Quality vs. Quantity (Was: Re: RTFM? IWMITWAFM! (Was: Re: [Zope] WebDAV, Zope, M$ and implications...))
Dieter, I appreciate all of the work you and the other Zope deities do helping people. Clearly this entails a great deal of time and effort on your part and you probably don't get nearly the recognition you deserve.
From a short-term perspective, it probably makes more sense for you to spend your list-reading hour per day responding to the largest number of requests possible. I don't think that's true from a long-term perspective. In my experience, progressing from Zope newbie to someone who knows just enough about Zope to be dangerous, I've searched many many times for solutions to problems, only to find little squibs of answers saying things like "RTFM about Virtual Host Monsters" or "Download ZPatterns and use that".
I would suggest that you try answering half of the total number of questions, but answer them as fully as you can, assuming that the user knows essentially nothing. Pepper those answers with links, explanations, and philosophical asides. Make it a mini-howto and a seminar on advanced topics in Zope. And be sure to spend exactly the same amount of time, don't add to your burden. I think the result of this would be that the next time someone has the same question, they'll do a search and be much more likely to find your answer in the archives. If they can't and it ends up on the list, I might just remember your contribution, find it, and point the newbie there myself, while you spend your hour writing up another mini-howto for the ages. Of course, I could be wrong, but I think it's worth a try! Howard Hansen http://howard.editthispage.com ----- Original Message ----- Message: 21 From: Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 12:31:03 +0100 To: Cc: Zope List <zope@zope.org> Subject: Douglas Carnall writes:
.... When I see posts from core Zope people saying (basically) RTFM rather than precisely referencing an issue it depresses me, because in fact every time they do that they are weakening the platform I hope to learn, and increasing the drag on the efforts of others to get started.
Maybe if, as a friendly courtesy, everyone who responds on an already-discussed issue included one relevant URL in their reply Zope would start to be a better documented place. You ask for a lot, too much for me personally, at least:
I read several hundred posts per day and respond to about a dozen. I have only a few minutes per post. While, of course, it would take only some additional few minutes to look up a (single) precise URL or reference, I get angry when someones asks "URL please!". It is his problem not mine. He cannot expect that I take longer to help him solve his problem than he is ready to work on it himself. Therefore, many of my responses are: background reading, mailing list archives, search Zope.org... When you think that weakens the community and you want to change something, then you are invited to take over where I (and others) stop. Dieter
On Sat, 9 Mar 2002 14:46:41 -0800 "Howard Hansen" <zope@halfmagic.com> wrote:
number of questions, but answer them as fully as you can, assuming that the user knows essentially nothing. Pepper those answers with links, explanations, and philosophical asides. Make it a mini-howto and a seminar on advanced topics in Zope. And be sure to spend exactly the same amount of time, don't add to your burden.
This seems like pretty sage advice. Tim Peters does essentially this on the various Python newsgroups and maillists. His answers are almost always correct and utterly comprehensive. It can be exceedingly difficult to be not only correct but clear and comprehensive when replying to maillist questions. I have lots of respect for Tim and other supermen like him who successfully dispense wisdom with clarity and style. I think Howard's suggestion is a good one and I will for one recommit to doing things this way even if it means I need to answer fewer questions. That said, everybody has their own style of helping out; a prod in the right direction from Dieter is miles better than no answer. I appreciate Dieter's Zope contributions very much.. he is sometimes terse, but he helps many people who would otherwise be left without reply. And this makes him a sort of maillist hero. ;-) - C
Yes, I agree that documentation is important both for newbie and knownbie! I can accept that this kind of service is a fee-based service or donation-based service. Suppose it's $5 monthly for subscribing. If there are 100 subscriber, Dieter got $500 monthly. That could be enough for him to get drunken everyday after answered chunks of trivial questions (for him). :-) Of course the side effect is that maybe people will start to expect Dieter to answer all of the questions. It's against the spirit of "mutual help" of Open Source. The opposite side is that peole could also too much rely on the others and didn't try to help themselves. Paradox isn't it? I remembered the time when I keeping asking trivial questions and thanks for many kindly knownbies responsed to me. But I don't think all the questions from newbie should be (can be) answered very precisely . It could be nice if someone (paid or volunteer) can help to do the "documentation" from this list. It could also be nice if someone got the answer from this maillist can contribute to this community again by posting the revised question-answer pair under his/her context. Anyway, I can accept the principle "Pay or Do It Ourselves" Iap, Singuan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Howard Hansen" <zope@halfmagic.com> To: <zope@zope.org>; "Dieter Maurer" <dieter@handshake.de> Cc: <dougie@carnall.org (Douglas Carnall)> Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2002 6:46 AM Subject: Quality vs. Quantity (Was: Re: RTFM? IWMITWAFM! (Was: Re: [Zope] WebDAV, Zope, M$ and implications...))
