Re: What's That Priv?

[<genders@panix.com>]

Thanks.

> *sigh* ..... think we should have some sort of
> requirement/test/training-period before we let them help?

Boy, I hate where that's going. I'd thought of it myself, but in my capacity
as benevolent monarch (I r00l, heh) I hate anything that smacks of elitism.
Or might be interpreted as elitism. But, this whole mess is causing those of 
us who could be doing more productive things to have to repeatedly go over 
those apparently answered requests to do damage control.

I'm not sure it needs to be that draconian/bureaucratic. Maybe they should
sign up to do support at which point they get autoemailed some "Welcome to
Support" mail that has ground rules such as:

	Refer to the FAQ in your response
	Be nice
	Other stuff in the Big Blue Box
	Names of who maintains what
	Join the community

Such a mail could be updated whenever we think of something else, and resent
if necessary to the general population. Either way, I'd favor the most
automated possible solution that is not so automated that it causes the
developers grief. Such a letter should be contributed to by Dakus, Opi, myself
and Mark if he wants to see it.

In an ideal world I'd prefer training, but in the current environment there's
no practical way to do it, and it would involve a chain of either programming
or constant manual privilege adding.

> Also, I think paid users should get priority support.... only one of the top
> 10 active support people (people that helped in last week) should be able to
> answer their questions.  That work?

Got to agree there, mainly because voila! Another benefit to paid users.
(Not to forget to put it on the page). I'm confused about your heuristic,
though. Obviously it can't be the top 10 in general (see: burdens, above)
but the 10 most active may end up being 20% active but not helpful. You 
mean closers?

Two unrelated questions:

  Do updates continue to not stick to support pages?
  I had sent you a comment asking some questions about changing usernames.
Are you not wishing to implement this at this time? It's still a very hot one.

G.