Ushahidi Mailing Lists

Hi Heather,

I have exchanged a few emails with LBell, and sometimes being on the search
for Ushahidi talent I understand where the frustration comes from. 
Don't get me wrong, but directing someone that is not a coder to Github is
not a solution, nor is saying "you need a feature, hack it yourself!", which
I've heard before - very cool, yes, but unenforceable for the average user
or for someone that has the intent, but does not have the time to
modify/adapt/fix the code.

The forums and Skype chat are fine, but they are not dependable. Sometimes
you will be lucky and get Linda, Emmanuel, Dale, Brian, David, or any other
"top" developer to reply at one particular issue - and they're always
spot-on - but many times you are left with the crickets :)

Ushahidi is getting bigger, and it is still moving fast, making very hard
for someone to be up-to-date, and maintain a stable operation at the same
time. Maybe this has not been realized yet, but when one says "let's use
Ushahidi" in a given project, particularly a larger one, that person is
making a bet. Not having a dependable support will make people think twice.

I think you know where I'm going with this; we are at the point where we
need to think of either creating (or formalizing) a support channel that
people like LBell can tap into, and start thinking of training. The former
has been a need for a while, and with proper curation will improve
Ushahidi's standing, and develop a revenue channel (yes, I'm talking about
*paid* support), for the latter, this could be a great time to do so,
considering the media interest in non-traditional training. 

Maybe we can discuss this some more and exchange a few ideas?

Best wishes,

Pablo Destéfanis


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Heather Leson [mailto:hleson@...]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 06:50
> To: <developers@...>
> Cc: developers
> Subject: Re: [ushahidi developers] State of the project - reassure me.
> 
> Hi, thanks for following up. I mentioned your post to a few people who
might
> do contract work. Would it be acceptable to add it to the Ushahidi weekly
> report? This goes on the blog and reaches a wider audience. I would need a
> three sentence summary by 14:00 edt today for this week's post. I've never
> heard of that consultant email. Sorry that I missed the reference.
> 
> On resources:
> Git and the wiki are frequented
> We have a few skype developer chats which community members and core
> team folks attempt to help. Simply add me and I'll connect you
> (heatherleson) We also have a monthly Skype developer call. It will be
June
> 25. More on that soon.
> 
> Regarding the forums, I agree that this is a tough avenue. It is on my
list of
> things that need desperate cleanup and responses. For this, I extend my
> apology and commitment to try and respond to the needs more.
> 
> 
> Hope this helps,
> 
> Heather
> 
> Sent by butterfly wings
> 
> On 2012-06-13, at 6:09, LBell <lbell270@...> wrote:
> 
> > Hi -
> >
> > As a quasi follow-up to my request for developers (which garnered one
> > response, thanks, and a suggestion to email consulting@...
> > <-- emails bounced) I'm interested to know the best way to get
> > development help if I start to delve into this on my own...
> >
> > Case in point: Most posts on the Ushahidi forums are 1) unanswered, 2)
> > self-answered, 3) un-moderated spam. Crickets abound.
> >
> > I see activity elsewhere (blog, git, the new wiki), but before I
> > commit the time here - please reassure me there is some way to get
> > answers to stupid little questions like, how do I do X,Y,or Z?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > LBell
> >
> >
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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