Dieter, I appreciate all of the work you and the other Zope deities do helping people. Clearly this entails a great deal of time and effort on your part and you probably don't get nearly the recognition you deserve.
From a short-term perspective, it probably makes more sense for you to spend your list-reading hour per day responding to the largest number of requests possible. I don't think that's true from a long-term perspective. In my experience, progressing from Zope newbie to someone who knows just enough about Zope to be dangerous, I've searched many many times for solutions to problems, only to find little squibs of answers saying things like "RTFM about Virtual Host Monsters" or "Download ZPatterns and use that".
I would suggest that you try answering half of the total number of questions, but answer them as fully as you can, assuming that the user knows essentially nothing. Pepper those answers with links, explanations, and philosophical asides. Make it a mini-howto and a seminar on advanced topics in Zope. And be sure to spend exactly the same amount of time, don't add to your burden.
I think the result of this would be that the next time someone has the same question, they'll do a search and be much more likely to find your answer in the archives. If they can't and it ends up on the list, I might just remember your contribution, find it, and point the newbie there myself, while you spend your hour writing up another mini-howto for the ages.
Of course, I could be wrong, but I think it's worth a try!
Howard Hansen http://howard.editthispage.com
iap@y2fun.com wrote:
Of course the side effect is that maybe people will start to expect Dieter to answer all of the questions. It's against the spirit of "mutual help" of Open Source. The opposite side is that peole could also too much rely on the others and didn't try to help themselves. Paradox isn't it?
....
It could also be nice if someone got the answer from this maillist can contribute to this community again by posting the revised question-answer pair under his/her context.
Here's a suggestion that I see works well on another list (linuxmanagers) that is the same or very similar to what you suggested. The questions are posted to the list. ALL responses are sent only to the original person asking the question. That person is tasked with sending a reply where the subject line is prefaced with the word "SUMMARY". This summary contains a concise list of the responses received and which one(s) were attempted and the results of those attempts. This procedure: 1. cuts down on list traffic 2. puts responsibility on the person asking the question to contribute back better detailed results 3. creates a very useful archive Disadvantages: 1. May inhibit productive discussion? -- Tim Cook --
--On 11 March 2002 00:22 -0600 Tim Cook <twcook@iswt.com> wrote:
Here's a suggestion that I see works well on another list (linuxmanagers) that is the same or very similar to what you suggested.
The questions are posted to the list. ALL responses are sent only to the original person asking the question. That person is tasked with sending a reply where the subject line is prefaced with the word "SUMMARY". This summary contains a concise list of the responses received and which one(s) were attempted and the results of those attempts.
I think this is an excellent proposal.
This procedure: 1. cuts down on list traffic 2. puts responsibility on the person asking the question to contribute back better detailed results 3. creates a very useful archive
Disadvantages: 1. May inhibit productive discussion?
2. Risk loosing pearls of wisdom if summary of off-line response not forthcoming 3. Requires discipline early on - perhaps people indicating that they will follow the protocol should put something like WILL SUMMARISE in the Subject line The list archives should end up showing a one-to-one correspondence of SUMMARY and WILL SUMMARISE messages and we'll all live happily ever after ;-) Dangling WILL SUMMARISE messages will haunt the original poster for the rest of time ..... Paul -- The Library, Tyndall Avenue, Univ. of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1TJ, UK E-mail: paul.browning@bristol.ac.uk URL: http://www.bris.ac.uk/
On Mon, 11 Mar 2002, Paul Browning wrote:
--On 11 March 2002 00:22 -0600 Tim Cook <twcook@iswt.com> wrote:
Here's a suggestion that I see works well on another list (linuxmanagers) that is the same or very similar to what you suggested.
