Date: Fri, 28 Apr 1995 02:11:34 +1000 (EST) From: Gary Roberts <gary@wcs.uq.oz.au> To: jkh@freefall.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Cc: jmb@kryten.atinc.com (Jonathan M. Bresler) Subject: Pre-alpha versions of some documentation Message-ID: <9504271611.AA24161@wcs.uq.edu.au> Resent-Message-ID: <2525.804918116@freefall.cdrom.com>
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Hi Guys, it's nuisance me again. Without really knowing what I'm doing, I've put together 4 documents as follows:- 1. Glossy newbie.announce file to attract new users into getting more information. 2. Glossy mentor.announce file to con the Mentors into joining. 3. new-user-info to try to explain the concept to new users who get attracted by (1). This includes a standardised form to try and get all relevant info from the newbie-in-trouble. 4. mentor-info which does much the same thing for mentors and tries to get info to act as a resource for all mentors if a newbie has to be shuffled from one mentor to another. I've been busy with work so I don't guarantee the quality of the above or even whether they'll fit in with the hacks to majordomo. If you can give feedback of any sort it will be thoughtfully considered (sometime). The four files are simply appended in order below. Don't take too much notice of references to majordomo in the files. I'll obviously fix all that up when I know better myself how the thing is going to work. I just wanted to get something down on paper at this stage. Do you think that the people already signed up as mentors would get too upset if I fired the whole thing off to them to look at? I wouldn't dare put it on the hackers list :->. I'm going to be busy for a bit but I'm determined to try to get this thing off the ground. Throw it back at me if you're too busy to get involved. Jordan, I've just sent this for your information. I really don't want to put a single ounce of extra load on you. Cheers, -- Gary Roberts (gary@wcs.uq.edu.au) (Ph +617 844 0400 Fax +617 844 0444) 4th Floor, South Bank House, 234 Grey St, South Bank QLD 4101 Australia. *** A New FreeBSD Help Service to get You Started *** ===================================================== Are you interested in running FreeBSD Unix on your computer? Are you concerned you may not have the necessary skills to get such a system installed and configured all by yourself? Do you perhaps have a particular installation/configuration problem or have you had one in the past that is scaring you away from FreeBSD? Would you like `personalised' help from a volunteer (your Mentor) who has been down exactly that same path themselves, previously? Would you then be willing to act as a future Mentor once you had developed the necessary skills yourself and felt comfortable about doing it? If your answer is a resounding *YES* to some or all of these questions then here is what you do ... 1. Send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with any subject you like but the word `new-user-info' (without the quotes) in the body and on a line by itself. 2. Sit back and wait. Majordomo will send you a full information message about how the system works and you just follow further instructions from there. If you decide to proceed, rest assured that a sympathetic volunteer will (on a private, person-to-person basis) do his/her very best to give you whatever assistance is required to get you going. Interested?? Sounds right for you?? Well, what are you waiting for!! ============================= *** A New FreeBSD Help Service that needs *YOUR* Help *** ========================================================= Are you interested in FreeBSD and do you have some experience with basic installation/configuration of Unix systems? Have you been through the new user stage yourself and are grateful for assistance you have received at that time? Do you think it's a good idea for FreeBSD to nurture its new user base? Would you be able to do just a little towards helping? If your answer is even only a `maybe' to some or all of these questions then the FreeBSD developers would love you to help. You can become a `Mentor' and `adopt' a new user, giving him/her some personalised assistance by e-mail. The idea here is to attempt to take some of the `hand-holding' load away from the developers so that they have more time for improving FreeBSD. If enough `semi-skilled' users can find the time to assist in this way the incidence of new user grumbles and complaints should be vastly reduced and the load on the developers' mailboxes should start to decline. Your assistance *can* make a difference. There *will* be a safety net so you, yourself, can get help, if helping the new user becomes too difficult. And you will have the personal satisfaction of knowing that you are doing your bit towards supporting what is rapidly becoming one of the best OS's on this planet!! If you are willing to have a go then just send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with any subject you like but the word `mentor' (without the quotes) in the body and on a line by itself. Majordomo will send you a full information message about how the system works and you just follow further instructions from there. Hopefully this will explain everything fully and will allay any fears you may have about your own ability to handle the job. And remember, getting the information will be `obligation free'. You can withdraw gracefully if it's really not your scene. Interested?? Willing to give it a go?? Well, what are you waiting for!! ============================== *** The FreeBSD Help Service -- User Instructions *** ===================================================== OK, Welcome to the FreeBSD Help Service. This service offers personalised help for whatever problem you are having. The service is manned by a team of volunteers whose only reward will be the sense of pride and satisfaction that they will get from helping you to get going. Please