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How the FlightGear project works: Difference between revisions
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How the FlightGear project works (view source)
Revision as of 17:43, 8 February 2012
, 8 February 2012→Community interactions
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What can be done in a forum? First off, speak the same as if you were standing in front of the person you are talking to. If you _really_ do get up in their face when you speak, take the gold chains off for a minute and lose the Jersey accent. Respect goes a long way. Respect also goes _both_ ways. If you get an email from someone, respond to it, even if it's saying that "no, I can't help". | What can be done in a forum? First off, speak the same as if you were standing in front of the person you are talking to. If you _really_ do get up in their face when you speak, take the gold chains off for a minute and lose the Jersey accent. Respect goes a long way. Respect also goes _both_ ways. If you get an email from someone, respond to it, even if it's saying that "no, I can't help". | ||
== The forum == | |||
Regarding helping others on the forum, thinking back on my early days with FG I'd have to say that what's obvious to a long-time Flightgear person isn't necessarily obvious to others. Sometimes people do search for answers first, but they may not be asking the right questions or have a deep enough knowledge of a system or community to proceed. | |||
New people might not think to look in the wiki (yes, there are links all over the place), or try and find an answer there first. Or maybe they did try and failed but didn't mention it. The wiki is a fine repository for some deep, often esoteric information, but the information is spotty and it's not the easiest place to hunt for a specific answer. And I can well remember when the information in the FG docs folder might as well have been written in Martian, given what I knew at the time. Heck, some of it is still Martian to me. | |||
It's usually obvious when people are asking questions in the forum thoughtfully, and when they are being casual, lazy, or discourteous. But sometimes it isn't so clear. There may be language barriers, or they may not know exactly how to ask, or they may simply be shy of a new environment. Like Someguy, I cringe when I see our good people tell somebody to go on an Easter-egg hunt for their answers. If it's tiresome, which is understandable, or one doesn't feel like helping, then it's wiser to simply not respond. | |||
What's at stake isn't getting person X to information Y. In 90%+ cases, it won't matter much-- person X will likely move on to some other hobby. But every now and then, that new person who asked that same tired-old question stays around and eventually becomes a Gijs, or a Heiko, or a Someguy, or a Melchior, or an Anders, or an Emmanuel, etc. The more open, friendly and patient we are, the more likely it is that we will retain these incredibly valuable sorts of people and keep moving forward. | |||
== Coordination == | |||
It'd be really nice to have a better feeling for what is in the works and to know about what is going to change beforehand, rather than pulling the new version to learn that suddenly nothing works and spend the next week trying to figure out just what the change has been. Been there, done it, not pleasant. | It'd be really nice to have a better feeling for what is in the works and to know about what is going to change beforehand, rather than pulling the new version to learn that suddenly nothing works and spend the next week trying to figure out just what the change has been. Been there, done it, not pleasant. | ||