The questions are posted to the list. ALL responses are sent only to the original person asking the question. That person is tasked with sending a reply where the subject line is prefaced with the word "SUMMARY". This summary contains a concise list of the responses received and which one(s) were attempted and the results of those attempts.
I think this is an excellent proposal.
This procedure: 1. cuts down on list traffic 2. puts responsibility on the person asking the question to contribute back better detailed results 3. creates a very useful archive
Disadvantages: 1. May inhibit productive discussion?
2. Risk loosing pearls of wisdom if summary of off-line response not forthcoming 3. Requires discipline early on - perhaps people indicating that they will follow the protocol should put something like
WILL SUMMARISE
in the Subject line
The list archives should end up showing a one-to-one correspondence of SUMMARY and WILL SUMMARISE messages and we'll all live happily ever after ;-) Dangling WILL SUMMARISE messages will haunt the original poster for the rest of time .....
Hmm... this will cut down on list traffic, and it will put some responsibility on the asker. But it raises a few quesions: * When our penitent (let's call her Jennifer) asks her question about Zope now, I can check and see if she's already rec'd a response to her question before writing to her. Under this situation, I couldn't. So people will either (a) spend more time writing to more people w/solutions or (b) spend the same amount of time as they currently do, but having less info about who needs their help and who's already received 10 answers about the use of <dtml-var> * When a clever Zopista answers a question (even a simple how-to-use-DTML question), I'll learn something about their style, and sometimes they'll throw out some higher-level piece of wisdom or deep Zope insight. I'm afraid that these will be totally lost in the translation by the Zope newbie trying to summarize. * Part of the way community gets built her is by hearing each others voices and playing off each other. If all we hear is the questioners and the answers (or that's 95% of what we hear), I'm afraid this sense of dialog--and a lot of the inherent community that comes with it--will be lost. * I think that seeing your own posts on the lists and knowing that people are hearing your voice (rather than simply being listed as "thanks to dieter and paul everitt for their help on this") is an ego-driven but subtly important part of lists like this, and shouldn't be tinkered with lightly. Those of you that have been on both kinds of lists: can you address these issues? Might there be a through-the-web way of addressing these questions? Like a MailingListThread Product on zope.org, so that after Jennifer's question has been bantered around (& answered), she can go to zope.org, create a MLT and fill in for this which lets her mark the category of the problem, etc. People could then refer to these or search these. -- Joel BURTON | joel@joelburton.com | joelburton.com | aim: wjoelburton Independent Knowledge Management Consultant
One of the many ideas I had for ZopeZen was to have it read the mailing list and build up an FAQ from the responses. So when A asks a questions and B responds, B could if they wanted wrap it in a bit of XML eg: <faq> <question>How do !?</question <answer>This was an answer, go here.. etc.</answer> </faq> The respondent would still get the answer, but an FAQ would be created on ZopeZen that people can refer to later. This puts the burden on the responder but is relatively straightforward enough that the extra hassle in responding to questions should be minimal... However the key part of any FAQ system eg ZDP is maintaining it and I havent solved that problem yet. -- Andy McKay
"Andy McKay" <andy@agmweb.ca> writes:
responding to questions should be minimal... However the key part of any FAQ system eg ZDP is maintaining it and I havent solved that problem yet.
Agreed, same here. I think the first prerequisite is low impedance, low impedance, low impedance. Stating the obvious, in our busy distracted community, human time, attention, mental effort is as valuable (and as easy to lose) as gold dust. -Simon
+1 LOW IMPEDANCE I don't like the proposed feature of cutting of the traffic, mainly with the same reasons listed above (listening to the style of solutions of ppl with zen etc) and also: How would we get into discussion with such a list??? We wouldn't be able to start a thread like this, or missed i something? Greetings * Simon Michael <simon@joyful.com> [020312 18:20]:
"Andy McKay" <andy@agmweb.ca> writes:
responding to questions should be minimal... However the key part of any FAQ system eg ZDP is maintaining it and I havent solved that problem yet.
