OSG Community Support Activity Introduction Mailing List Chatroom Notes from OSG Consortium Meeting in 2005 Community Support Knowledge Base - this is being phased out

Introduction

Community Support is handled through mail to a mail list and discussion in the weekly Operations meeting.

Frederick Luehring and BurtHolzman pay attention to what is happening in Community Support. There is a CommunitySupportCharter based on a CommunitySupportProposal.

Mailing List

Send an e-mail to listserv.opensciencegrid.org with the text "SUBSCRIBE OSG-GENERAL" in the body. You can also access the archives.

Chatroom

See the Chat Room documentation, and drop by and say hello!

Notes from OSG Consortium Meeting in 2005

Here are my notes integrated with Fred's comments from a discussion from the July 2005 OSG Consortium Meeting.

• Could we have multiple specialized Community Support Centers? This is something to consider evolving to.

• We must have a dedicated (read: paid) individual to translate issues from the mailing list / forums to create dedicated knowledge base / faq.

• Some felt strongly that there must be dedicated experts to answer the mailing list -- their load will lessen as others gain expertise. Along that vein, it was pointed out that people like to answer questions that they know the answers to.

• The linux-kernel mailing list was mentioned, which is a great model of a mailing list with tremendous traffic that actually works -- mainly because the experts only key on in their particular areas of expertise. This is pretty much the initial vision I (Burt) had of the osg-general list.

• There was considerable discussion on using some sort of an user forum. The use of Babar's HyperNews is being pushed by a variety of people in Atlas, CMS, and LHCb. This sort of forum should be investigated as a basis for this activity -- however the point about this easily becoming an overwhelming effort is well taken.

• It was also clear that there is considerable discussion on the feasibility of using mailing lists: some people hate them and some people love them. everyone agreed that whatever solution was arrived at that it should have the possibility (though not the requirement) that the subscribers to the system be informed by emails. We did discuss various methods of moderating email lists so there were a reasonable number of categories each with its own moderator or moderators. Fred suggested based on his experience that the correct number of categories is perhaps around 10 -- too many more and it gets too complex for the users.

• Randy from the NSF pointed out that while the number of SCs will increase slowly, the number of potential CSC users could scale exponentially. In that limit, the CSC will appear to the majority of users as the public face of OSG. He and Rob also pointed out that asymptotically, the OSG Ops and CSC functions basically merge.

Community Support Knowledge Base - this is being phased out

The IU OSG Knowledge Base can be found here. Typing OSG as your search string allows you to browse all titles.

Please see the list of proposed questions to see what questions (and some answers) that we have been and are thinking about putting into the Community Support Knowledge Base.

Note: Burt has also started Knowledge Base here.

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Reviewed by AnneHeavey - 28 Nov 2006
Comments for community support twiki web:

• Define community support and how it relates to SupportCenters and Operations. (pull from the proposal/charter text)
• Add current work items (current projects)
• State what chat room is used for; describe "community discussion"
• Is Doug's trouble ticket system still going?
• Remove "Notes from ..mtg 2005" on front page (can link to content). Include the conclusions in the introduction/definition or wherever is appropriate
• Remove knowledgebase references
• Add a contact person for this page (a "responsible for this page" person)
• Add best practices, or link to Operations/StandardOperatingProcedures, as appropriate
• Are there no meetings? I see no mtg minutes.

-- RuthPordes - 1 Sept 2006 -- tidy up for new web roll out

-- BurtHolzman - 29 Jun 2005

-- FrederickLuehring - 03 Oct 2005