[ubuntu-uk] getting help - UK List

[Toby Smithe]

/me could do this kind of thing for teh venezuela fund :)

On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 21:19 +0000, London School of Puppetry wrote:
> I understand exactly what you are saying.  But no-one would expect
> anything for nothing. If my neighbour is paying for a local Windows
> chap to do an hour's work sorting her crashing computer out then
> surely there has to be the equivalent Ubuntu person? Her chap goes
> from appointment to appointment and designs and builds web sites in
> between. Caroline 
> 
> On 29/01/07, Alan Pope <alan at popey.com> wrote:
>         On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 19:33 +0000, Matthew East wrote:
>         > On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 17:45 +0000, Alan Pope wrote:
>         > > On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 14:54 +0100, Matthew East wrote:
>         > > > On Mon, January 29, 2007 1:10 am, London School of
>         Puppetry wrote: 
>         > > > > is there a list somewhere of Ubuntu experts
>         > > >
>         > > > There isn't such a list for the UK. However, developing
>         one would be a
>         > > > very worthwhile task for this team to carry out - face
>         to face help is a 
>         > > > very important type of help which is much more difficult
>         to find for
>         > > > Ubuntu than it should be.
>         > >
>         > > How would you envisage such a list operating?
>         > >
>         > > Would this be a "not an Ubuntu official partner, but
>         willing to help" 
>         > > type list?
>         >
>         > There is already one of those:
>         http://www.ubuntu.com/support/marketplace
>         >
>         
>         Yes, I was aware of that, wanted to clarify what you were
>         suggesting. 
>         
>         > What I had in mind was more something by way of freely
>         available
>         > community support.
>         
>         I always find that a little tricky.
>         
>         For me (whether right or wrong) I like to choose how and when
>         I
>         contribute to the community. As with everyone else I have a
>         limited
>         amount of time to spend between this/that/theother. I also (as
>         with
>         everyone else) have requirements to pay bills and feed myself
>         and the
>         family. So this leads to a careful(ish) balancing act
>         between:- 
>         
>         a) Work - stuff that pays bills
>         b) FLOSS stuff - contributing to the community for free
>         c) Other - family stuff etc
>         
>         If someone were to pay me to do b) then I could do less of a)
>         in order
>         to do c). If I were to advertise my free services then the
>         balance might 
>         tip more towards b) detracting the attention from those vital
>         c) and a)
>         sections.
>         
>         At the moment I can walk away from a computer, not looking at
>         the
>         support tickets, mailing lists, email (to do a) or c)) knowing
>         that they 
>         will either pile up and I will have to go through them when I
>         get back,
>         or someone else will deal with them.
>         
>         If the contact is direct via email/phone/IM/whatever then the
>         system of
>         one-to-many turns into one-to-one. This is of course
>         potentially 
>         beneficial to the recipient of the help, but less useful for
>         the helper.
>         More of my time would be dedicated to helping one individual -
>         and
>         whilst that would be a fulfilling task, it's not time
>         efficient. Think 
>         of all the other people who have the same problem now or in
>         the future
>         who will not benefit from the private conversations between
>         myself and
>         the person I am helping.
>         
>         I would say we are better off pointing people to the support
>         ticket 
>         system, as there are many eyeballs on it. For example I was
>         going like e
>         demon on that between October and December last year, but this
>         year have
>         barely touched it due to other commitments. Do the people
>         asking
>         questions get no support as a result? No, because there are
>         loads of
>         other committed people who the work load-balances around.
>         
>         Compare that with the person down the road who needs some
>         one-on-one, if
>         I am away doing a) and c) then they are left in a situation
>         where they 
>         may mail/phone/IM/whatever me and get no response, or get a
>         very delayed
>         response. How does that look/feel for them? In addition as I
>         focus my
>         attention on them, talking them through whatever issue they
>         have, what 
>         happens to all the other people who are waiting for their
>         support
>         tickets to be answered in a way that will benefit future
>         google-users?
>         
>         I appreciate some people need a little hand-holding, I really
>         do. But
>         when someone is desperate for help (machine wont boot) they
>         will expect
>         the person helping to drop stuff to come over to help won't
>         they? That's
>         how I often find people with problems.
>         
>         I know I have worded this mail from my perspective, but I am
>         pretty sure 
>         it's not far off how many people feel about helping with the
>         community.
>         
>         Am I out of order / hypocritical / wrong? Please tell me. I
>         would like
>         to offer as much time and support to the community as I can,
>         but I like 
>         the idea of time-inefficiency built-in.
>         
>         Cheers,
>         Al.
>         
>         
>         --
>         ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
>         https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
>         https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
>         
>         
>         
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> ---
> London School of Puppetry 
> www.londonschoolofpuppetry.com
-- 
Help me get to Venezuela!
http://tibsplace.co.uk/venezuela