On 09/07/09 01:28, C de-Avillez wrote: > I can see something like this working -- as long as the requester gets > paired with one single person, in a PVT IRC session (or something > similar). If we just drop the requester into, say, the #ubuntu channel, > then we will not have accomplished anything. >
My experience in this scenario is that if you go down the path of individual pairing that paired support person becomes the single contact point for that user from then on. It happens today when a support request gets resolved the user comes back with "while you're here", or "can I ask you this in private", or "you helped me so much yesterday, can I ask you another question" or any number of variations on that. While in itself rewarding, I find myself avoiding the channel for the next week because I'm someone's "new best friend" - which is not constructive, nor is it productive. The fundamental issue I think that exists is that everyone's an expert. My 73 year old mother in law is running Hardy on her laptop. Yesterday she told me that there was a friend in the village where she lives who is a computer expert who will help fix her printer problem. I hope that she knows enough to know that formatting the hard drive and installing Windows is not helping, and I know that she doesn't know the administrator password, so "fixing" is strictly limited in scope, but I'm not looking forward to Sunday Lunch a month from now if you know what I mean. I'd love to come up with a support structure where her plan of attack is not: "Reboot the computer, phone Onno" The only way that I see out of that is to help users find out how to help themselves. Mostly this is a confidence thing. Generally I install Ubuntu in consultation with the user and explain to them that they have not been given administrator rights until such time as they understand what the implications are. I have several users who have progressed to that stage, but others who will never get there. In the mid-90's there was something called the International Computer Drivers Licence, which had the notion that you could certify user skills. Perhaps we could find ways of certifying or grading skill levels and distribute the support load closer to the end user, rather than centralise in one location. I've been toying with the idea of starting a road-show that teaches computer meta skills in small groups, face to face. The challenge for me is to figure out how to deliver that and how to pay for it. -- Onno Benschop Connected via Bigpond NextG at S31°54'06" - E115°50'39" (Yokine, WA) -- ()/)/)() ..ASCII for Onno.. |>>? ..EBCDIC for Onno.. --- -. -. --- ..Morse for Onno.. ITmaze - ABN: 56 178 057 063 - ph: 04 1219 8888 - o...@itmaze.com.au -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss