RfV: Make Live Help a core plugin
Matthias Bauer
re-watching Owen's booming-voice (second only to skippy) screencast made
me think that the Live Help plugin should probably be shipped with
Habari. If a user has problems installing plugins, it's not helpful to
tell them "just install this plugin and you can get live help easily".
It's also a nice showcase of the Habari community.
So, I propose that we bundle the live help plugin in the 0.6 download.
(It would probably be a good idea to extend the plugin so that it opens
the chat in a separate window, because people will be confused otherwise
when they navigate the admin and the live help is gone. Also, join/part
hell.)
What do you think?
Regards,
Matt
Andy C
The LiveHelp plugin was (and remains) a great help for me when I
started out with Habari.
Owen Winkler
>
> So, I propose that we bundle the live help plugin in the 0.6 download.
> (It would probably be a good idea to extend the plugin so that it opens
> the chat in a separate window, because people will be confused otherwise
> when they navigate the admin and the live help is gone. Also, join/part
> hell.)
>
> What do you think?
Definitely -1.
The IRC channel is of late typically not very respectful of visitors.
Mibbit has the ability to display some backlog, and there's no telling
what talk or links will appear in there even if people are civil when
obvious new Mibbit users show up.
Even if we included a warning saying that the speech in the channel
might be completely inappropriate in your business or home setting, I am
still somewhat uncomfortable adding more plugins that depend on 3rd
party services directly to core.
It had been our plan to remove the Flickr and Viddler plugins from core
as soon as it was possible to easily install them via the Habari UI. If
that's the case, this should apply easily to Mibbit as well.
This brings up the tangential issue of IRC conduct lately.
I have absolutely no problem using the IRC channel as a social gathering
place, but regulars there need to keep in mind that users are told to
come to that channel for help. I simply can't imagine the image that
we're portraying to church website builders, serious business people,
and parents of web-savvy children who come to IRC for help on our
recommendation to do so. Some of the stuff going on there is outright
shameful.
It's harrowing that people who supposedly have the authority to keep the
channel in check are often the ones responsible for the noise.
Lately, the channel has become a festering link dump. I'm personally
sick of seeing tons of unsolicited links to whatever latest found
YouTube video looks "cool". At least one out of every three of the
recent round of "unexplained photos" links seemed inappropriate for the
channel. While I admit to appreciating some of these links for their
simple humor, I don't believe that they're always appropriate for the
kind of environment that would encourage tentative users to return.
One might say that the links don't hurt anyone; that nobody complains.
I have been off IRC lately for the past couple of days, specifically
because the signal/noise ratio has dropped below my willingness to
filter it. But more importantly, when I did return last night, I
received more than one complaint via private message about the
appropriateness of some of the content in the channel.
I would like to see some steps taken to correct this. I think that IRC
has been a great resource for the project and a great way for
participants to communicate both about it and informally to build online
friendships within our project, and I would like to continue to use it
that way. It might be useful to write out a loose code of conduct so
that there are some boundaries for what is acceptable. We have a bunch
of new channel ops -- It should be easier for them to point at some
"rules" when someone is being abusive or puerile.
Anyway, all of that leads to my solid -1 for Live Help as a core plugin.
I think it's a good plugin, and useful, but I think we at least need
to nail down the social issue before committing that heavily to it, and
even then, its 3rd party dependence is disturbingly heavy.
Owen
Chris Meller
And the IRC discussion would be better served as a different thread, as it's a much larger issue.
rick c
I think it's a good plugin, and have used it. Freenode kicks Mibbit
off disturbingly often, though, at least they have in the past. I
suppose that comes of relying on a thrid party provider that uses yet
another third party source. There is also the issue of how many people
are actually familiar with using irc. Most, I think, would be more
familiar with a mailing list or a forum, both of which leave a more
permanent record than irc.
Rick
On Mar 31, 11:26 am, Chris Meller <ch...@doesnthaveone.com> wrote:
> I'm -1 on including it in core. It wouldn't be of use to the vast majority
> of users, so it would just be mandatory overhead for all those installs.
>
> And the IRC discussion would be better served as a different thread, as it's
> a much larger issue.
>