Re: [Nms-cgi-devel] nms project - moving forward

[Simon W. <es...@ou...>]

On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, Nick Cleaton wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 14, 2003 at 12:32:49AM +0000, Simon Wilcox wrote:
> > 
> > 1. I don't think we should be sending multiple, possibly contradictory 
> > messages to new users. I would prefer a more consistent approach.
> >
> > 2. I don't think it is a good use of resources to duplicate the support 
> > effort.
> 
> Both valid points, but are those considerations important enough that we
> should be sacrificing turnaround times to meet them ?  Maybe they are.

I believe so. As you already noted, we are far in advance of any 
alternative and I'm not convinced that raw speed needs to be our goal. 
Perception is important too.

> > I would rather know that it is my $timeperiod to respond to support calls 
> > and that I should be paying attention to the list. When $timeperiod is 
> > over i would carry on with any open calls but someone else would take over 
> > the new ones.
> 
> Having a single person follow each call through is nice for user
> comfort, but not optimum for a quick turnaround.  IMO the speed at which
> users get a satisfactory answer is the most important thing, as that is
> what stops them giving up and using another (maybe less secure) script.

Are we providing support for them or for us ?

User comfort is as important as speed. In most cases a delay of a couple 
of hours is not a problem, indeed your posts are often delayed by your 
batching so I don't understand that point.
 
> Many times, one of us has answered an initial query with a request for
> further information, and another has answered the reply with the
> solution.  This is a good thing IMO.

The solution is a good thing, the confused message is not IMO. I think
that it has the potential to make the problem (of not enough support)  
worse not better as people decide not to answer queries because they
expect that someone will come through with a correct answer.

This is part of the reason why a knowledgebase of some sort is a good 
idea, it will provide people with a better resource of solutions to 
provide on the first attempt.
 
> > As it is, it is all too easy for me to slack-off knowing that the calls
> > will probably get answered by Nick. This isn't good but as you say, we all
> > have other demands on our time. If you're going to answer the call anyway,
> > why do I need to spend the time ?
> 
> Because you answering it now is better in terms of turnaround time than
> me answering it later.

Except that human nature suggests that all that will happen is that 
everyone will leave it to you to answer the question. Look at the list 
traffic - this is already happening. I don't believe it is sustainable for 
very long.

> > In respect of escalations, I feel bad that when I had reached the end of 
> > my knowledge there was no backup to help get the call resolved. Giving 
> > explicit ownership to individuals helps to encourage that support. 
> > Handled correctly with the user, they should understand that more help is 
> > needed and the developer should actually have more time to help with such 
> > things if they are not busy answering lots of other calls.
> 
> You're talking about the TFmail upload problem, right ?  I looked at that
> (quite hard) but I couldn't think of anything that you hadn't already tried.
> The escalation method of posting to nms-dev *didn't* let you down there - I
> would have failed just the same had it been escalated to me via a fancy
> ticketing system.

I don't care about me, I do care about the user who didn't receive a 
solution to his problem. He will now tell 10 of his friends about the 
failure of NMS to run on his system. The fastest turnaround in the world 
will not help us if people perceive the support to be shoddy.

I don't care about fancy ticketing systems either. I did consider the 
merits of something like RT but they don't provide much over what we have 
in the list so it's not really worth the effort.

The list DID fail me though. Not one person responded to me, even to say 
that they couldn't find anything either. People don't like living in a 
vacuum. The collective mind of NMS was unable to go back to this user with 
even one further question. Not very impressive.
 
> > I'm not sure that closing the dev list will help establish a community but 
> > I do think there needs to be an invite-only list of people that drive the 
> > development of the project.
> 
> We could do that with CC in email with our leader posting the outcome to
> the dev list as a policy announcement, couldn't we ?

If that's the way that works best for everyone then yes but I'd suggest 
that you would lose the group memory that comes from having a list archive 
and that getting new members up to speed would be that much harder. YMMV.

As an aside, to hopefully illustrate my feelings here, this mornings 
examples of double posting perfectly encapsulate what I've been saying.

Having taken a few minutes to respond to overnight emails, mostly by 
requesting further information, Nick then delivered his batch of emails 
answering the same questions, generally in ways better than I managed.

I've spent about 30mins so far on composing this reply. Where is my 
motivation to continue answering support requests ?

If I had not responded, the answers would have been forthcoming at about 
the same time. No speed improvement there.

If I had not responded, the answer received would have been less confused 
than it was by me responding.

My conlusion seems to be that my contribution is superfluous.

My question is, how long can one man continue to support the entire list ? 
At first it was Dave, all we've done is move the burden onto Nick. I just 
don't see how that is sustainable so I've suggested ways to spread the 
burden and provide Nick with more support. I guess it's up to you how you 
choose to use those ideas.

Simon.