Hi Colin,
I had a good chat last week with one of the volunteers that you recruited some months ago to help with the helpdesk. He told me that he wasn't answering tickets anymore, since it is just a deluge of tickets, mostly the same over and over, and without any feedback mechanisms from the helpdesk to the other support pieces (faq, stackexchange, etc) and dev teams, there isn't really an end in sight.
I suspect I agree with him -- taking a step back, it seems wise for us to enumerate our support mechanisms, and try to prioritize and triage so we do what is most scalable and most sustainable.
That said, I don't think many of us have a good handle on where the helpdesk is right now. So it's hard for us to know where it should fit in this triaging.
Can you summarize for us how many tickets it's getting, how many (and which) people are active, whether most tickets are getting answered (and after how long), what languages they're in, and whatever other questions I ought to be asking?
Then we will be in a better position to try to help you.
Thanks! --Roger
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512
Roger Dingledine:
Hi Colin,
Hi Roger / all,
I had a good chat last week with one of the volunteers that you recrui
ted
some months ago to help with the helpdesk. He told me that he wasn't answering tickets anymore, since it is just a deluge of tickets, mostl
y
the same over and over, and without any feedback mechanisms from the helpdesk to the other support pieces (faq, stackexchange, etc) and dev teams, there isn't really an end in sight.
This is currently accurate. Outside of reporting UX issues on Trac, and possibly adding items to the FAQ, there is no mechanism for support staff to spread the help-desk information more widely.
A lot of the tickets we see are what I would consider "basics", and things that would be covered by the user manual (if it was available to users in an updated / usable way). This is a big part of why I think getting that finished would be a useful step forward for providing support to users, especially if it could be presented in some way that users encountered it without much hunting.
I suspect I agree with him -- taking a step back, it seems wise for us to enumerate our support mechanisms, and try to prioritize and triage so we do what is most scalable and most sustainable.
I generally agree here. Currently for support mechanisms, these are what I am aware of:
1: Help-Desks (RequestTracker) 2. Mailing lists (tor-talk, etc..) 3. IRC (#tor) 4. StackExchange 5. FAQ 6. General documentation on the website 7. Man pages
That said, I don't think many of us have a good handle on where the helpdesk is right now. So it's hard for us to know where it should fit in this triaging.
Can you summarize for us how many tickets it's getting, how many (and which) people are active, whether most tickets are getting answered (and after how long), what languages they're in, and whatever other questions I ought to be asking?
I will put out more precise numbers tomorrow and update the list, however I am fairly certain at this point I am the only person answering tickets in English, however its possible that Alison may still be answering tickets as well (will check on this when I retrieve the numbers). This is obviously not sustainable / ideal, regardless of if its 1 or 2 of us.
We still have semi-active people answering tickets in Farsi, French and Chinese.
I believe the volunteers that were recruited a few months ago were quickly overwhelmed with the number of tickets we receive; which in hindsight, is not surprising.
Unfortunately, based on how the previous recruitment went, I do not think the same type of plan will be successful in the long-term. I've been working on a plan to make the support team more sustainable, however figuring out the best way to offer direct user support has been proving tricky. I believe its an important service, and one that cannot be replaced by public mechanisms like IRC and open mailing lists. My hope, is that there may be ways that we can make users reliance on the help-desk less, so that the help-desk can go back to being used for when users require the 1-on-1 support it can provide, when operating normally .
Tomorrow I will clean up the portions of the plan that I think I have figured out, and send it to this list for review. Currently, this plan includes cleaning up certain pieces of documentation (like the manual, and relay / HS guides), as well as trying to turn many of the template responses we use on RT into FAQ entries, or perhaps their own type of "support portal". I will also bump this thread with more exact numbers on tickets.
Then we will be in a better position to try to help you.
That would be great! Any suggestions are greatly appreciated / welcomed.
Thanks!
- -- Colin Childs Tor Project https://www.torproject.org Twitter: @Phoul
On Wed, Mar 09, 2016 at 03:52:00AM +0000, Colin Childs wrote:
Currently for support mechanisms, these are what I am aware of:
1: Help-Desks (RequestTracker) 2. Mailing lists (tor-talk, etc..) 3. IRC (#tor) 4. StackExchange 5. FAQ 6. General documentation on the website 7. Man pages
There's also Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and the blog comments: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/meetings/2016WinterDevMeet...
Good thought on 'man pages' -- I just added that to the list on that wiki page.
We should think about which other ones we've missed.
I will put out more precise numbers tomorrow and update the list,
Looking forward to it!
cleaning up certain pieces of documentation (like the manual, and relay / HS guides), as well as trying to turn many of the template responses we use on RT into FAQ entries
I agree that these steps sound useful.
Thanks, --Roger
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512
Roger Dingledine:
There's also Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and the blog comments: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/meetings/2016WinterD
evMeeting/Notes/TakeBackCommunityChannels
Ahh, great! I had forgotten about these avenues of offering support.
Good thought on 'man pages' -- I just added that to the list on that wiki page.
We should think about which other ones we've missed.