Agreed, same here. I think the first prerequisite is low impedance, low impedance, low impedance. Stating the obvious, in our busy distracted community, human time, attention, mental effort is as valuable (and as easy to lose) as gold dust.
-Simon
-- Christian Theune - ct@gocept.com gocept gmbh & co.kg - schalaunische strasse 6 - 06366 koethen/anhalt tel.+49 3496 3099112 - fax.+49 3496 3099118 mob. - 0178 48 33 981 reduce(lambda x,y:x+y,[chr(ord(x)^42) for x in 'zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b'])
Yes, I agree that documentation is important both for newbie and knownbie!
It is. And it's great to look at Zope Book for Zope 2.5 and see how much more examples than before are included in the DTML and API Reference. Although many functions still do not have examples, but that will hopefully change.
Suppose it's $5 monthly for subscribing. If there are 100 subscriber, Dieter got $500 monthly.
Realistically it would be more like 10 subscribers. Believe me. -- Milos Prudek
I would pay $50/month for this service, and wouldn't mind paying double the first three months, so your first 20 subscribers are already here. Ron Arts Milos Prudek wrote:
Yes, I agree that documentation is important both for newbie and knownbie!
It is. And it's great to look at Zope Book for Zope 2.5 and see how much more examples than before are included in the DTML and API Reference. Although many functions still do not have examples, but that will hopefully change.
Suppose it's $5 monthly for subscribing. If there are 100 subscriber, Dieter got $500 monthly.
Realistically it would be more like 10 subscribers. Believe me.
-- Netland Internet Services bedrijfsmatige internetoplossingen http://www.netland.nl Kruislaan 419 1098 VA Amsterdam info: 020-5628282 servicedesk: 020-5628280 fax: 020-5628281
Actually, take a look at zope.com to see what some realistic kind of rates are. You wanna get in business? Pay business. I don't think it's a good idea to have business-style relations on an Open-Source bound community. This is were business zope partners (isn't there a certification program already? Shouldn't this be availabe in Europe too?) enter the game. * Ron Arts <raarts@netland.nl> [020313 09:30]:
I would pay $50/month for this service, and wouldn't mind paying double the first three months, so your first 20 subscribers are already here.
Ron Arts
Milos Prudek wrote:
Yes, I agree that documentation is important both for newbie and knownbie!
It is. And it's great to look at Zope Book for Zope 2.5 and see how much more examples than before are included in the DTML and API Reference. Although many functions still do not have examples, but that will hopefully change.
Suppose it's $5 monthly for subscribing. If there are 100 subscriber, Dieter got $500 monthly.
Realistically it would be more like 10 subscribers. Believe me.
-- Christian Theune - ct@gocept.com gocept gmbh & co.kg - schalaunische strasse 6 - 06366 koethen/anhalt tel.+49 3496 3099112 - fax.+49 3496 3099118 mob. - 0178 48 33 981 reduce(lambda x,y:x+y,[chr(ord(x)^42) for x in 'zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b'])
Christian Theune wrote:
Actually, take a look at zope.com to see what some realistic kind of rates are. You wanna get in business? Pay business.
That's nice if you are some big company, but I am not. I think there's room for low-rate support. I for one know what to expect for these rates, but I just want something *more* reliable than 'just hoping someone will respond'. There should be something in between paying goofs of money and paying zilch. Ron
I don't think it's a good idea to have business-style relations on an Open-Source bound community. This is were business zope partners (isn't there a certification program already? Shouldn't this be availabe in Europe too?) enter the game.
* Ron Arts <raarts@netland.nl> [020313 09:30]:
I would pay $50/month for this service, and wouldn't mind paying double the first three months, so your first 20 subscribers are already here.
Ron Arts
Milos Prudek wrote:
Yes, I agree that documentation is important both for newbie and knownbie!
It is. And it's great to look at Zope Book for Zope 2.5 and see how much more examples than before are included in the DTML and API Reference. Although many functions still do not have examples, but that will hopefully change.
Suppose it's $5 monthly for subscribing. If there are 100 subscriber, Dieter got $500 monthly.
