Who will help the newbies
First of all I would like to say that svk has done an incredible job getting a trollbox implemented into BitShares. Once all the kinks are worked out it will be an invaluable tool, and can be used to make the decentralized crypto exchange that we all love better.
I have noticed lots of newbies in the trollbox asking basic questions, things like how to find different markets or what an open.BTC is. I have tried to help out when I could. There have also been times when I was at work, or busy and just didn't have the time to provide the support that I would have liked to. The trollbox as a means of talking to each other is working nicely, but we seem to have missed another very important thing that the trollbox could be used for. Support.
I propose that we have BitShares veterans staffing the trollbox at all times to help with the questions that will inevitably come up. These veterans don't need to be devs, or anything like that. Just knowledgable enough to answer the basic questions that will come up for new users. I shudder to think of all the users that might never come back because when they go to open.btc:bts they are super confused, and don't know that they can invert the market to bts:open.btc.
Now I know that many (if not most or all) of you will help out answering questions for newbies out of the goodness of your heart, just as I do when I am in the trollbox. I don't think that approach is enough though. I think too many will fall through the cracks.
I propose that we have a schedule of basic support in the trollbox at all times. Of course something like this must be paid for. A worker proposal would be great, but is probably not going to happen. In its stead, I am willing to donate 30,000 bts per month from my witness pay to help fund this.
If we can get a worker proposal through, or more users will donate then we should be able to raise enough to make this worthwhile. If someone wants to step up and manage this, I think that should also be a paid position. We need someone to manage the schedule, validate that the support is being given during this time, and pay the worker.
So, what do you guys think? Am I on to something? Am I way off my rocker?
Any volunteers? We need mods, a manager, and bts contributors.
I will donate 10,000 BTS for the first month (out of my pocket - I don't have witness pay) as a stop gap so that a Worker Proposal can be voted in. If the community is made up almost entirely of free riders, bullshitters and whiners who won't vote in a Worker, then screw it, I will turn my attention elsewhere.
I think this would be a very good effort. It can serve as a customer support tool. I will try to help when available.
I don't have time to manage this myself. If we can get a trusted manager to step up then I will pay for the worker proposal to see if its something the bts community will support. If not then I will donate monthly, but I think we will need more than I am able to donate to get good support. Also we need to figure out why openledger.info has become such a resource hog (This may have already been fixed, I just got off work, and am still catching up on the day)
The nature of my job is one where I can have a bit of flexibility (for now). I wouldn't mind doing this job if people are willing to help get bitshares to pay for the time. Otherwise I just don't know where I would find the time. I mean I am currently on the computer at 2:00am after getting off work as we speak...lol.
I would love to be able to volunteer but its just not in the cards at this moment unless i can cut down my work load. :/
Great idea though!
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