[tor-bugs] #23697 [Webpages/Website]: List frontdesk, not execdir, on the contact page

Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki blackhole at torproject.org
Sat Sep 30 07:34:57 UTC 2017


#23697: List frontdesk, not execdir, on the contact page
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 Reporter:  arma              |          Owner:  (none)
     Type:  enhancement       |         Status:  new
 Priority:  Medium            |      Milestone:
Component:  Webpages/Website  |        Version:
 Severity:  Normal            |     Resolution:
 Keywords:                    |  Actual Points:
Parent ID:                    |         Points:
 Reviewer:                    |        Sponsor:
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Comment (by arma):

 Replying to [comment:4 alison]:
 > Wait, I'm confused about the purpose of frontdesk at . Originally, we
 created it in order to field support requests. Now according to this
 language, it is not for that. What is it for?

 My hope is that it will turn into a funnel for people trying to reach
 "Tor" by email. I think it will continue to be a bunch of support requests
 in the short term, since resources to help people support themselves is a
 clear thing that's missing from our websites currently.

 There really aren't that many actual execdir things that come in on
 execdir@ these days. Shari's idea there is that the frontdesk will get
 good at recognizing mails that need to get escalated, and doing so --
 whether that's sending them towards execdir@, or press@, or accounting@,
 or reporting a bug to one of the dev teams, or telling somebody that this
 line in the documentation is misleading people, or what. And (I hope) the
 frontdesk people will get better and better at dealing with some of the
 things themselves, like if it's a support question they know the answer
 to, or a trademark question that looks just like the last one.

 This idea has been built-in from the beginning: that's why it's called
 frontdesk rather than support.

 > And if it's going to be the email address for all the things, we need
 more than just me and Phoul answering it. Even if it were only support,
 5-10 more emails a day is a lot for just two people to be managing.

 This is absolutely correct.

 I bet we could get Jon on it, especially if we fold in the donations@ part
 of the contact.

 Long term, I would like to have a person whose job includes handling the
 frontdesk mails, and they use it to get up to speed on all things Tor, and
 once they're up to speed then they jump to another part of the org, like
 developer or advocate, or they go to some other company and now that
 company has a person who knows all about Tor... and then we refill from
 the pipeline. The background and skillset of the person working frontdesk
 at the time dictates which stuff they escalate vs which stuff they can
 just handle themselves.

 Short-term, assuming many of the questions continue to be support
 questions, and given that we wrote in big letters "Please don't use this
 contact address for helpdesk or user requests", I think we could reduce
 the burden by having the answers to support questions that nobody has time
 for be "I'm very sorry, but we don't have the people to do support over
 email right now. Maybe you could try the following five resources."
 Remember that the bar is pretty low compared to what we're doing with them
 now, which is ignoring them for a month or two and then sending them in a
 batch to frontdesk. :)

 I am explicitly *not* saying "hey, let's start offering support over email
 again, because the support portal is taking so long."

 So, to recap: (1) short-term, we keep doing what we're doing now, except
 more of the mails go to frontdesk directly rather than being redirected
 from me a few months later. (2) medium-term, we get better at knowing how
 certain topics should be escalated so they reach the right people. (3)
 long-term, we recruit people with the goal of having them be good at doing
 this position.

--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/23697#comment:5>
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