Realistically it would be more like 10 subscribers. Believe me.
Sure, i know that feeling, as i have it most of the time too. But it also needs me to digg for myself for answers (not very reliable though) and find them (with a lot amount of work) sometime(s). * Ron Arts <raarts@netland.nl> [020313 21:20]:
Christian Theune wrote:
Actually, take a look at zope.com to see what some realistic kind of rates are. You wanna get in business? Pay business.
That's nice if you are some big company, but I am not. I think there's room for low-rate support. I for one know what to expect for these rates, but I just want something *more* reliable than 'just hoping someone will respond'.
There should be something in between paying goofs of money and paying zilch.
Absolutely. But the problem is: Would you like to only sit around with your zen-like knowledge about zope and answer (sometimes stupid) mailinglist messages? I think i wouldn't (if i had this experience) ... Actually the current impedance is actually a bit high to get fast to information you need, but combining the available sources gives you a good pool of sources (mailinglists, irc, different docs, sites like zopelabs.com). Greetings Christian -- Christian Theune - ct@gocept.com gocept gmbh & co.kg - schalaunische strasse 6 - 06366 koethen/anhalt tel.+49 3496 3099112 - fax.+49 3496 3099118 mob. - 0178 48 33 981 reduce(lambda x,y:x+y,[chr(ord(x)^42) for x in 'zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b'])
Howard Hansen writes:
I would suggest that you try answering half of the total number of questions, but answer them as fully as you can, assuming that the user knows essentially nothing. Pepper those answers with links, explanations, and philosophical asides. Make it a mini-howto and a seminar on advanced topics in Zope. And be sure to spend exactly the same amount of time, don't add to your burden. I suggest a different solution:
I continue to give terse advice and the people with the actual problems write the HowTos after they solved the problems.... Dieter
Dieter Maurer wrote:
Howard Hansen writes:
I would suggest that you try answering half of the total number of questions, but answer them as fully as you can, assuming that the user knows essentially nothing. Pepper those answers with links, explanations, and philosophical asides. Make it a mini-howto and a seminar on advanced topics in Zope. And be sure to spend exactly the same amount of time, don't add to your burden. I suggest a different solution:
I continue to give terse advice and the people with the actual problems write the HowTos after they solved the problems....
Dieter
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org <mailto:Zope@zope.org> http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
This sounds like the best solution. I would only suggest that many of us do not know how to present the answers in a proper HowTo. If a form, or formletter, or template exists as a guideline, I and others would be more likely to make that leap. List reply's are a little like public speaking. It can be intimidating to offer help back to a list that is in many ways far above our own heads. We feel unworthy and silly for trying. Human nature is not always mature or correct, but it does tend to take over. Thanks, Richard
On Sun, 10 Mar 2002, Richard Shebora wrote:
Dieter Maurer wrote:
Howard Hansen writes:
I would suggest that you try answering half of the total number of questions, but answer them as fully as you can, assuming that the user knows essentially nothing. Pepper those answers with links, explanations, and philosophical asides. Make it a mini-howto and a seminar on advanced topics in Zope. And be sure to spend exactly the same amount of time, don't add to your burden. I suggest a different solution:
I continue to give terse advice and the people with the actual problems write the HowTos after they solved the problems....
Dieter
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org <mailto:Zope@zope.org> http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
This sounds like the best solution.
I would only suggest that many of us do not know how to present the answers in a proper HowTo. If a form, or formletter, or template exists as a guideline, I and others would be more likely to make that leap.
List reply's are a little like public speaking. It can be intimidating to offer help back to a list that is in many ways far above our own heads. We feel unworthy and silly for trying. Human nature is not always mature or correct, but it does tend to take over.