remember that helpers are not paid and may not even be skilled in your particular problem area. However, they are dedicated and they will do their very best to help. The system works by registering your request for assistance. This request is then passed on to the first available helper (called a Mentor). It is likely that Mentors will be in short supply and will be overworked, so anything you can do to make their job easier will certainly be appreciated. Another point to remember is that the service is intended to address new user problems and is not simply `somewhere to have a chat'. We certainly don't want to get into flame wars or arguments over religious issues. Whilst it will essentially be private e-mail, we do intend to monitor the traffic if possible for statistical purposes and to collect questions and answers that can add to the overall database of documentation. It will be up to individual Mentors to decide what is fair to answer but be warned that most (if not all) would drop you like a hot potato if your question was, "My friend runs Linux and he sez I'm stoopid to be running FreeBSD, wadda ya say 'bout dat??" The service is particularly for FreeBSD problems. Personal prejudices and `flame-bait' type questions should be kept strictly out of it. Well, with some of the caveats out of the way, let's push on with your problem. Firstly, we'll assume that you have tried the obvious steps like reading FAQs, INSTALL_NOTES, READMEs, or whatever documentation is available. We will help anyway but the simple step of reading all the documentation can save lots of work for everyone. We realise that sometimes documentation is either not available, out of date or too cryptic to be useful to many people. Hopefully we can help in these cases. Secondly, it will be helpful if you can give full background information about you and your hardware, your configuration and the itty bitty details of how the problem is affecting you. The more information you can give, the more readily your Mentor will be able to sort out your problem. The idea of the scheme is that you have a single Mentor for the whole of the period that you need help, be it for installation/configuration/upgrading or whatever. You will sign off from your Mentor when you feel comfortable to fly on your own. Your Mentor may sign you off anyway if he/she feels that you are good enough to go solo. Because of this ongoing relationship, you need to supply your full details only once but it has to be right at the outset. It is unlikely that we will be able to help without this. To make it easy, there is a "System Details" form for you to fill out and send in. This becomes your initial request for help. You will then just carry on with normal e-mail for subsequent requests. Here is an example of such a form all filled out. There is a blank form for you to copy which is attached to the end of this message. mentor +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | SYSTEM AND PERSONAL DETAILS FORM | +-----------------------------------+---------------------------------------+ |NAME: William Bloggs (Bill) |E-MAIL: b.bloggs@where.you.are.at | +-----------------------------------+---------------------------------------+ |HOW Computer Literate are you (put an X in the box that best describes you | | +-+ +-+ +-+ | |I'm just starting | | OK with DOS/WIN - no Unix | | Unix aware |X| | | +-+ +-+ +-+ | | +-+ +-+ +-+ | | BSD Unix aware | | Bit more than just aware | | Very aware | | | | +-+ +-+ +-+ | |===========================================================================| |BRAND/MODEL: Back Yard Computers Inc - Taiwanese Clone - AMI BIOS | +--------------------------------+------------------+-----------------------+ |CPU: 486DX2/66 (Intel) |RAM: 8MB |BUS: ISA/VLB | +--------------------------------+------------------+-----------------------+ |HDD: Maxtor 270 MB IDE, Western Digital 540 MB IDE | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |VIDEO: 1MB Cirrus Logic (model 5428) VLB, with a Viewsonic 15" model xyz | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |FDD: 1.44MB Teac |CDROM: Mitsumi xyz model | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |TAPE: None |SOUND: Soundblaster abc model | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |MODEM: Dynalink xyz model |ETHERNET: none | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |PRINTER: HP Deskjet abc model |MOUSE: Microsoft serial | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |KEYBOARD: Honeywell def model |I/O PORTS: <any specific details> | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |OTHER H/W: <eg plotters, scanners, or other exotic stuff ... > | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |CURRENT O/S: DOS/WINDOWS ...... <or whatever> | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |INTENDED O/S: FreeBSD-3.4.5 installed from CDROM | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |ANY SPECIAL INFO: DOS on 270 MB drive and FreeBSD on 540 MB drive | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |SPECIAL INTERESTS: I want to run my system at home and run PPP to connect | | to <work/school>. I want to run X11 and I want to browse the WWW ...... | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------| |FULL PROBLEM DESCRIPTION: This is where you type away to your heart's | | content and you try to give as full a description as possible. You just | | add as many lines like these as you need, to cover everything you can | | think of. Don't hold back as even trivial details may be important in | | solving the problem. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Thirdly, once you have given as much detail as you can, you mail the filled in form to majordomo@FreeBSD.org and you will be assigned to a mentor. So that majordomo can recognise your mail as a request for a Mentor, you must have the word `mentor' (without quotes) on a line by itself right at the start of the message. You will notice that this has been done on both the example filled in form and the blank for you to copy. Please don't delete this word or change it in any way. Fourthly, a Mentor will pick you up as soon as possible and start to talk to you on a one-to-one basis about your problem. The Mentor may have an immediate solution or more information may be required. The Mentor will try to respond in a timely fashion but there can be no absolute guarantees. Please be patient if you don't get immediate responses. Your Mentor has other responsibilities and silence simply means that one of those has taken precedence. If your Mentor cannot continue the relationship for whatever reason, you will be immediately informed and assigned to another Mentor. The intention is that the Mentor will try to stay with you for the full time over which you need assistance. If a Mentor's work takes him/her away, or if a Mentor goes on holidays, you will be informed and asked to wait if possible. Finally, when your problems have been resolved and you are feeling comfortable with your level of knowledge and experience, you will cease `being mentored'. You will either make that decision yourself or your Mentor will suggest it to you. Naturally, we hope you will feel good about the service you have received and will want to help others who are less experienced than yourself. There will be no obligation, but we will ask that you consider becoming a Mentor yourself. Having to help someone else is a very good way of developing your own skills and talents and you can rest assured that we would only want you to do this if you felt happy about it. You would be able to choose a suitable new user to help, appropriate to your level of expertise. Well that's about it. If you think that this service can help you, all you need to do is save a copy of the blank form which follows, complete it as fully as you can and send it in to majordomo@FreeBSD.org. We really want you to be happy with FreeBSD and we'll do our very best to help. The FreeBSD Core Team. =-=-=-=-=-=-Cut up to and including here to leave your blank form-=-=-=-=-=-= mentor +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | SYSTEM AND PERSONAL DETAILS FORM | +-----------------------------------+---------------------------------------+ |NAME: |E-MAIL: | +-----------------------------------+---------------------------------------+ |HOW Computer Literate are you (put an X in the box that best describes you | | +-+ +-+ +-+ | |I'm just starting | | OK with DOS/WIN - no Unix | | Unix aware | | | | +-+ +-+ +-+ | | +-+ +-+ +-+ | | BSD Unix aware | | Bit more than just aware | | Very aware | | | | +-+ +-+ +-+ | |===========================================================================| |BRAND/MODEL: | +--------------------------------+------------------+-----------------------+ |CPU: |RAM: |BUS: | +--------------------------------+------------------+-----------------------+ |HDD: | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |VIDEO: | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |FDD: |CDROM: | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |TAPE: |SOUND: | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |MODEM: |ETHERNET: | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |PRINTER: |MOUSE: | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |KEYBOARD: |I/O PORTS: | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |OTHER H/W: | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |CURRENT O/S: | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |INTENDED O/S: | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |ANY SPECIAL INFO: | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |SPECIAL INTERESTS: | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------| |FULL PROBLEM DESCRIPTION: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ============================= *** The FreeBSD Help Service -- Mentor Information *** ====================================================== OK, Welcome to the FreeBSD Help Service. This service offers personalised help to New Users having difficulty or even Semi-Experienced Users who have temporarily run into a brick wall. This information is for people who have agreed to be Mentors. Mentors will free the Developers from the very mundane and time consuming task of `hand holding' of New Users. Being a Mentor is really just being `a shoulder to cry on'. You don't have to be a `guru', but it probably helps :->. The system will hopefully be developed over a period to provide you with more resources and backup so that Mentoring is less painful than you might first imagine. You wont be paid and you probably wont even be noticed. However, your job is really vital to the ongoing success of FreeBSD because your `little bit' collectively will make an enormous difference, both to the workload of the Developers and to the perception that the community at large has of the FreeBSD Project. The system works by having as large a register of Mentors as possible. New Users in trouble and completing a `System Details Form' will be assigned to a Mentor on a one-to-one basis, unless you have chosen to Mentor more than one person. The System Details Form is quite involved and should discourage people making frivolous requests, since it will be easier for them to look up the answer in the first place. We should be able to assume that the New User who genuinely completes this form is having real and non-trivial (to him/her) problems. Because we don't want this potential dissatisfied `customer' to go away and grumble in public and damage our reputation, we will do our very best to send him/her away totally satisfied with the service. Whilst the customer is `always right', there is a limit and Mentors will be asked to use their discretion and `drop' any people who are obviously out to start flame-wars or otherwise sabotage the system. Just, very politely, decline to render further assistance if this should happen to