE: All messages sent to me in response to my posts to newsgroups or forums are subject to reposting.
On Tuesday 25 June 2002 22:03, James Mohr wrote:
Are your subjects clear? "PLEASE HELP ME!!!!" is not a post that I read. Sorry, but that's the truth. I am not going to spend the time to even click on the message unless I have something more. This list gets hundreds of posts a day, I have a real job and I am working on my Linux Tutorial (see below). That's what's I spend my time on.
Having been to have a look, I have to say that James's tutorial seems to me to be an excellent resource for anyone coming new to Linux. It is readable without being condescending, it is patient and clear without being dull. After reading the first thirty pages or so, I feel that I have at last hit on the book I needed. I also suspect that older hands would benefit. It's at : http://www.linux-tutorial.info/ Best wishes Timothy Mason
I'd like to mention that my original suggestion has nothing to do with changing the current list format, which I agree would be a regrettable change. I'm recommending the same list with lots more happy users, because the likelihood that their question gets answered goes up dramatically. There have been so far, almost no comments on the merits of the original idea. Any SuSE employees care to comment on the likelihood of SuSE assigning/hiring someone to the task I described? An SuSE gurus care to be the first to volunteer their expertise? As I envisaged it, each "guru" would spend no more than 1 hour per week on this. If that means we need 14, or 21, or 28... gurus instead of 7, then so be it. Division of labor my friends. It's one of the key things that makes open source work. -- Brian Support EFF! http://www.eff.org/ They're defending YOUR rights online.
* Brian W. Carver (bwcarver@earthlink.net) [020625 10:25]:
Any SuSE employees care to comment on the likelihood of SuSE assigning/hiring someone to the task I described? An SuSE gurus care to be the first to volunteer their expertise?
Sure. There are currently 21 SuSE employees subscribed to this list, some of them very notable developers like Thorsten Kukuk and Phillip Thomas. All participation is completely voluntary and is done "off the clock". I don't know if this true for all 21 people, but I know it's true for myself and a couple others: I tend to ignore the list when I get frustrated with it. The things that frustrate me are (in no particular order) o off topic posting. This is not an advocacy group and the only time Windows should be discussed is in the context of smb, bootloaders, etc. Likewise, if you want to discuss some Linux-related press release or the merits of United Linux (just to pick one off the top of my head) please go to Slashdot to do it. This is a technical list. o FAQs. Google works amazingly well. Togan Muftuoglu and others are doing a fantastic job with the unofficial SLE faq (as is Peter Nixon with the suse-security FAQ). The lists have numerous searchable archives all over the world. Posting a FAQ is done out laziness, not from lack of resources. o Poor formatting/incomplete information/rude people Taking the time to spell check and properly format your post is not only polite (every tried to translate something from a language you don't speak well when there are typos?) but it makes the archives mentioned above easier to use. Browse through the archives and you'll see SuSE people answering lots of questions and I don't think it's fair to claim that we don't. -- -ckm
On Tue, 25 Jun 2002 13:00:28 -0700
Christopher Mahmood
Browse through the archives and you'll see SuSE people answering lots of questions and I don't think it's fair to claim that we don't.
Those of us who have been on the list for a while know very well of your support to the list, and are grateful for it. Please keep it up! Terence
Christopher Mahmood wrote:
Browse through the archives and you'll see SuSE people answering lots of questions and I don't think it's fair to claim that we don't.
I don't believe I ever claimed that SuSE employees or list-readers generally don't answer questions. Obviously they do. I merely pointed out the number of (what I viewed as) legitimate questions that don't get answered and tried my best to suggest a means by which SuSE and the list could do better. Given the high volume of the list, if only 60 dead threads appear weekly, then the list's percentage is actually quite good. I just thought it possible we could find a way to do even better. Apparently everyone wants to either 1) assume I have some mal-intent in merely recommending a means of improving things. or 2) merely list off the countless problems/hazards/roadblocks to my suggestion rather than consider the possibility it could have any merit whatsoever and join in a process of overcoming the potential problems. I'm baffled as to why this is the case, but I'm content to drop it, since it was apparently such a roundly hated idea. P.S. I paid SuSE directly for my SuSE 8.0 Pro (to whomever also wanted to cast aspersions at my obvious attempt to get something for nothing.) -- Brian Support EFF! http://www.eff.org/ They're defending YOUR rights online.
On Tuesday 25 June 2002 21:48, Brian W. Carver wrote:
I don't believe I ever claimed that SuSE employees or list-readers generally don't answer questions. Obviously they do. I merely pointed out the number of (what I viewed as) legitimate questions that don't get answered and tried my best to suggest a means by which SuSE and the list could do better. Given the high volume of the list, if only 60 dead threads appear weekly, then the list's percentage is actually quite good. I just thought it possible we could find a way to do even better.
This list is generally my list of last resort. I first go to my local LUG. Perhaps there is a method to easily flag unanswered replies. There is a FAQ/How-to on how to porplerly ask a question, maybe the replies here can be combined with a few links to crate a no_one_answered_my_question_now_what. how-to
* Brian W. Carver (bwcarver@earthlink.net) [020625 18:48]:
Christopher Mahmood wrote:
Browse through the archives and you'll see SuSE people answering lots of questions and I don't think it's fair to claim that we don't.
I don't believe I ever claimed that SuSE employees or list-readers generally don't answer questions. Obviously they do. I merely pointed out the number of (what I viewed as) legitimate questions that don't get answered and tried my best to suggest a means by which SuSE and the list could do better.
Now that I've had time to re-read your initial post you didn't say that, sorry for misquoting you.