I will put out more precise numbers tomorrow and update the list,
Looking forward to it!
To start, I was incorrect about who was still working on the help-desk. It appears that Michael and Jason are still answering tickets, Thank you to both of them for continuing to answer tickets over the last couple months.
Here are some numbers:
Total tickets in queue: 4224[1][2] Tickets answered since March 1st: 14 Tickets received today: 40
Assuming today is an average day (it appears to be), this would be approx. 1200 tickets a month. At 1200 tickets a month, with 3 people maintaining the help-desk, we would each need to take on 400 tickets per month (each).
While this worked for a period when the help-desk was being run by paid staff, it is clear that it is not continuing to work; which is understandable. Answering 400 tickets in a month is an extreme time commitment for a volunteer, and was on the higher end of what the paid staff was able to accomplish when 100% of their time was spent on answering requests.
In the next hour or so, I will be getting the "support plan" that I mentioned previously onto this list. While this email likely sounds bleak, hopefully the other one helps balance things out.
[1]: While this number is alarmingly high, it is not entirely accurate. These tickets have not been pruned for spam, requests in non-English languages, and duplicate tickets. My estimate, would be that 3000-ish (likely fewer) of these tickets would be something we would / could actually respond to.
[2]: When we started with the new volunteers in December, the queue was cleared as the help-desk had been shut down for a period of time while recruiting volunteers. So the 4224 number should not include any tickets before the last week of 2015.
- -- Colin Childs Tor Project https://www.torproject.org Twitter: @Phoul
Roger Dingledine arma@mit.edu escribió:
Hi Colin,
I had a good chat last week with one of the volunteers that you recruited some months ago to help with the helpdesk. He told me that he wasn't answering tickets anymore, since it is just a deluge of tickets, mostly the same over and over, and without any feedback mechanisms from the helpdesk to the other support pieces (faq, stackexchange, etc) and dev teams, there isn't really an end in sight.
I suspect I agree with him -- taking a step back, it seems wise for us to enumerate our support mechanisms, and try to prioritize and triage so we do what is most scalable and most sustainable.
That said, I don't think many of us have a good handle on where the helpdesk is right now. So it's hard for us to know where it should fit in this triaging.
Can you summarize for us how many tickets it's getting, how many (and which) people are active, whether most tickets are getting answered (and after how long), what languages they're in, and whatever other questions I ought to be asking?
Then we will be in a better position to try to help you.
Thanks! --Roger
Just as a side note:
In Valencia there were some talk about resuscitating the service in spanish if we find three volunteers. I said I'll be one of them. Blame me but I don't remember who said to be the second one.
Regards
Noel er Envite
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512
Noel Torres:
Just as a side note:
In Valencia there were some talk about resuscitating the service in spanish if we find three volunteers. I said I'll be one of them. Blame me but I don't remember who said to be the second one.
This sounds great!
Sadly, most of the other queues do not have multiple maintainers at the moment. I believe previously, when Lunar was running the help-desk, that it was stated 2 people would be enough to open a new queue.
Was there any reason for the switch to 3 maintainers?
- -- Colin Childs Tor Project https://www.torproject.org Twitter: @Phoul
Colin Childs colin@torproject.org escribió:
Noel Torres:
Just as a side note:
In Valencia there were some talk about resuscitating the service in spanish if we find three volunteers. I said I'll be one of them. Blame me but I don't remember who said to be the second one.
This sounds great!
Sadly, most of the other queues do not have multiple maintainers at the moment. I believe previously, when Lunar was running the help-desk, that it was stated 2 people would be enough to open a new queue.
Was there any reason for the switch to 3 maintainers?
No particular reason, besides involving three people implies than in case of any absence (illness, leave, holidays with the family, being interned in some secret NSA/CIA jail) there will be still two people working.
Colin Childs Tor Project https://www.torproject.org Twitter: @Phoul
(Missed you at Valencia)
Regards
Noel er Envite
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512
Noel Torres:
Colin Childs colin@torproject.org escribió:
Noel Torres:
Just as a side note:
In Valencia there were some talk about resuscitating the service in spanish if we find three volunteers. I said I'll be one of them. Bla
me
me but I don't remember who said to be the second one.
This sounds great!
Sadly, most of the other queues do not have multiple maintainers at t
he
moment. I believe previously, when Lunar was running the help-desk, t
hat
it was stated 2 people would be enough to open a new queue.
Was there any reason for the switch to 3 maintainers?
No particular reason, besides involving three people implies than in case of any absence (illness, leave, holidays with the family, being interned in some secret NSA/CIA jail) there will be still two people working.
This makes sense, and sounds like a good idea. It should also help towards not being in a situation again where its just 1 person, if we have time to find a replacement and still have 2 people working.
(Missed you at Valencia)
Yes, sorry for that. There were some unfortunate circumstances that prevented me from being able to attend this year, however I hope to see you at the next meeting.
Thanks!
- -- Colin Childs Tor Project https://www.torproject.org Twitter: @Phoul
tor-project@lists.torproject.org
-
Colin Childs -
Noel Torres -
Roger Dingledine