Meeting opened by daubers at 19:01

• <AlanBell> o/

  <daubers> o/

  <MichealH> o/

  <AlanBell> will be in and out during the meeting

  <MichealH> (Were early)

  <daubers> My clock says 20:02

  <MichealH> Its 9 PMBST

  <Joe202> o/

  <MichealH> *9 PM BST

  <daubers> Wrong meeting MichealH

  <MichealH> Support Meeting

  <MichealH> It sayson adgenda

  <MichealH> *agenda

  <daubers> Everything I've put out says 8, even the agenda

  <MichealH> "There is a meeting on support scheduled for 26th August 2010, 20:00 UTC (21:00 BST)"

  <MichealH> Thats not 8

  <daubers> [LINK] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/SupportMeetingAgenda

• <daubers> The Agenda

  <MichealH> Thats ummm.... confusing!

  <daubers> For those who are interested Hopefully people will trickle in as we go

  <TonyP> wiki says: 26th August 2010, 19:00 UTC (20:00 BST)

  <daubers> Ok, so we'll carry on then ....

  <MichealH> Yeah but the one in !topic is 9 PM

  <daubers> [TOPIC] MattDaubney - Purpose of the Meeting and Team

MattDaubney - Purpose of the Meeting and Team

• <TonyP> Your emails said: on Thursday evening at 7pm

  <daubers> Yes yes yes, we know I'm an idiot, can we now move on please

  <daubers> This is just a simple meeting to see if we can get people on the same page and see roughly which direction to take. So, if we want to improve support we need to get things a bit more organised on the support side. There seems to be little in the way of training people to help support others so things are currently a bit hodge podge making it a little less easy for those asking for support.

  <daubers> There are lots of ways to go about improving things but first we need to define the scope of the initial project.

  <daubers> Hopefully this project will grow some over time and we can expand that scope

  <daubers> Right, everyone still with me?

  <MichealH> Yes

  <MichealH> Its taking a while tokeepup

  <daubers> Good First major discussion point

  <MichealH> *to keep off

  <daubers> [TOPIC] MattDaubney - Initial Targets

MattDaubney - Initial Targets

• <daubers> Currently the major support channels are IRC, Forums, Blogs, Mailing lists, Launchpad Answers/bug reports and new on the block is Stack Exchange. Where do people feel the initial effort be best placed?

  <UndiFineD> oly ?

  <oly> yes ?

  <Joe202> If we want to reach people who aren't currently served I think we need 'phone or personal support

  <daubers> Personally I've always preffered Mailing Lists and IRC, the Ubuntu-UK forum section seems a touch quiet

  <daubers> Joe202: One thing at a time

  <daubers> Improve what we have now and then look at expansion

  <TonyP> It might be best to ask what we currently like to do - I prefer Launchpad - hate IRC

  <brunogirin> daubers: depends on the user I suppose

  <TonyP> and like mailing lists

  <daubers> TonyP: Has anyone here used the Stack Exchange thing extensivley? I've dabbled but not really got far

  <daubers> ick, ignore the prefixing there TonyP, that was to everyone

  <TonyP> looked at it, but didnt like it much

  <Joe202> Sorry. My personal preference is to use mailing lists.

  <brunogirin> daubers: I've answered a couple of questions and in practice it's very similar to the forums in the way it works with slightly less clutter

  <daubers> The UK mailing list is fairly active... I'd like to make that a target as the support side of that seems to suffer a little

  <daubers> brunogirin: Are a lot of people on there people who aren't using the other tools? Any idea?

  <brunogirin> daubers: no idea

  <daubers> Hmmm... wonder how hard it is to find that out

  <TonyP> Trouble with the uk ML and the ubuntu-users is they go OT too easily

• ball staggers back in from the garden

  <ball> TonyP: I like irc and have very little idea how to use Launchpad

  <daubers> ah, TonyP, thats where the elite band of support focussed volunteers come in. When support threads go off topic it'll be our job to ensure the problem is solved

  <oly> you also need to know they exist and how to use them, which potential new users looking for support may not

  <daubers> I'll come back to that in a bit

  <UndiFineD> oly and I where discussing a sytem, how about adding a search / request (button) to the gwibber / ubuntu one launcher,

