Cynicism can be a powerful tool. And you aren't the first person to tell a shitstarter like me that ;-)

But seriously - its challenging for all of us when I feel like our concerns aren't being considered. So take that as you will. We don't get emails from UX folks on this list anymore....I wish we did. I feel like WMF employees dropped off this list as contributors as staff (not volunteers like Kaldari and Swalling - they seem to write here more as volunteers than staff) after I lost my job and Sue left. I always feel like people forget there are a lot of changemakers and passionate people on this list.

We had to prove the need for the Teahouse with data. The community did not want us to Implement it without proof of need and data on how this type of project was able to change things. I do this daily with my job in grant writing and evaluation - I have to show proof that someone needs to spend money on whatever my nonprofit clients want.

So it's not cynicism in that regard - if we want to show "the community" and WMF that there is a problem and a change needs to occur and we have the data perhaps people will invest time and money in IRC and other things.

We need to prove that there is a demand for IRC help and that newbies are failing to get oriented with it. I know there are problems with it...but knowing is not proving.

Proof is in the pudding and we need some tasty pudding to get people to pay attention :)

Sarah

I

On Aug 12, 2014 10:19 AM, "Pine W" <wiki.pine@gmail.com> wrote:

Sarah, the cynicism in your comment is depressing and unnecessary. I don't think I can convince you of the value of incremental change so I'm not going to try.

Pine

On Aug 12, 2014 7:49 AM, "Sarah Stierch" <sarah.stierch@gmail.com> wrote:

pine when you say "plenty' of people what does that constitute? Does anyone actually track how many needy people come into IRC - let alone those who can't pass the threshold of typing into the chat box?

Data is a way to convince people of the need or demand and to spend time investing in IRC. One reason why the Teahouse is so success is because people do not have to leave the wiki to find help. That's one no no in business...

I noticed that WMF staff are less interactive on this mailing list these days, for months actually.

So who knows if anyone with "influence" is paying attention to this.

Sarah

On Aug 12, 2014 7:44 AM, "Emily Monroe" <emilymonroe03@gmail.com> wrote:

I often help out at en-help. Often, people who are new at IRC need to be told where to type. I would think this would qualify as "failing hard".

From,
Emily

On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 6:45 AM, Pine W <wiki.pine@gmail.com> wrote:

That proposal could be considered in the long term, but right now we have plenty of people who seek and get help on IRC, and we can make incremental improvements to their experience faster than we can build a new tool from scratch. Few newbies fail hard at IRC. The basics are similar to texting and private instant messaging software. Let's improve the newbie user experience.

Pine

On Aug 11, 2014 1:48 PM, "Nathan" <nawrich@gmail.com> wrote:

Newbies are going to fail hard at IRC. Pretty much all of the questions Seb
poses for a built-in newbie chat still exist with a built-in Freenode
interface, with the addition of a complicated and often difficult (not to
mention culturally... unique) environment. Much better to think along the
lines of the Teahouse, but live. You can jump into a chat queue, and people
who want to help chat with you, and you can close the chat whenever you
want, and you can't contact people outside of the queue using chat.
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