Don't know about a template per se -- thought there is a HOWTO product on Zope.org that lets you quickly write your HOWTO as structured text. Some of my work is technical editing. I'd be happy to help anyone take a half-finished HOWTO or article and clarify, polish it, and contribute it. I expect that others would be willing to do the same, or to fact-check it against their Zope installs, or things like that. -- Joel BURTON | joel@joelburton.com | joelburton.com | aim: wjoelburton Independent Knowledge Management Consultant
Excellent point. People should do what they feel comfortable doing. If you want to point someone in the right direction rather than escorting them to their destination and writing up an account of the journey, more power to you. So I think the biggest issue is closing the loop. The asker asks, the answerer answers, then the asker closes the loop by reporting back to the list. If it makes sense, they should put together a HOWTO on the zope.org site. In fact, I've taken the liberty of drafting something that I call the Dieter Maurer Answer Public License (DMAPL): The recipient of this terse advice is hereby obligated to close the loop. This means that if you take the advice and unearth useful URLs or other bits of information, you are duty-bound to report this information back to the mailing list, and complete one of the following at Zope.org: * Quick summary of the problem and solution (15 min.) * Sub-hour HOWTO (<60 min.: example: http://www.zope.org/Members/howardhansen/debianstartupscript) * Full-blown HOWTO (>1 hr.: example: http://www.zope.org/Members/mcdonc/HowTos/zopeinstall/ZOPE-INSTALL-HOWTO Of course, there's no reason that one of these loop closers couldn't grow from a few paragraphs to several pages as time goes by. And always remember to click on the Catalog tab and get your submission added to the full-text search. The Quick Summary will probably take as long to catalog as to write. The Sub-hour HOWTO might have a structure like this: * Overview * quick discussion of problem/platform/solution * Solution * talk about how you made it work * Conclusions * helpful or related links The full-blown HOWTO might have a structure like this: * Overview * talk about who needs to read this * list/discuss the techniques used * Detailed description of the problem to be solved * Assumptions, including, but not limited to: * hardware platform * operating system * software version(s) * user experience level * Introduction * HOWTO * Step-by-step with code snippets, screenshots, etc. * Conclusions * helpful or related links * other options Howard Hansen http://howard.editthispage.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dieter Maurer" <dieter@handshake.de> To: "Howard Hansen" <zope@halfmagic.com> Cc: <zope@zope.org>; <dougie@carnall.org (Douglas Carnall)> Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2002 10:04 AM Subject: Re: Quality vs. Quantity (Was: Re: RTFM? IWMITWAFM! (Was: Re: [Zope] WebDAV, Zope, M$ and implications...))
Howard Hansen writes:
I would suggest that you try answering half of the total number of questions, but answer them as fully as you can, assuming that the user knows essentially nothing. Pepper those answers with links, explanations, and philosophical asides. Make it a mini-howto and a seminar on advanced topics in Zope. And be sure to spend exactly the same amount of time, don't add to your burden. I suggest a different solution:
I continue to give terse advice and the people with the actual problems write the HowTos after they solved the problems....
Dieter
Good suggestions in this thread. Zwiki was/is another assault on this problem. It's not zope.org, but feel free to use zwiki.org as a staging area for zope notes; at the present time some may find it less hassle. Eg: - paste a note or create a page via the comment form at http://zwiki.org/ZoPe, or.. - send an email to zwiki@zwiki.org with a suitable page name in the subject (ZopeDocs, MyZopeHowto, etc) I hope zope.org will become similarly low-impedance before long. I'm working towards re-integrating the WikiForNow work as another step to facilitate this (another place help is needed). I'll also use this space to plug the ideas I floated on zope-web a while back, basically to adapt the urls and content at zope.org into a flat top-level namespace of projects with mnemonic identifiers and highly consistent urls. I think this would free up a lot of energy. Cheers, -Simon
Simon Michael <simon@joyful.com> writes:
- send an email to zwiki@zwiki.org with a suitable page name in the subject (ZopeDocs, MyZopeHowto, etc)
Doh! One caveat - we had to make this subscribers-only recently to keep the spam out. So you just need to subscribe to the wiki or any page, first. If you don't want to receive any subscriber email, pick some dusty forgotten page like, oh, http://zwiki.org/ZopeDocumentationProject :)
participants (13)
-
Andy McKay -
Chris McDonough -
Christian Theune -
Dieter Maurer -
Howard Hansen -
iap＠y2fun.com -
Joel Burton -
Milos Prudek -
Paul Browning -
Richard Shebora -
Ron Arts -
Simon Michael -
Tim Cook