  <UndiFineD> find launchpad / ubuntu one user name

  <UndiFineD> find issue resolution based on

  <UndiFineD> hardware / software / recievedresult / expectedresult / searchissue

  <UndiFineD> direct user to a website with issue resolution

  <UndiFineD> with integrated chat support

  <UndiFineD> find a suitable supportpersons to invite them to join the chat

  <UndiFineD> first one will initiate support

  <TonyP> I'm with you on that, daubers

  <daubers> UndiFineD: Can we come to that under AoB? Otherwise we'll start diverging from the plan a bit

  <brunogirin> the way I see it, the first problem is to find out who the elite band is, what is their specialty subject and what is their preferred way to be contacted

  <daubers> brunogirin: Thats my next point

  <daubers> Ok, so it seems that the focus of people seems to be ML/IRC/Launchpad and a bit of Stack Exchange. So we'll go with that for the minute

  <daubers> So if I shuffle things along a bit

  <daubers> [TOPIC] MattDaubney - Specialists

MattDaubney - Specialists

• <daubers> There are some people who are incredibly good in certain area's. These people tend to be very busy, but we need a way to get the information out of their brains into the general populace. If we can get these people to agree to help in certain capacities that would be great, even if it's just giving someone with a bit of knowledge a few pointers to help solve an issue. I'm open to ideas on how to go about this...... any suggestions?

  <brunogirin> daubers: build a list

  <brunogirin> and include what is the preferred way for each of those people to be contacted

  <daubers> brunogirin: The begginings of one of those is https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/CoreSupportVolunteers

  <daubers> [LINK] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/CoreSupportVolunteers

• <TonyP> I'm on it!

  <daubers> [ACTION] daubers to promote the generation of the Support Volunteers list and add a "preferred contact method" column

• <brunogirin> ok so add to that list a column to specify what is the best way to contact the different specialists and maybe what time slots they tend to be available (important for things like IRC)

  <daubers> Ah. Good point, missed that

  <daubers> [action] daubers to add "usual available times" to volunteers list

• <brunogirin> also, should the list be ordered by specialisation so that it's easy to find someone who know about say OO.o?

  <ball> If I knew more about Ubuntu I could take the night shift

  <daubers> Hmmm... wonder if you can do "order by" on wiki tables

  <daubers> Ok

  <daubers> Something to look into

  <daubers> [idea] order list by specialisation to make life easy

• <daubers> I'm happy to try and get a mentor scheme going too, try and spread the knowledge around a bit if people are interested?

  <daubers> Shall come onto training in a bit too though

  <daubers> Since this has gone a bit quiet I'll move onto the next bit....

  <daubers> [TOPIC] MattDaubney - Reporting

MattDaubney - Reporting

• <daubers> A big thing that needs to be done is reporting. If you help someone with a problem, blog it! The more google juice we can get onto problems/solutions the easier we can make things for people with issues. I'd also suggest a wiki page or somesuch just to monitor the project in general. Comments?

• ball tries not to dislike wikis

  <Joe202> Good idea.

  <daubers> ball: Heh, even if it's just a "pop a link to your blog article" or somesuch?

  <AlanBell> blogs are a bit of an issue with support content

  <ali1234> awful idea. 99% f the time i help someone i don't know the answer but i find it in the first three results on google...

  <AlanBell> they go out of date

  <UndiFineD> mmm, the danger of that is ofcourse that people might think ubuntu would just as broken

  <AlanBell> wikis can be updated

  <brunogirin> I suppose it will depend on the type of help

  <daubers> Keeping the various wiki articles updated would also be useful. Some of the wiki pages are either a mess or massivley out of date

  <AlanBell> by all means blog about interesting things going on, but it would be best to copy the content to help.ubuntu.com or fix up articles on help.ubuntu.com

  <ball> daubers: I suppose it depends where the content is and how it's done. I lot of useful content ends up spread across the Web and doesn't necessarily find its way into the documentation.

  <ball> ...not sure whether that's true in the Ubuntu world, but I've seen it happen elsewhere.

  <ball> ...it can become a challenge for new people to find what they need.

  <ball> s/I lot/a lot/

  <daubers> Ok, so maybe we should try and focus on keeping the wiki documentation upto date as and when you find it broken?

