[ubuntu-uk] I'm new

[Avi Greenbury]

Tony Pursell wrote:
> > Canonical, the commercial organisation, is configured so. I don't
> > think you'll ever have a provided-in-free-time sort of support
> > arrangement that matches up to the sorts of things that that the
> > paid for ones do in terms of maintaining a low level of technical
> 
> But this doesn't mean we shouldn't try to improve the level of free
> support.

Oh no. I just meant that where that's wanted, it is available at some
cost.

> > understanding - I'm generally of the opinion that a difficult answer
> > that might need research is better than no answer at all, and that's
> > what I'll provide if I've not got the time to explain the meaning. 
> 
> But isn't this the way the sort of problem that started this thread
> arose?

Yes. But I don't think the solution is to just stop giving technical
responses. Apart from anything else, there's probably more people
wanting the technical sorts of answers than not by the simple fact that
as time goes on and experience is gained technical answers become more
appropriate.

> Agreed. If someone asks for support to compile something, then the
> explain how, but don't just wade in and say 'compile this' if you
> don't yet know the user's level of expertise.

Equally, the user should feel free to say "I've no idea what you're
talking about" if/when someone does say "Aha, yes, you just need to
build this module".

> > There is one:
> > http://www.ubuntu.com/support/training/course-types
> 
> You cannot expect volunteers to pay for training.  

Ah, no. I thought you meant for users. 

I think training everyone who's likely to be giving answers on IRC in
giving answers on IRC is impractical at best.


> I do sometimes suggest a forum for some technical problems but most of
> the LO/OOo questions are answered in situ.  Launchpad Answers has some
> nice features. Like I have nominated myself as a Answer contact for LO
> and OOo, so I get questions emailed to me.  That is far more efficient
> than lurking in forums waiting for appropriate questions.

I'm nto doubting it has it's benefits (though forums normally let you
subscribe to sub-forums or whatever). I just really don't think it's a
good interface to point new people at. On the other hand, it's been a
while since I was a new person :)

> 
> In Launchpad you can create FAQs and reference to them.  It is a
> rather under used facility but I have set up a few for common
> questions that need a lot of explaining (like doing labels using a
> spreadsheet as the data source).  But simple topics like using a
> terminal could be covered this way.

Yeah, there's probably also FAQs on the forums and the
ubuntu stackexchange thing and on the wiki and on each of the other
innumberable ubuntu support sites. That's the problem, there's about
twelve answers to each frequently asked question, two of which are
probably correct and neither of those are easy to find.


> > It's support provided by technical people in their spare time. It's
> > likely to be techincal because that's their default position, and
> > they're not trained to assume that everybody doesn't know what they
> > do.
> > 
> 
> Oh dear!  I think this is exactly the problem that brought this thread
> into existence in the first place and the reason I feel that something
> needs to be done about it.  

I don't think that particular something is enforcing a lower level of
technicality of the answers. You'll get a fewer technical answers that
way, sure, because you'll have fewer answers.

> If technical people cannot provide non-technical answers, when needed,
> then they should be encouraged to refrain from giving answers,
> otherwise you get exactly the problem that brought this thread into
> existence in the first place. 

And we create a brand new one where the people who want the technical
answers can't get them, go somewhere else, and never find themselves in
a position to be answering questions about Ubuntu because they're using
some other distro.

-- 
Avi