Dear all,
I have came across interesting article[1] about school that switched to Linux. What is interesting is interaction with community that in moment was not too flattering, but again not too bad. :) Anyway i would propose some kind of article for first page of opensuse.org or i do not know exactly how/where - "How to help you switch / how to get volunteers to help you". I think that we have a lot of people who are willing to help even going on site and do consulting or even working with them.
1) https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/elibrary/case/british-school-switches-students-c...
Boris
On 09/25/2013 04:22 AM, Boris Manojlovic wrote:
Dear all,
I have came across interesting article[1] about school that switched to Linux. What is interesting is interaction with community that in moment was not too flattering, but again not too bad. :) Anyway i would propose some kind of article for first page of opensuse.org or i do not know exactly how/where - "How to help you switch / how to get volunteers to help you". I think that we have a lot of people who are willing to help even going on site and do consulting or even working with them.
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/elibrary/case/british-school-switches-students-c...
Thanks for that link. It was a very interesting read.
It was good to note that the person that had problems with the Forum also admitted that their questions were not well written. A second problem is that they often fail to provide requested input in the proper format even after several requests. I agree that some additional documentation for beginners would be useful.
The second case study showed how effective has been the brainwashing of the public by Microsoft and Apple. The individuals that paid a nominal fee for OpenOffice continued to use it, but the ones that got it free stopped using it and purchased Microsoft Office even when their usage was for simple letters. I have no idea what it will take for people to understand open-source projects.
Larry
On Wed, 25 Sep 2013 11:01:45 -0500, Larry Finger wrote:
It was good to note that the person that had problems with the Forum also admitted that their questions were not well written. A second problem is that they often fail to provide requested input in the proper format even after several requests. I agree that some additional documentation for beginners would be useful.
I noted that as well - the comment in the article mentioned that we have an expectation of intelligent questions. I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation, though for new users it can be hard to know what constitutes an intelligent question.
I've taken to point people who seem to have trouble with that at Eric Raymond's essay on asking smart questions, as that seems to be a good place to start.
I have also been trying to find the time to finish drafting an automated welcome message for new users that outline some of the FAQs we get (a) about the forums, and (b) about how to provide the information needed. The challenge is that it needs to be quite succinct or it won't get read, but there needs to be a fair amount of information conveyed.
Jim
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On Wednesday, 2013-09-25 at 11:01 -0500, Larry Finger wrote:
Thanks for that link. It was a very interesting read.
It was good to note that the person that had problems with the Forum also admitted that their questions were not well written. A second problem is that they often fail to provide requested input in the proper format even after several requests. I agree that some additional documentation for beginners would be useful.
«Moore admits that in the early stages some of his questions "were not done well". However, with limited manpower and time, reading manuals for all the software components was not an option.»
Ie, documentation would be useless, they would not read it; they expect the forum to give answers instead, even if they ask questions difficult to understand and do not answer back properly the requests from the volunteers.
- -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from 12.3 x86_64 "Dartmouth" at Telcontar)
On Sun, 29 Sep 2013 04:42:07 +0200 (CEST) "Carlos E. R." carlos.e.r@opensuse.org wrote:
Ie, documentation would be useless, they would not read it; they expect the forum to give answers instead, even if they ask questions difficult to understand and do not answer back properly the requests from the volunteers.
You have to know part of an answer in order to ask a question the Knowledge Keeper can answer.
Translate that to Moore's situation: * He knows Windows terminology, directory structure, utilities, configurations, etc. Some of that is the same, some different, but until you learn both Windows and Linux you have no idea what is the same and what different. * Number of programs for different purposes in Linux is sometimes much larger then in Windows, sometimes smaller. While programming and system administration is in Linux more then well covered, multimedia, graphics and entertainment are not that good. He had to cover both, admin functions for setting up and administering the network, and education, including multimedia. * He did not have time to learn all that. It takes years, and he had to give some well working solution before mentality to buy (fewer) new Windows machines kicks in and sidetracks his effort.
In other words he was forced to learn on the go: * how to deal with community helpers (what is acceptable, what not, whom to trust) * new terms in order to ask proper questions * new programs and their capabilities in order to provide feedback
If you are not familiar with a problem then look at the zillion systemd man pages, and that is much smaller problem than what he had.
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On Sunday, 2013-09-29 at 03:26 -0500, Rajko wrote:
On Sun, 29 Sep 2013 04:42:07 +0200 (CEST) "Carlos E. R." <> wrote:
Ie, documentation would be useless, they would not read it; they expect the forum to give answers instead, even if they ask questions difficult to understand and do not answer back properly the requests from the volunteers.
You have to know part of an answer in order to ask a question the Knowledge Keeper can answer.