Given the high volume of the list, if only 60 dead threads appear weekly, then the list's percentage is actually quite good. I just thought it possible we could find a way to do even better.
[snip evil ulterior motives]
I'm baffled as to why this is the case, but I'm content to drop it, since it was apparently such a roundly hated idea.
It's not a bad idea at all but we (read: me) can't do it because of time and cost constraints. Have it at, go for it, organize an informal support team that tracks questions and escalates them. Everyone will appreciate it. The truth is, unanswered questions usually go unanswered for the reasons stated earlier: the quality of the answer is proportional to the quality of the question and well, some questions are pretty bad. So just relax and enjoy the beautiful *plonk* as you add people to your killfile who question your motives. -- -ckm
On Wednesday 26 June 2002 10:49, Christopher Mahmood wrote:
The truth is, unanswered questions usually go unanswered for the reasons stated earlier: the quality of the answer is proportional to the quality of the question and well, some questions are pretty bad.
Plase remember that not all SuSEer have english as the mother languange. Should I put this in the first line of question: "I'm not good at english, so my question quality looks poor"
On Wed, 26 Jun 2002 15:03:54 +0700
Mojojojo
Plase remember that not all SuSEer have english as the mother languange. Should I put this in the first line of question: "I'm not good at english, so my question quality looks poor"
After some years on this list I can tell you that (usually) non-native English speakers' questions are no worse (and in some cases better) than those for whom it is the first language. Usually, too, considerable allowances are made for those who are trying hard to express themselves clearly in a foreign language, and answers given using the same consideration. I think the point here is that badly thought out and/or badly expressed questions are less likely to be answered than those which are clearly and accurately written- even if the grammar or spelling is less than perfect! There is certainly no need to apologise for your efforts at English! :-) Terence
* Mojojojo (mojojoj0@boleh.com) [020626 01:08]:
Should I put this in the first line of question: "I'm not good at english, so my question quality looks poor"
I have to agree with Terence on this--It really has nothing to do with how well someone speaks English. Sorry if that's how my comment came across. -- -ckm
On Wednesday 26 June 2002 03:48, Brian W. Carver wrote:
Christopher Mahmood wrote: I'm baffled as to why this is the case, but I'm content to drop it, since it was apparently such a roundly hated idea.
It's not a "hated" idea, at least not from my perspective. I am also not saying you are trying to get something for nothing when I asked whether you paid for the software. However, there have been many posts where people do insists others are obligated to answer, although the poster has never paid (and will never pay) for the software. SuSE knows that many people on the list have never paid one cent, pence, yen, or eurocent for the software. However, they still pay to have this list administered. Many of the posts are simply explanations of why questions don't get answered. I support the cause (helping people) and even the method (making sure that things do not fall through the crack). However, what you are suggesting involves a great deal of administrative work. My experience in setting up two hotlines from scratch and the associated problem databases tells me that there is many, many times more administrative work during the initial setup as actual problem solving. My guess at this point is probably 10:1. After it is set up, there is still a lot of administrative work. Depending on the complexity of the problem, you could still have a 1:1 ration of problem solving to admin. Should we all blindly jump up and shout "Great idea! Let's go!"? Or should the people with experience in this (Christopher with managing lists, Phillip and "open source" projects, me and setting up hotlines) tell you what the suggestion **really** means? Hey, if you want to volunteer to set up the database, the user interface, develop a scheduling mechanism, work out an escalation proceedure, write an interface between the list and the problem tracking tool, then I will share my hotline experience and expertise with you. HOWEVER, you are opening yourself up for a heck of a lot of work, even before the first problem is solved. Best Regards, jimmo -- --------------------------------------- "Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others thing you are." -- John Wooden --------------------------------------- Be sure to visit the Linux Tutorial: http://www.linux-tutorial.info --------------------------------------- NOTE: All messages sent to me in response to my posts to newsgroups or forums are subject to reposting.
"Brian W. Carver"
Any SuSE employees care to comment on the likelihood of SuSE assigning/hiring someone to the task I described?
Chances are nil that someone is hired/assigned for the task.
An SuSE gurus care to be the first to volunteer their expertise?
Oh, quite a few colleagues including myself do participate but they do it in their free (i.e. unpaid) time. I can't speak for others, but as it's my free time, I tend to be picky about the mails I answer. Many of them I just can't answer because I don't deal with that stuff (I'm a developer, not a supporter or sysadmin). At other times I'm simply annoyed by the disregarding of common netiquette: - use of MUAs that shredder threads because they don't support in-reply-to and references - stray mails in threads because she/he used reply just to pick up the list address. - inability or unwillingness to properly edit replies. See, I do this for fun and because I like to share knowledge, so I'm off if it gets irritating (to put it mildly).
Division of labor my friends. It's one of the key things that makes open source work.
Hmmm, might I point you to a number of open source projects that died because of lack of volunteers? Or that don't develop very fast because of the same reason? Philipp (who's going to bed to get at least 5 hours of sleep)
* Brian W. Carver;
I wonder if SuSE would consider assigning/hiring an employee to respond to unanswered requests to this list on a weekly basis. I suggest an ....
Well I would prefer to see a half full glass. As a start you can send me FAQ's based on the SLE popularity every week and I will add them to the unofficial SuSE FAQ. -- Togan Muftuoglu Unofficial SuSE FAQ Maintainer http://dinamizm.ath.cx
participants (10)
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Brian W. Carver -
Christopher Mahmood -
James Mohr -
Mike -
Mojojojo -
Philipp Thomas -
Terence McCarthy -
Timothy Mason -
Togan Muftuoglu -
Verdi March