[Go-essp-tech] A CMIP5 FAQ Application

Fri Aug 5 04:20:01 MDT 2011

Hi Karl,

maybe that's true, although I don't concur, I might be seen the 
questions I can't answer to be more "present" thatn the others. Those 
questions are related to what experiments mean, and how data is supposed 
to be used. The community has no access to the support mailing list so 
"somebody" (and here's the problem) must send it to the proper people. 
Following what is sent where is really hard...

IMHO I think you've missed the point of having this FAQ. The idea is 
directed more at creating a knowledge base than allowing the user 
community to respond and participate (which is still great). Precisely 
the problems you've mentioned are far more easy to answer in this FAQs 
once (and improving the answers from time to time) that sending the same 
mail all over again and risking sending bad info (especially if 
something change in the process) and loosing the contact with the user 
posting the request (which in the FAQs case remain stored along with the 
question). I've already counted 450 different Threads (the ones moved to 
footprint are count twice, but every thread has at least 2 Mails, so we 
have well over 500 mails already there). Searching for something is 
quite difficult, and the users just don't have that possibility.

I think we should use ASAP this FAQ system, but maintain the mailing 
list as well. IMO It is now obvious that it won't be scaling much 
longer... and we should expect it to grow at least ten times when it 
gets more massively used. We just don't have the time nor resources to 
be derived to this task, and yet this is one of the most important task 
there are. As dumb as it may sound, the archive won't be used, if users 
don't know how to use it, and that's a fact.

I even think we should post important (or recurring) questions to this 
FAQ and derive people asking them to those directly from the mailing list.

By the way Stephen, the OpenId doesn't work for us either. If using the 
1.2 Gateway, the gateway itself says there's an error. If using the 
1.3.1 The FAQ system complains.

Thanks,
Estani

Am 04.08.2011 18:11, schrieb Karl Taylor:
> Hi all,
>
> I agree with Stephen that our ability to quickly respond to the 
> increasing number of requests seems likely to become overwhelmed.  My 
> cursory impression is, however, that the most common problems reported 
> will be difficult for the user community to respond to; they seem to 
> be associated with flaws in ESG and/or gateway hardware.  Am I correct 
> that most frequent queries to the help desk are related to:
>
> 1.  getting error messages, no response, or incorrect notice that a 
> user doesn't have the proper permission to successfully download data
>
> 2. having problems finding data using the search capability (because 
> sometimes this fails to return all datasets that it should).
>
> I think NCAR is making progress on the search problems (2 above), but 
> I'm not sure anyone understands whether there are bugs or just 
> confusion that's causing all the problems listed in 1 above.  Perhaps 
> along with thinking about alternatives to the current help desk, 
> immediate attention needs to be paid to reducing the real problems 
> encountered by the user by modifying the ESG software, possibly 
> modifying the ESG user interface, so users won't be so easily confused.
>
> The first step might be to try to confirm that 1 above is causing most 
> of the problems and to pin down exactly why the problems are being 
> encountered.  I think someone with a bit more complete technical 
> understanding of ESG should be able to find the common issues that are 
> being raised and suggest ways they might be addressed.
>
> Best regards,
> Karl
>
>
> On 8/4/11 7:55 AM, stephen.pascoe at stfc.ac.uk wrote:
>>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> I am increasingly convinced that the CMIP5 HelpDesk isn't scaling to 
>> the number of queries we are getting and definitely won't scale as 
>> CMIP5 gets more use.  This is partly our fault at BADC for not 
>> managing to open up the HelpDesk sufficiently to make it easy for 
>> ESGF developers to contribute.  This will improve in the near future 
>> (honest!) but I still think we need a more agile way to communicate 
>> with CMIP5 users.
>>
>> Therefore I want to float an alternative solution.  A 
>> community-driven, interactive FAQ in the style of stackoverflow.com.  
>> The idea is that users, administrators and developers can collaborate 
>> on asking and answering questions in an open forum.  There is a 
>> reputation system and a mechanism for voting for answers/questions 
>> which enables common questions and good answers to be highlighted.  
>> There is also a tagging system for classification.
>>
>> I have created a prototype service with a few questions in it at 
>> http://esg-dev1.badc.rl.ac.uk/.  Please take a look and give me some 
>> feedback.  Even better create an account and start asking and 
>> answering questions.  I have deliberately answered only some of the 
>> questions to encourage people to get involved.  If you don't like my 
>> answer add another one or comment on mine.
>>
>> If this appears to work for us the site can be moved to a production 
>> server easily without losing the questions.  We could then link to it 
>> from the "Contact Us" page in the gateways and ask people to email 
>> cmip5-helpdesk only for questions they don't want to share with the 
>> community.  I would like to discuss this at the ESGF telco on Tuesday.
>>
>> One note.  You can use ESGF OpenIDs to create an account but CEDA 
>> OpenIDs don't work right now.  I need to get Phil to fix that.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Stephen.
>>
>> ---
>>
>> Stephen Pascoe  +44 (0)1235 445980
>>
>> Centre of Environmental Data Archival
>>
>> STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Harwell Oxford, Didcot OX11 0QX, UK
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Scanned by iCritical.
>>
>>
>
>
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-- 
Estanislao Gonzalez

Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie (MPI-M)
Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum (DKRZ) - German Climate Computing Centre
Room 108 - Bundesstrasse 45a, D-20146 Hamburg, Germany

Phone:   +49 (40) 46 00 94-126
E-Mail:  gonzalez at dkrz.de

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