you. You will also need to use judgement as to when to `cut the apron strings'. Obviously you can't be expected to continue `hand holding' for ever. The aim should be to get them going and then to convince them that they are good enough to go solo. Another point to remember is that if you think a person is really ready for it, you should encourage them to think about becoming a new Mentor themselves. Converting New Users into Mentors is the best way of easing your own workload and of making the system really successful. As a Mentor, you will be able to decide if you are competent to help a particular person by having a close look at the supplied `System Details'. If you feel that the system configuration or problem is beyond you, you can decline to accept the job and it will be passed on to someone else. The ideal situation will be to try to `match up' as much as possible, Mentors and New Users who have similar system configurations, at least in the area where problems are being experienced by the New User. To allow this to be done, all people volunteering for Mentor duty will be asked to fill out a `Mentor System Configuration Form'. There is one attached to this message and it would be appreciated if you would take the trouble to fill it out as fully as you can. Filling in the form will then register you as a Mentor with the system. Here is a filled in example:- register-mentor +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | MENTOR SYSTEM CONFIGURATION FORM | +-----------------------------------+---------------------------------------+ |NAME: A Hot Mentor (Superwiz) |E-MAIL: hot.shot@here.i.am | +-----------------------------------+---------------------------------------+ |WHAT sort of Users can you take (put X's in boxes that best describe them) | | +-+ +-+ +-+ | |One just starting | | One with DOS/WIN - no Unix | | Unix aware |X| | | +-+ +-+ +-+ | | +-+ +-+ +-+ | | BSD Unix aware |X| Bit more than just aware | | Very aware | | | | +-+ +-+ +-+ | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |HOW MANY can you take (ie what is your hard limit): 3 | |===========================================================================| |YOUR SYSTEM: Back Yard Computers Inc - Taiwanese Clone - AMI BIOS | +--------------------------------+------------------+-----------------------+ |CPU: 486DX2/66 (Intel) |RAM: 8MB |BUS: ISA/VLB | +--------------------------------+------------------+-----------------------+ |HDD: Maxtor 270 MB IDE, Western Digital 540 MB IDE | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |VIDEO: 1MB Cirrus Logic (model 5428) VLB, with a Viewsonic 15" model xyz | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |FDD: 1.44MB Teac |CDROM: Mitsumi xyz model | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |TAPE: None |SOUND: Soundblaster abc model | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |MODEM: Dynalink xyz model |ETHERNET: none | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |PRINTER: HP Deskjet abc model |MOUSE: Microsoft serial | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |KEYBOARD: Honeywell def model |I/O PORTS: <any specific details> | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |OTHER H/W: <eg plotters, scanners, or other exotic stuff ... > | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |CURRENT O/S: FreeBSD-1.1.5.1 | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |EXPECTED NEXT UPGRADE: FreeBSD-2.1R | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |H/W EXPERTISE: IDE Hard Drives, Soundblasters, Modems | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |S/W INTERESTS: <list any software subsystems/packages that | | you have any interest or expertise in> | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------| |OTHER INFORMATION: | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Well that's about it. Happy mentoring and thank you very much for agreeing to help out with this vital work. The FreeBSD Core Team. =-=-=-=-=-=-Cut up to and including here to leave your blank form-=-=-=-=-=-= register-mentor +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | MENTOR SYSTEM CONFIGURATION FORM | +-----------------------------------+---------------------------------------+ |NAME: |E-MAIL: | +-----------------------------------+---------------------------------------+ |WHAT sort of Users can you take (put X's in boxes that best describe them) | | +-+ +-+ +-+ | |One just starting | | One with DOS/WIN - no Unix | | Unix aware | | | | +-+ +-+ +-+ | | +-+ +-+ +-+ | | BSD Unix aware | | Bit more than just aware | | Very aware | | | | +-+ +-+ +-+ | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |HOW MANY can you take (ie what is your hard limit): | |===========================================================================| |YOUR SYSTEM: | +--------------------------------+------------------+-----------------------+ |CPU: |RAM: |BUS: | +--------------------------------+------------------+-----------------------+ |HDD: | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |VIDEO: | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |FDD: |CDROM: | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |TAPE: |SOUND: | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |MODEM: |ETHERNET: | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |PRINTER: |MOUSE: | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |KEYBOARD: |I/O PORTS: | +--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ |OTHER H/W: | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |CURRENT O/S: | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |EXPECTED NEXT UPGRADE: | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |H/W EXPERTISE: | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |S/W INTERESTS: | | | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------| |OTHER INFORMATION: | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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