Experienced volunteers know and expect the poster not to know enough, and will ask questions of him to complete the information given. But they certainly expect he read those replies and that he answer all the questions as best as possible - and if he doesn't know how, to say just that.
If the poster "refuses" (so to speak) to answer the questions, the volunteers may insist, and if the same happens, they may leave the thread.
They are volunteers, after all. They expect the poster to make an effort.
The poster is pissed, blames the forum, the volunteers, and openSUSE and SUSE at large, with gross words some times. Does not happen often, but it happens.
Something of the sort happened to the person on the article, I guess.
Translate that to Moore's situation:
- He knows Windows terminology, directory structure, utilities,
configurations, etc. Some of that is the same, some different, but until you learn both Windows and Linux you have no idea what is the same and what different.
- Number of programs for different purposes in Linux is sometimes much
larger then in Windows, sometimes smaller. While programming and system administration is in Linux more then well covered, multimedia, graphics and entertainment are not that good. He had to cover both, admin functions for setting up and administering the network, and education, including multimedia.
- He did not have time to learn all that. It takes years, and he had to
give some well working solution before mentality to buy (fewer) new Windows machines kicks in and sidetracks his effort.
In other words he was forced to learn on the go:
- how to deal with community helpers (what is acceptable, what not,
whom to trust)
- new terms in order to ask proper questions
- new programs and their capabilities in order to provide feedback
If you are not familiar with a problem then look at the zillion systemd man pages, and that is much smaller problem than what he had.
All that is true, but... the user has to make an effort. He can not blame the volunteers for not helping him as much as he wants. Not having time to learn (probably on a paid job?) does not give him the right to demand more effort from the unpaid volunteers. IMHO.
Nevertheless, we help everybody, as best as we can.
- -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from 12.3 x86_64 "Dartmouth" at Telcontar)
On Sun, 29 Sep 2013 03:26:02 -0500, Rajko wrote:
In other words he was forced to learn on the go:
- how to deal with community helpers (what is acceptable, what not, whom to trust)
As do we all. That's not unique to his situation.
- new terms in order to ask proper questions
Again, as do we all when confronted with something new. If in doubt, it's certainly considered acceptable to ask and to say "I don't know what the term is that should be used here" or "I don't know how to find that piece of information out - can you provide some guidance?"
- new programs and their
capabilities in order to provide feedback
Learning about an OS is an ongoing process, regardless of how expert you are.
If you are not familiar with a problem then look at the zillion systemd man pages, and that is much smaller problem than what he had.
Which is true - so asking "how can I narrow down the list" is better than "I'm not going to read the documentation, so teach me what I need to know."
I'm not saying that Moore did that (in fact, I went through his posts/ threads in the forum, and honestly couldn't find an instance of what he claimed happened). But I all too often see people who engage in "getting help" by doing something like:
--- snip ---
Q: My video doesn't work! Fix it for me!
A: We'd love to help, but we need to know what video card you have, the version of openSUSE, and what specifically doesn't work/happens on your system.
Q: I don't know how to tell that! Just fix it for me!
--- snip ---
Or, if they do post something useful, they don't use code tags (which means the log file content is nearly impossible to read because the forum software reformats it), or they post in the wrong forum, or any one of a hundred other things that hinder their ability to get help.
Followed by getting *angry* at being told how to provide information in a way that lets those who help in the forums actually help.
It usually boils down to "my time is valuable" (on the asker's side) and yours isn't. And it comes across as "I need this answer in 30 seconds or I'm switching distros" (we've had people mistake forums for IRC-like chats, even) and "I gave you the information you need to help me, it's up to you - the helper - to decypher it and make sense out of it, regardless of whether or not it's what you actually needed or asked for."
Not to mention those who are asked for information that's extremely relevant and don't respond to it, don't try the things that are suggested, or that just rant that they're not getting helped despite the best efforts of those trying to help to actually help.
If you ask a question and get an answer you don't like (for reasons other than "that suggestion didn't work"), the proper way to respond isn't "I like not that answer. Bring me a different answer!".
But we get that on occasion. It's not common, but it is rare. And again, not a characterization of Moore's experiences in the openSUSE forums.
Anytime someone complains about the forums, though, I research the issue as best I can to find out what we could have done better. Usually, though, what I find is that the person with the complaint hasn't been helped either because (a) nobody has the necessary experience/expertise to help them (forums are, after all, "best effort," and most people won't jump into a thread on a topic they know nothing about), or (b) they didn't want to use a solution that was provided to them for whatever reason.
Jim
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Boris Manojlovic -
Carlos E. R. -
Jim Henderson -
Larry Finger -
Rajko