Interest check: unRAID office hours

[Rajahal]

Please read this before voting!

 

I've had this idea kicking around the back of my head, and I'm wondering if it would actually work.  Thus, this thread was born.  If this thread garners enough interest, then I will start this project as described below:

 

unRAID Office Hours

 

Roles:

Professor - Someone who offers advice based on their knowledge and experience with unRAID during designated times

Student - Someone who seeks help during designated times

 

The idea is that every so often (once per week? once per month?) I and a small group of others would offer 'unRAID office hours'.  This means that we would make ourselves available through gchat, skype, phone, etc. to anyone who wants help with an unRAID-related issue.  Help would be offered on a first-come-first served basis, and each person would be limited to 15 minutes of individualized time if anyone else is waiting.  All advice and discussion would be free, and in some cases professors would also offer to 'do it for you' (by remote connecting to your computer via TeamViewer or similar) for a small fee (maybe $5 or $10).  The purpose of the fee isn't to make a lot of money, just to offer a token of thanks to the professors who volunteer their time in this project.  If certain professors want to decline all fees, that is up to them.  In certain cases, professors could also schedule specific appointments with students if needed.

 

Here's my thoughts on the matter:

 

1) I believe there's a clear need for more formalized support for unRAID.  This belief is based on the amount of people who approach me for individualized support though forum messages and/or email.  I've thought about offering unRAID support services, but I don't want to be tied down to a phone or computer 24/7.  I propose this office hours idea as a happy medium between full technical support and the community-based forums.

2) There used to be an unRAID IRC channel.  Nearly no one used it.  The problem with IRC is that you never know when someone will be online.  Also, IRC isn't nearly as ubiquitous as chat, skype, etc.

3) The forums already offer a huge amount of timely support.  However, some people's posts do get ignored from time to time, and response times vary from several seconds to several days.  If your server is down, chances are you don't want to wait.  Still, waiting for the next allotted office hour to come along may or may not be any better.

 

I would also suggest that some office hours have specific themes to guide students to the right professors.  Probably around 50% of the office hours would be open to all questions, and just a few would have specific topics.  I think this format would work well, but of course it is open to discussion if you have other ideas.  Also, it would be great if we had a range of professors who are willing to work at different times to cover different time zones.  Here's a sample schedule (just making these times and topics up, not actually offering any of them yet...also not including any other professor names since I don't want to force anyone to volunteer ):

 

Time: Sunday, Noon PST

Duration: 1 hour

Topic: Newbie's Hour - Q&A and walkthroughs regarding unRAID basics

Professor(s): Rajahal

 

Time: Wednesday, 6 PM PST

Duration: 1 hour

Topic: Open, all unRAID-related questions are welcomed

Professor(s): Rajahal

 

Time: Friday, 8 AM PST

Duration: 1 hour

Topic: Advanced topic - How to configure unMenu packages

Professor(s): Rajahal

 

To anyone interested in being a professor:

First of all, thank you.  You don't have to be a forum moderator or hero member to be a professor (though of course those people are always welcome).  Maybe you've just built your unRAID server and figured out how to configure a particular add-on, but know little else.  No problem!  You could lead a discussion on how to configure that particular add-on, and nothing else.  You don't need wide-spread knowledge to teach one particular thing.  The more people involved who teach one particular thing, the wider of a range of professors we have, and the less burden placed on the few people who do have more widespread knowledge.  Please post below and announce yourself if you would like to be a professor!

 

As for the actual logistics of how to connect with people, well, we'll cross that bridge if and when there's enough interest in this project

 

Thanks for reading.  Keep in mind that the primary purpose of this thread is to check interest in the idea.  Is this service actually needed?  Would it be used if it were offered?  These are the key questions, the logistics and finer details can be worked out later.  Please suggest new poll options as well, if you think any are missing.  Now go vote!

[ccruzen]

I really like the idea, one thing I thought of while reading your post was possibly trying to use google+'s hangout feature so for specific topics multiple people could participate.  It would be more like unRAID class but could be beneficial if there were a bunch of people wanting to do the same things.

[prostuff1]

I was thinking the same thing about using google+.  It is very new, but a lot of tech people seem to like it a lot.

 

I think there is some sort of limit, but even then you could get a group together and it would be like an online class almost.

[queeg]

While I'm in favor of it, and voted to be a professior, it does have one drawback.  The forum is a public record which can be used over and over by newcomers.  It's a wealth of knowledge that benefits everyone.  By pulling the conversations into other venue, the community, can get fractured.  People in need always follow the sources of knowledge which might eventually lead to the forum becoming slowly abandoned over time.

[Rajahal]

Interesting thought.  Depending on the format we use, it should be possible to keep logs of all the office hours sessions.  Those logs could then be posted to the forums or to some other more long-term archive.  Reading through chat logs is never very stimulated, but at least it is something.  I figured that the forums would continue to be used as they currently are, but that this 'live help' option would convince a few more new-comers to trust our community.  It would be interesting to see how this project affects forum use.

 

I also have in mind some more permanent instructional material (videos, tutorials, etc.) but we can discuss those later.

[Johnm]

I would participate as a student but would share anything I learn when asked.

 

I also agree that the logs should be kept as reference material.

[SMH]

I would love to participate as a student. Ive learned plenty by reading the forums but a little more knowledge couldnt hurt.

[kizer]

As far as Google+ goes I haven't played with it a lot as for the Chat, but from what I can tell its setup to be used with a mic and a camera.

 

I'm more than willing to hand out invites as I have a thread in Lounge, but honestly if your going to want logs you can do that simply in IRC. Since it tracks logs

[burtjr]

Rajahal, I personally would not use the student office hours mainly because I like doing things the painful (hard) way as that is how I learn, but this is a good idea because there are many who learn differently or do not want to invest too much time into this. I think this would be a great move as the word gets out about the office hours I believe more users will come to UnRaid just for the help. I see it as  a must for UnRaid to increase its user base.

 

Is your plan just for the software? There seems to be many hardware questions that could be answered in the same manner.

[SSD]

I like the concept but might suggest a bit more structure. Perhaps the "teacher" could have a topic area, communicate the date/time, and explain the topic. For example I understand How SMART works and how to interpret a smart report. I could hold a session and interested parties join for that session.

 

For "tech support" I really think the forums are better. The wide range of skills and experience are needed to solve the various mysteries that arise out of unRaid use.

[toby9999]

Background: IT education is my specialty.  My business is focussed on IT consulting and training (emphasis on training).  I've been doing this for many many years with the major IT suppliers (MS, Intel, HP/Compaq, VMware), as well as direct end-user customers.

 

In my opinion, Raj's idea is good.  But in my mind, it raises more questions than answers.  Is it really needed?  I don't know.  Will it fracture the (somewhat unique) community as Queeg suggests?  I don't know but we should definitely step carefully because if it fractures/changes, it may never be recovered.  Are the regular posters feeling it's time for a change?  Are they feeling under-appreciated?  Do they want to be compensated for their time/support?

 

If this goes ahead, I believe it could be a wealth of source information/knowledge for the creation of training materials.  But be warned, creating quality training resources is much harder than most people realise.  It's like writing a novel - can start with lots of energy and good intent, but only gets completed with day-in/day-out grinding.

 

It'll be interesting to see where this goes...

[johnny121b]

I think some sort of ticket-based (and browse-able) support would be more beneficial for actual support issues.  The ticket system would help ensure no questions are lost/ignored, but wouldn't restrict both the teacher and the student to a firm schedule.  Resolved tickets would become a good resource for less experienced users (as these forums are.)  The forums' biggest weakness is actually finding your issue amongst the, sometimes, long discussions and resulting tangents.

[prostuff1]

I think some sort of ticket-based (and browse-able) support would be more beneficial for actual support issues.  The ticket system would help ensure no questions are lost/ignored, but wouldn't restrict both the teacher and the student to a firm schedule.  Resolved tickets would become a good resource for less experienced users (as these forums are.)  The forums' biggest weakness is actually finding your issue amongst the, sometimes, long discussions and resulting tangents.

 

Tangents?... What tang................... Oh, look squirrel!!

 

[toby9999]

I think some sort of ticket-based (and browse-able) support would be more beneficial for actual support issues.  The ticket system would help ensure no questions are lost/ignored, but wouldn't restrict both the teacher and the student to a firm schedule.  Resolved tickets would become a good resource for less experienced users (as these forums are.)  The forums' biggest weakness is actually finding your issue amongst the, sometimes, long discussions and resulting tangents.

 

Tangents?... What tang................... Oh, look squirrel!!

 

 

haha funny 

[Rajahal]

Is your plan just for the software? There seems to be many hardware questions that could be answered in the same manner.

 

No, I planned on holding hardware-centric sessions as well.  Whatever the people want.

 

I like the concept but might suggest a bit more structure. Perhaps the "teacher" could have a topic area, communicate the date/time, and explain the topic. For example I understand How SMART works and how to interpret a smart report. I could hold a session and interested parties join for that session.

 

That was my intention with proposing that certain sessions have set 'themes'.  Are you suggesting that there should be no open-ended sessions?

 

For "tech support" I really think the forums are better. The wide range of skills and experience are needed to solve the various mysteries that arise out of unRaid use.

 

I certainly don't want this system to supplant the forums, and I agree that in many cases the forums are a better format for tech support.  Most of this 'office hours' project would likely be more of a lecture format, intended to educate and not troubleshoot.  Still, I see nothing wrong with people requesting tech support in the open-ended sessions.  Do you see any reason to discourage this?

 

Will it fracture the (somewhat unique) community as Queeg suggests?

 

I really don't see this project as having the potential to fracture the community, but maybe I'm wrong there.  I figure it would make a nice compliment to the forums, yet another way that our community helps itself and new members.  I have been helping people privately via email and gchat for over a year at this point.  In some cases I will post those email/chat transcripts to the forums if I feel they may help others.  In most cases, the information is already present in the forums and the wiki, so I don't bother to post anything.  Does my current individualized help fracture the community?  I don't think it does.  It may lead certain people to contact me privately before posting a thread, but in most cases I've found the opposite to be true.  I may help a person through the initial growing pains of building and configuring their server, then once they see they've accomplished what they set out to do they gain confidence and strike out on their own.  This would be my wish with the office hours project as well....to help people get their feet wet, then let them jump in the rest of the way on their own.

 

Are the regular posters feeling it's time for a change?  Are they feeling under-appreciated?  Do they want to be compensated for their time/support?

 

Personally, I have no problem with the forums as they are.  I don't feel it is time for a change, but I'm always interested in trying something new.  I certainly don't feel under-appreciated.  As I mentioned in the original post, I don't feel that compensation is an absolute necessity.  There are plenty of very talented people in these forums that volunteer ungodly amounts of time to helping others.  I'm sure we could gather enough of those people to proceed with this project with absolutely no compensation.  However, I've seen time and time again forum members offering to pay for services and tech support, and I see nothing wrong with that.  Perhaps instead of set compensation there should just be a tipping system available - if a student likes what a prof has done, that student has the option of donating to that prof's PayPal account.

 

If this goes ahead, I believe it could be a wealth of source information/knowledge for the creation of training materials.  But be warned, creating quality training resources is much harder than most people realise.  It's like writing a novel - can start with lots of energy and good intent, but only gets completed with day-in/day-out grinding.

 

I agree, creating quality training material is a lot of work.  Essentially that is the purpose behind the wiki right now.  I believe the format of the wiki caters to certain lessons, but not all.  I would put the training material aspect of this project on the back burner for now.  I figure that the need for training materials will manifest naturally throughout the duration of this project.  We can create training materials for the most popular courses and topics as we go along.  If we maintain logs of all sessions, then we should have plenty of base material to work with.

 

I think some sort of ticket-based (and browse-able) support would be more beneficial for actual support issues.  The ticket system would help ensure no questions are lost/ignored, but wouldn't restrict both the teacher and the student to a firm schedule.  Resolved tickets would become a good resource for less experienced users (as these forums are.)

 

I agree that a ticket system could be beneficial.  However, I don't see how that would relate to the office hours project, I see this as a spin-off idea (perhaps one that deserves its own thread).  The ticket system would just mean that certain support requests would be assigned to certain people.  The problem with this system is that we are all volunteers, so getting an email saying 'You have been assigned ticket number 4321, you have to help this person with their support request' can be a bit off-putting.  If the ticket system also integrated some sort compensation then maybe it would work.  Perhaps users could either post to the forums for free, or issue a ticket for $5.  Whichever person accepted the ticket and successfully solved the support request would receive the $5....oh wait, I just described Google/Yahoo Answers

 

The forums' biggest weakness is actually finding your issue amongst the, sometimes, long discussions and resulting tangents.

 

I definitely agree with you here.  While the forum's search function does work well enough, it can be a daunting task to wade through several threads looking for the answer to your specific question.  For students that attend live classes, their experience would hopefully be much more pleasant.  For others reviewing class transcripts, then I don't think it will really be any better than the current forum format.  The forum is essentially already a chat with more time passing between responses.

 

Thank you all for the great ideas and discussion points!  Keep at it!

[PeterB]

Many web forums include a shoutbox.  Would it be possible to add a shoutbox to the unRAID forum, and would this be a possible medium for teaching/individual support?

[SSD]

I would not want to mix this with tech support at all. Don't want to be explaining "reallocated sectors" and suddenly people are asking me to diagnose disk errors and syslogs. Other people don't want to wait for leader to research, and leader may feel awkward if question is outside their comfort zone. This would, IMO significantly reduce leader volunteers. I am ok with QA, but has to be related to topic area and not diagnosis of problem.

[johnny121b]

The ticket system would just mean that certain support requests would be assigned to certain people.  The problem with this system is that we are all volunteers, so getting an email saying 'You have been assigned ticket number 4321, you have to help this person with their support request' can be a bit off-putting.

 

I didn't envision the system as some sort of authority-figure, assigning tasks.  I envisioned the ticketing system as a way to easily differentiate resolved questions from those you spend 15 minutes reading thru, only to realize that the root question was never answered, and you've just spent your time wading thru 6-10 pages that you either didn't understand or wasn't relevant to the original question.  I'd think it would be just as 'off-putting' to be real-time 1:1 or 1:MANY with stressed-out/panicked users of differing levels of expertise.

 

I've never worked with a ticket-based system from the other side....not looking to assign my problem to someone, just voting for a system of proven answers.  I have done tech support, and I know, it wears you thin q-u-i-c-k-l-y....

[Rajahal]

The ticket system would just mean that certain support requests would be assigned to certain people.  The problem with this system is that we are all volunteers, so getting an email saying 'You have been assigned ticket number 4321, you have to help this person with their support request' can be a bit off-putting.

 

I didn't envision the system as some sort of authority-figure, assigning tasks.  I envisioned the ticketing system as a way to easily differentiate resolved questions from those you spend 15 minutes reading thru, only to realize that the root question was never answered, and you've just spent your time wading thru 6-10 pages that you either didn't understand or wasn't relevant to the original question.  I'd think it would be just as 'off-putting' to be real-time 1:1 or 1:MANY with stressed-out/panicked users of differing levels of expertise.

 

I've never worked with a ticket-based system from the other side....not looking to assign my problem to someone, just voting for a system of proven answers.  I have done tech support, and I know, it wears you thin q-u-i-c-k-l-y....

 

I see, so the purpose of the ticket system is for the community to elect certain resolved issues as being the 'gold standard' of a solution for that problem.  There may be five threads all addressing the same problem, but the one with the 'resolved ticket' would be the one worth reading.  This idea definitely has merit, and I think that is a great way to improve the forums as a tool for researching problems that have already been solved, assuming we can figure out a way to do it.  I suggest that you start a new thread for this idea and gather discussion and ideas there.  I still don't see how this really has anything to do with the unRAID office hours project, but feel free to convince me otherwise.

[opentoe]

Please read this before voting!

 

I've had this idea kicking around the back of my head, and I'm wondering if it would actually work.  Thus, this thread was born.  If this thread garners enough interest, then I will start this project as described below:

 

unRAID Office Hours

 

Roles:

Professor - Someone who offers advice based on their knowledge and experience with unRAID during designated times

Student - Someone who seeks help during designated times

 

The idea is that every so often (once per week? once per month?) I and a small group of others would offer 'unRAID office hours'.  This means that we would make ourselves available through gchat, skype, phone, etc. to anyone who wants help with an unRAID-related issue.  Help would be offered on a first-come-first served basis, and each person would be limited to 15 minutes of individualized time if anyone else is waiting.  All advice and discussion would be free, and in some cases professors would also offer to 'do it for you' (by remote connecting to your computer via TeamViewer or similar) for a small fee (maybe $5 or $10).  The purpose of the fee isn't to make a lot of money, just to offer a token of thanks to the professors who volunteer their time in this project.  If certain professors want to decline all fees, that is up to them.  In certain cases, professors could also schedule specific appointments with students if needed.

 

Here's my thoughts on the matter:

 

1) I believe there's a clear need for more formalized support for unRAID.  This belief is based on the amount of people who approach me for individualized support though forum messages and/or email.  I've thought about offering unRAID support services, but I don't want to be tied down to a phone or computer 24/7.  I propose this office hours idea as a happy medium between full technical support and the community-based forums.

2) There used to be an unRAID IRC channel.  Nearly no one used it.  The problem with IRC is that you never know when someone will be online.  Also, IRC isn't nearly as ubiquitous as chat, skype, etc.

3) The forums already offer a huge amount of timely support.  However, some people's posts do get ignored from time to time, and response times vary from several seconds to several days.  If your server is down, chances are you don't want to wait.  Still, waiting for the next allotted office hour to come along may or may not be any better.

 

I would also suggest that some office hours have specific themes to guide students to the right professors.  Probably around 50% of the office hours would be open to all questions, and just a few would have specific topics.  I think this format would work well, but of course it is open to discussion if you have other ideas.  Also, it would be great if we had a range of professors who are willing to work at different times to cover different time zones.  Here's a sample schedule (just making these times and topics up, not actually offering any of them yet...also not including any other professor names since I don't want to force anyone to volunteer ):

 

Time: Sunday, Noon PST

Duration: 1 hour

Topic: Newbie's Hour - Q&A and walkthroughs regarding unRAID basics

Professor(s): Rajahal

 

Time: Wednesday, 6 PM PST

Duration: 1 hour

Topic: Open, all unRAID-related questions are welcomed

Professor(s): Rajahal

 

Time: Friday, 8 AM PST

Duration: 1 hour

Topic: Advanced topic - How to configure unMenu packages

Professor(s): Rajahal

 

To anyone interested in being a professor:

First of all, thank you.  You don't have to be a forum moderator or hero member to be a professor (though of course those people are always welcome).  Maybe you've just built your unRAID server and figured out how to configure a particular add-on, but know little else.  No problem!  You could lead a discussion on how to configure that particular add-on, and nothing else.  You don't need wide-spread knowledge to teach one particular thing.  The more people involved who teach one particular thing, the wider of a range of professors we have, and the less burden placed on the few people who do have more widespread knowledge.  Please post below and announce yourself if you would like to be a professor!

 

As for the actual logistics of how to connect with people, well, we'll cross that bridge if and when there's enough interest in this project

 

Thanks for reading.  Keep in mind that the primary purpose of this thread is to check interest in the idea.  Is this service actually needed?  Would it be used if it were offered?  These are the key questions, the logistics and finer details can be worked out later.  Please suggest new poll options as well, if you think any are missing.  Now go vote!

 

 

I would really love to see an dedicated IRC channel. That's all real time and other people can join in at any time and be of help. It could be at least a starting point or tied into the forum community some how. I've used IRC for years and it can be very useful.

[Tarsier]

I would really love to see an dedicated IRC channel. That's all real time and other people can join in at any time and be of help. It could be at least a starting point or tied into the forum community some how. I've used IRC for years and it can be very useful.

I'm new to unRAID but I would participate as a student and also help out where possible with pointing people to the right place.

 

I was also thinking a dedicated IRC would be an easier way to manage it.

It would take care of issues with scheduling and time zones by just having people around in there when they're available to help

[Rajahal]

As I mentioned in the OP, there used to be an unRAID IRC channel that just sat unused most of the time.  I'm happy with using IRC as our primary format if that's the group's desire, but I think we should consider more current options as well.  I like Kizer's idea of using Google+.

[LateNight]

I like the IRC idea too. Most chat clients support it and there are web front ends for most of the major networks.

[kizer]

As I mentioned in the OP, there used to be an unRAID IRC channel that just sat unused most of the time.  I'm happy with using IRC as our primary format if that's the group's desire, but I think we should consider more current options as well.  I like Kizer's idea of using Google+.

 

Actually I suggested we use IRC over Google+ unless you are using the Huddle feature which allows you to talk to each other via voice and video. Otherwise when you post a message "FaceBook" style its going to spam everybody in the thread everytime anything is posted. Talk about an email nightmare.

 

IRC in the past has always worked for me. You can login chat away and the great thing if your using a decent client it will log the talk. I know there is an IRC plugin for SMF "This Forum" which would use logins from the forum and connect the two.

http://www.tufat.com/s_flash_chat_chatroom.htm

 

Heres a demo

http://affiliate.tufat.com/demo/flashchat/stateless/flashchat.php

 

I've used it briefly in the past and honestly I decided for my needs it wasn't well needed. LOL

[opentoe]

I like the IRC idea too. Most chat clients support it and there are web front ends for most of the major networks.

 

IRC is free too!!!