  <brunogirin> yes so the first thing would be update the wiki page

  <ball> Is there a central Wiki somewhere for Ubuntu UK people?

  <AlanBell> I think we should use the help wiki more

  <ball> (or for Ubuntu in general?)

  <daubers> ball: wiki.ubuntu.com

  <AlanBell> https://help.ubuntu.com/community

  <brunogirin> and to do that, what about including a link to the corresponding wiki page in the specialisation column so that we don't have to hunt for it?

  <ball> daubers: thanks.

• ball writes that down.

  <daubers> brunogirin: Yes, good point

  <TonyP> Ubuntu main page goes to http://www.ubuntulinux.org/support for support

  <TonyP> and signpost to Launchpad

  <daubers> [idea] While supporting peeps, try and keep wiki pages upto date, or create if missing

• <AlanBell> there are two wikis, http://wiki.ubuntu.com which is all sorts of stuff, http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam is our bit. http://help.ubuntu.com is the official documentation, http://help.ubuntu.com/community is another wiki with community contributed documentation

  <MichealH> AlanBell: Yeah

  <daubers> Is there a team who are in charge of the wiki (style wise)?

  <ball> See, that's going to confuse a newbie.

  <MichealH> AlanBell: I would +1 for the community help.ubuntu.com

  <ball> ...if there are four different places to go for docs.

  <AlanBell> the documentation team are in charge of help.ubuntu.com

  <AlanBell> ball: there are not, there is just help.ubuntu.com

  <ball> AlanBell: Thanks.

  <AlanBell> wiki.ubuntu.com is all kinds of stuff, generally not authoritative documentation on things

  <daubers> Would people feel they'd benefit from some training on how to maintain the wiki?

  <MichealH> daubers: I know most wiki syntax, SoIculd help there.

  <daubers> nperry: Sorry, I thought I'd put the chan out

  <nperry> 'tis ok

  <daubers> nperry: Logs and things will be posted when we're done

  <brunogirin> if we update the wiki, what about contributing the good bits "upstream" to official support pages or the ubuntu manual?

  <daubers> MichealH: Initially I'd ask the docs team to do something

  <MichealH> daubers: I get involved in the docteam so yeah

  <daubers> brunogirin: Yes, we should aim to help upstream as much as possible

  <ali1234> i think a list of articles that need work would be more useful than help with using the wiki

  <ball> Is there an "Introduction to Launchpad" somewhere?

  <brunogirin> daubers: do we need a documented process for that?

  <daubers> brunogirin: Yes! That would be extremley useful Especially as it's nice and simple for people who can't even tell the time properly like myself

  <TonyP> I can help with Launchpad

  <daubers> ali1234: We can certainly talk to the docs team about that

  <brunogirin> anybody knows what the process is to submit documentation upstream?

  <ali1234> define "upstream"

  <daubers> brunogirin: I suspect it depends on the project

  <brunogirin> so we need to find out what the process is at least for the official doc and for the ubuntu manual

  <daubers> Ok, so far it looks like the general consensus on this is that we should stick to updating/contributing to the wiki as much as possible and ensure that any contributions/fizes get pushed upstream to the relevant project?

  <brunogirin> yes

  <daubers> brunogirin: Yup, I'm sure the documentation team can supply us with that kind of information

  <daubers> Anybody on the docs team fancy being liasion?

• brunogirin is chocking on chilli chocolate

  <ball> daubers: Documentation (including Wikis if necessary) is important, otherwise the "experts" are asked the same questions over and over again

  <ball> ...and if they're not available, people miss out on what they know.

  <ball> ...if it gets folded into documentation, everyone wins.

  <daubers> ball: I've had that view hit me at work just recently. Spending my evenings updating docs to stop me being _the_ support person in the office

  <ball> daubers: You know what I'm getting at then.

  <daubers> So I'll liase with the docs team and see what they suggest

  <daubers> [action] daubers to liase with the documentation team and find out processes and methods for getting docs pushed upstream

• <daubers> Everyone happy so far?

  <brunogirin> yes

  <AlanBell> yup

  <daubers> Good good

  <Joe202> Yes

  <daubers> [TOPIC] MattDaubney - Training and Mentoring

MattDaubney - Training and Mentoring

• <daubers> It would be good to occasionally run "How to support people" training sessions. I've noticed in some places that the support is so patchy it can be a nightmare for people, and this would alleviate it. I'm happy to attempt to run one or two of these, any volunteers/suggestions?

