User talk:Mchua/Braindumps/Support gang

Old timers

What about us "old timers"? Will we be grandfathered (or grandmothered) in? --Caryl

I would propose that old-timers go through the same process as newbies, with the exception that we can also serve as mentors during our 'training round' (so we'd have to be mentored by two other support-gangers for feedback purposes, and would mentor other old-timers during the first round as well). Some SGers have been inactive for a while, and need some time to gear back into the swing of things. Mchua 17:35, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

Irregular schedules

What about folks with irregular schedules? Could we ask them to make a time committment (say X hours/week) that they could do at their convienience? --Caryl

I don't see how irregular schedules would keep people from participating in SG - the work is "when you want to do it," but you do need to commit to doing at least X amount of work, which is what I think you're describing above. Are you talking about people who wouldn't be able to make the weekly meetings because of an irregular schedule? In that case, perhaps two weekly meeetings 12 hours offset from each other would be an option if that turns out to be the case in a particular "tour of duty" round. Mchua 17:35, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

Reward

I'm all for some type of reward/recognition, especially if it doesn't cost OLPC a lot of money. Where is this place you would display a "badge"? --Caryl

Wiki user talk, imo. Someone would just watch the pages being linked to from the badge to make sure nobody was abusing it, but I don't see this being a problem. Mchua 17:35, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

Possible extensions

• This could be used for coordinating not just support volunteers, but content team, translation team, etc.
• As Seth pointed out, SG (or these "more formal" teams) shouldn't be people who make things, but people who make things so that other people can make things - there should be a meta element to the work of recognized volunteers.
  • However, we should recognize and encourage big contributors, even if their work isn't meta.

Iain's thoughts

• SG traditionally has been a 'boot camp' for new volunteers to get their feet wet about OLPC.
• Once they have figure out systems, they move on to what interests them most... moving on from support issues... leaving no one left to approach tickets.
• Adam/Kim management style about supervisory / volunteer herding ?
• contributiong towards systems which help people contribution
• Alumni, senior alumni - recognition
• 5 weeks - introduction, flare, swag 'recognition'

• Badge on your talk page
• yourname@volunteers.laptop.org email address, active for 3 months beyond your last active tour of duty?

• 5 (20 hr?) week 'ownership'
  • committment
  • ownership of participation
  • acknowledgement / cookie , talk page 1) who you are 2) what you have done, 3) where you want to be in an year, 4) vetting of members
  • chair board, with votes,

• 3 (50 hr?) months 'acknowledgement'
  • thanks for all the time you put in.

Outreach / recruitment

• need Community leader, taking care of the new volunteer inquiries
• Welcome message to all newbies,

Wiki plugins needed

• iframe

OLPC

• hardware - great idea - XO Laptop
• software - sort of works
• content -

Jobs Wanted page

• Photos - photographer give them to CC

        - people who want specific photos

• Graphic designers - images to vectors/SVG (Hisperan)

    two columns - images needed work , new images
      (pages

Seth's thoughts

At least this way in the support gang roles are more clearly defined, even if they are by self assignment. This will allow membership in the support gang to be a little more recognized for all of the work that people are doing.

One concern is that we might have a higher turn around in the SG overall. But frankly to have someone not come back is better than them just idling in SG. At the very least, if someone does a tour of duty they will leave knowing a lot more about the XO and can help wherever they are locally. Cut down on FUD in a grassroots style.

There's some great stuff here..

And the parts I'm less sure of can be worked around / through. So, overwhelmingly yay, and let me know when I can start helping people with their first few tickets :)

As part of the reboot, can we get a concise mission statement for SG or SG' ? Our labour and attention have been spread very thin and there's all of this noise coming from various sources about the death of the project and platform (which reports, as Twain once said, are exaggerated). It would be a very good thing to have a short list of goals to use in re-applying and re-organizing ourselves.

-- Adricnet 12:51, 24 April 2008 (EDT)