People seemed to like the idea when I…
People seemed to like the idea when I pitched it. Can we pick a weekend to do it? Having at least 2 weeks notice would be good so people can clear time in schedules, read up on docs if they want, etc. Maybe weekend of February 15?
Aditya, 
masonjames 4:10 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink |
Works for me!
Will be a happy Valentine’s weekend to WordPress users everywhere
Kathy Drewien 4:13 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink |
Gotcha on the calendar…
Pippin (mordauk) 4:18 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink |
Probably not open that weekend with it being my wife’s birthday and valentine’s day
Carrie 4:19 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink |
I’m down for that weekend.
Brandon Kraft 4:24 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink |
+1
Christine Rondeau 5:09 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink |
I have family from Scotland over that weekend. Wont’ be able to make it.
Jen Mylo 5:14 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink |
Would the next weekend work?
Christine Rondeau 6:01 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink |
The following one would work. However I might be able to pull away for a few hours. Looks like the boys might be going to Whistler. Whistler on Saturday? No thanks. They can go on their own.
Christine Rondeau 11:33 pm on January 26, 2013 Permalink |
15 works fo me after all. Brother in law just cancelled plans due to family emergency.
Jerry Bates (JerrySarcastic) 5:47 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink |
Sounds like fun Jen; count me in!
Dan Bernardic 6:08 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink |
Why not every weekend? Why only weekend anyway?
All you really need is a way to allow helpers to indicate they just helped someone – A message containing only “yw” or “You’re welcome” is a good candidate.
Then you parse the logs periodically for those, and as people reach a number of those, you do a check on each of their “yw”s manually, and confirm they actually did help someone – and give them the “prize”.
Jen Mylo 11:08 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink |
A “drive” is a special event that happens infrequently, and gets a big publicity push. That’s what I’m talking about. There’s no reason there couldn’t be a “weekend project” based on this that is active every weekend, but you would need to always have enough people staffing it. The minute someone tries to participate and there’s no one to review work and mentor, that’s the minute the program has failed.
As for having an ongoing “yw” system, that is kind of the opposite of the guided mentorship for new contributors that I’m talking about. What you’re talking about is more just stats gathering, which we already gather without having people enter “yw” on responses.
Dan Bernardic 12:51 am on January 26, 2013 Permalink |
I’m talking about IRC specifically.
Anyway, OK, I understand you want to have a different focus, and don’t think my idea is awesome. Thanks for considering it anyway.
Jen Mylo 6:25 am on January 26, 2013 Permalink |
I didn’t say your suggestion “isn’t awesome,” it’s just not in line with the project/goals we’re talking about in this thread, as I stated before.
Ongoing support contribution isn’t a numbers game, so tying a prize system to regular contribution would incentivize people to answer more easy questions and skip over the harder ones that take more time so they could get more “yw”s on the board. We do look at the numbers of responses already, as mentioned, and the team reps and current moderators just plain notice when people start stepping more. The prize there is more responsibility and moderator status.
Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 6:16 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink |
The 15th-18th is tentatively good for me, ditto the next weekend. One or the other. I need to go see my Mom more often
Whatever we do – DO NOT pick March 10th, it’s US DST and you will mess everyone up
Aaron Nimocks 6:26 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink |
I vote every weekend after the initial one. But I will be in Japan that week and flying back to US at the start of the weekend so I will miss a good day’s worth if we start on 15th.
esmi 7:24 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink |
I could manage the weekend of 15th. The following weekend might be iffy as that’s around my birthday/
EnigmaWeb 10:22 am on January 26, 2013 Permalink |
15th works for me
+1
Jen Mylo 1:53 pm on January 27, 2013 Permalink |
Sounds like the wekend of the 15th is the best after all. Can we make planning for this the subject of the next irc chat?
Aaron Nimocks 10:32 pm on January 27, 2013 Permalink |
As I helped people this weekend I was trying to take note of how many confirmed “helps” I racked up and this is going to be a challenge to track and get 20. I kind of feel those ones that are going to go through and verify count the “helps” are going to spend more time doing that than anything.
Not quite sure how it is all going to play out yet and I don’t really have any solid ideas on how to do the tracking but the only reasonable idea I can think of is when a “helper” thinks they are worthy of receiving a “help” point they tag the thread with their name or a special keyword that everyone will use. Then when reviewed the tag gets removed.
But if something like that isn’t in place then the work for the mentors is going to be a bunch. Just an idea.
Jen Mylo 11:10 pm on January 27, 2013 Permalink |
Since we’ve done contest things with contributors before (like GCI) there’s a pretty simple way to handle this. Each contestant makes a list of their thread URLs and that’s what gets submitted at the end for review/tally. During the weekend, the mentors are all about helping people get the right answers. Then we take a day to tally results. Mentors can be keeping a list of thread IDs as well as they are helping, and then can check them off as yes/no easily when doing the final tally. Process for grading is not going to be the burden here, it will be making sure we have people around to help with questions 24/7 for the contest time period, getting the word out, and having documentation in place that helps people get started.
Brandon Kraft 11:24 pm on January 28, 2013 Permalink |
Not directly related, but the post got me thinking about this. Overall, there’s no way for a volunteer to “ask for backup” when they’ve started answering a thread and either they’re not sure or it ends up being outside their comfort zone.
For the weekend, the mentor would be the new volunteer’s fallback, but outside of that weekend, should there be a way to do that? Either a tag, or an established practice of pinging someone in IRC, or something?
I e-mailed the listserv and seems there’s no practice short of saying I don’t know and hoping someone else checks on the thread.
Jen Mylo 10:15 am on January 29, 2013 Permalink |
Yes, setting up a contributor buddies/mentors program is on our list over in the /community group. Once the welcome wagon IRC channel staffing is done (hopefully this week) I think that’s one of the next projects.
Realistically, yes, the right answer is that if you have started helping someone and then you hit a dead end, it’s time to tag someone else in. The problem with using actual tags for this is that people figure out the system quickly and suddenly everyone is tagging their posts with the special team-assist tag in the hope of getting more immediate senior attention. Leaving a comment that says, “I don’t know the answer and have run out of ideas for what to try next,” is the best thing. Pinging the list to ask for an assist or hopping into #wordpress to see if anyone there can help is an option, too.
Aaron Nimocks 11:54 pm on January 31, 2013 Permalink |
I know you all were anxiously awaiting to see if I will be around that weekend and I am please to inform you that I will be. My trip to Japan got cancelled, so game on.
masonjames 2:42 am on February 14, 2013 Permalink |
So, this is coming up? Discuss on IRC tomorrow?
Aditya 2:52 am on February 19, 2013 Permalink |
Am I late?
If you have a space I would like to contribute, count me in too.