  <brunogirin> happy to help

  <UndiFineD> it is the reason why I enjoy being in the #ubuntu-uk more than in the #ubuntu-nl

  <daubers> I'm half tempted to run one of these sessions at the birmingham thing if I can get 10 minutes to sort it out.

  <ball> UndiFineD: There is no #ubuntu-us-il, sadly.

  <ali1234> daubers: training on being polite or training on actual troubleshooting methods?

  <ball> ...which is a shame because I meet a lot of new Ubuntu people here.

  <daubers> ali1234: Well, both to a certain extent. Being polite can aid the troubleshooting

  <brunogirin> besides someone who is a specialist in an area will know how to troubleshoot it (you'd hope)

• ali1234 pictures "anger management for neckbeards" classes

  <daubers> brunogirin: Yes. Even a few pointers form someone who knows can go a long way

  <daubers> Ok. So do people have preferred training methods? IRC sessions, tutorials, face to face sessions or a mix?

  <ball> daubers: Depends on a few different things.

  <ball> face-to-face is great if geography permits.

  <ball> ...but it's not always practical.

  <daubers> Well, I'd love to see someone do one of these at every FOSS event

  <brunogirin> presumably that varies the same as preferred support methods

  <daubers> IRC sessions are quite practical, but I don't think they engage people particularly well

  <TonyP> IRC isnt too bad if it is structured

  <brunogirin> and a tutorial / wiki page could act as a guide for IRC / face-to-face sessions so would be useful anyway

  <ball> daubers: ...also depends on the person you're helping.

  <TonyP> There is a tool, learnid, or something like that

  <daubers> Ok. Is anyone interested on running any sessions?

  <brunogirin> TonyP: yes, by Jono

  <TonyP> I lost it when I re-installed

  <daubers> [action] People to think about training sessions they'd like to see run and how they'd like them delivered

• <brunogirin> http://www.jonobacon.org/2009/11/25/introducing-lernid/

  <TonyP> thnaks bruno...

  <daubers> ok, I think we've started to get people to think about things, which is excellent

  <daubers> I'll move on and hopefully we'll be within an hours length

  <daubers> [TOPIC] MattDaubney - Any Other Business

MattDaubney - Any Other Business

• <daubers> Someone mentioned an app they where thinking off?

  <TonyP> How do we advertise our UK help to new users?

  <AlanBell> that is an interesting issue

  <daubers> TonyP: Make a noise! We could integrate this with the initiative popey started about non-technical events

  <AlanBell> I have a feeling a *large* number of UK users find the Ubuntu forums general international areas

  <AlanBell> and have no idea a local team exists

  <daubers> AlanBell: So forum signatures?

  <ball> Where is the forum?

  <daubers> Twitter/Blogs are the normal avenue people suggest.

• <AlanBell> http://ubuntuforums.org/

• ball writes that down.

  <daubers> You have to dig a fair amount to get to the UK team bit

• <daubers> http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=274 as a link

  <AlanBell> yes, but the forums general help area gets loads of views

• ball bookmarks that

  <daubers> Ok, so we need a way of advertising in there without it getting in the way.

  <ball> That looks useful.

  <TonyP> Maybe the main Ubuntu support pages http://www.ubuntulinux.org/support should mention joining the local team

  <ali1234> there's a stick post at the top of that forum advertising the ml and irc...

  <daubers> If you're helping out there, stick a link to the LoCo site in your signature?

  <brunogirin> and speak about it on the podcast?

  <ball> Are the local teams arranged by county?

  <TonyP> country

  <mattt> i don't get who you guys are targeting here

  <ball> TonyP: I thought that was the LoCo

  <ball> ...or is it one LoCo for the UK divided up into national teams?

  <ball> (England, Wales etc.)

  <brunogirin> ball: one LoCo for the whole of the UK

  <AlanBell> LoCo teams are basically country level teams

  <daubers> mattt: Initially UK peeps (as that's the target audience of most of the support avenues we're looking at) but eventually a bit further afield

  <AlanBell> the UK loco covers the whole of the uk

  <TonyP> Wales is a bit of ad add on

  <ball> LoCo == team then?

  <TonyP> Yes

  <AlanBell> there is also a welsh loco mainly focussing on the language

  <MichealH> Yeah but then we should have a English LoCo

  <ball> Okay, I thought "team" was a subdivision of LoCo

  <MichealH> Wales has one :P

  <mattt> MichealH: yeah, because they focus on a lot of language-specific initiatives

  <TonyP> Sometimes

  <MichealH> mattt: We should have a scotttish one then :/

  <daubers> AlanBell: Do you have any contacts with people who maintain those pages?

  <TonyP> I'm in the Wales team

  <AlanBell> daubers: which pages?

  <ball> MichealH: two: one for Scotts and one for Gaelic!

  <daubers> AlanBell: The community support pages of the main Ubuntu site

  <daubers> AlanBell: Or should we just file a bug about the hidden awayness of LoCo's in that page?

  <AlanBell> I can find out, but they will be a little hard to change

  <mattt> daubers: i have a few thoughts, but i don't want to come in mid-sentence ... i'll ping you after if you're around

  <AlanBell> yeah, file a bug would be a good start

  <daubers> okies

  <daubers> Volunteer for bug filing duties?

  <daubers> [action] daubers to file bug on the fact LoCo teams are not well publicised on http://www.ubuntulinux.org/support/community

• <AlanBell> go daubers

  <TonyP> Or on http://www.ubuntulinux.org/support

  <AlanBell> let me know the bug number and I will get comment on it from other loco teams

  <daubers> AlanBell: Okies, shall do that shortly

  <daubers> Anything else anyone wants to cover?

  <daubers> No?

  <AlanBell> it should really guide people to http://loco.ubuntu.com/

  <UndiFineD> like the search i mentioned ?

• ball writes down yet another Web site.

  <daubers> Ah! Yes. the loco directory is really quite a fantastic piece of work

  <AlanBell> ball: what is this "writing down" of which you speak?

  <daubers> UndiFineD: Are you on the mailing list?

  <ball> AlanBell: I have a pencil and I'm not afraid to use it.

  <UndiFineD> not yet

  <daubers> UndiFineD: Ping me tomorrow, I'd like to talk to you about that and how you imagine it could be implimented

  <UndiFineD> will do

  <daubers> Excellent!

  <daubers> Ok, I'd like to do this again next month if thats ok with people?

  <TonyP> ok

  <daubers> [TOPIC] MattDaubney - Date of next meeting

MattDaubney - Date of next meeting

• <daubers> Is a thursday alright again? Or would people prefer a different day?

  <brunogirin> thursday is great for me

  <AlanBell> thursday is good for me

  <TonyP> ok for me at 8.00

  <TonyP> sorry, got to go

  <brunogirin> 23/09?

  <daubers> Ok, 23rd is good for me

  <daubers> So we'll go for that

  <daubers> [agree] Next meeting 23rd of August at 8PM local time (9PM UTC)

  <daubers> can't remember when the clocks change

  <mattt> not for a while

  <MichealH> daubers: You mean the other way round?

  <MichealH> daubers: October

  <daubers> [agreed] Next meeting 23rd of October at 8PM local time (9PM UTC)

• <brunogirin> 8pm BST is 7pm UTC

  <MichealH> Yah

  <daubers> [agreed] Next meeting 23rd of October at 8PM local time (7PM UTC)

• <MichealH> Fail

  <MichealH> Thats better

  <daubers> [action] someone to teach daubers how time works

• <AlanBell> lol

  <daubers> #endmeeting

---

Meeting closed at 20:03

People Present

• AlanBell

• daubers
• MichealH
• Joe202
• TonyP
• UndiFineD
• oly
• brunogirin
• ball
• ali1234
• nperry
• mattt

Actions Recorded

• daubers to promote the generation of the Support Volunteers list and add a "preferred contact method" column
• daubers to add "usual available times" to volunteers list
• daubers to liase with the documentation team and find out processes and methods for getting docs pushed upstream
• People to think about training sessions they'd like to see run and how they'd like them delivered

• daubers to file bug on the fact LoCo teams are not well publicised on http://www.ubuntulinux.org/support/community

• someone to teach daubers how time works