Notes/Domino 6 and 7 Forum : Newbies, oldies, FAQ's and support...

Hi y'all.

It seems that this forum is in danger of turning into a "Help me fix this problem right now" forum, before people even try and analyse faults, or call support.

This is a bad thing, for a number of reasons - not least that its not a good idea for your company to rely on the goodwill of complete strangers (and arguably, none so strange as us!). Secondly, it does rather raise hackles with some of us older farts. (Apologies and a flame free "Hi!" to anyone who regards themselves as experienced but dislikes the word "fart").

Perhaps more importantly, there's a lot of information in these forums, that can and (to the best of my knowlege) were placed in FAQ - frequently asked questions - forums. it is quite difficult to construct and correctly find a query - especially if your experience of notes isnt as extensive as it could be, And lets face it - these are precisely the people that need the help.

There *are* Notes FAQ's out there - for instance, the excellent http://www.keysolutions.com/notesfaq. It would be instructive for us to perhaps compile a comprehensive list to help people out. It would be even nicer for this forum to have some sort of simple list of these, in an obvious place. (It may be in an un-obvious place - sorry)

if the FAQ's are fairly inactive - Ed - is there an opportunity for Lotus to actually host the FAQ, and people to post, edit and comment to documents ? Its a thought. Its something that Notes is particularly good at, lets face it. And I cant think of a better forum than Notes.net to host it - especially if its replicatable. From a Lotus "marketing" perspective, this resource could be burnt across the retinas of new installs, etc, etc. (The WebsFear crowd are particularly good at this - after all, the websphere resource site is almost impossible to find on the IBM.com web site.. :-) )

In addition to the FAQ's, there are the excellent Lotus Knowlegebases (which has went though a bit of a change recently). It would be interesting to get a statement from someone "official" to re-iterate the status of this database, and how to obtain it (via business partner channels, LNN, etc, etc). It strikes me that it would be very useful for newer users of Lotus Notes to have access to this. It would certainly answer a *lot* of questions that crop up here.

I'm keen to see this forum become more and more useful to more and more diverse groups of users. The "newbies" and their questions are quite interesting - but do divert from the more "oldie" questions about policy, direction and feature implementation. Perhaps a split of forum might help ?

More and more I see newbies being abused for asking for help - which is a shame. If people new to our environment perceive us as stubborn, hostile and abusive, it'll turn them off the product. And - more importantly - they wont buy beer for us at lotusBeer.

I understand completely the reasons behind this - and am guilty of this also. No fingers being pointed here, believe me.

Newbies - if you made it this far, please please:

Search this forum. There's *lots* of stuff in here. Spend time doing it. Seriously. It'll save you a lot of pain.
Search the on-line Lotus knowlege base first. Use lots of differerent queries. There's a *lot* of stuff on there.
If your a BP, or a partner, search the knowlegebase. Replicate it locally. Read it. Regularly. Its a *lot* - but this is how you build experience. If your not a BP, harass the people who sold you the license. They can help.
If its business critical - call support first. Sometimes, they have the answer right there. This is your ONLY route for support. This is what you pay money for. Sometimes they take time. Usually because you havent thought about the level of detail they might need.
Dont say "PLEASE HELP", "URGENT", "SKY FALLING IN" or whatnot in the subject. It just annoys people. We understand your pain, we've been there (mostly). Believe me.
Be very, very specific. The more detail and information, the faster someone will reply. Saying "The damn clients hosed and doesnt work" wont elicit much response.
Be courteous. Your asking strangers for help. Swearing, dissing people (well, aside from Marketing, or IBM senior management) wont really help. Dont diss Lotus/IBM in general. Your not going to change IBM or Lotus with an on-line flame war. And all you do is really, really alienate the really good people in IBM/Lotus, who'll not spend their personal time helping you out. We've all been there - the 2am screaming boss/server down problem. We understand your pain and frustration. Spouting bile in this forum wont help, however good it made you feel. It'll just make you look like an ass next day. (Believe me, I speak from experience on this one)
Offer alcohol. I *really* respond to this. You try living in rural scotland. Trust me.
If someone helps - respond with a "thanks", or even better, detail the solution. So someone else can follow in your footsteps and get a fix to their problem. I'm as guilty as anyone else of forehead slapping "D'oh" stupidity - just swallow your pride (as I have to often do) and detail it. Then you may help someone else.
If someone helps you - your honour bound to try and help someone else. Else your concience will bug you forever. Or I will. Whatever. Think of me as a 200 pound, hairy Jimminy Cricket with a "See You Jimmy" hat. Now try and get that mental picture out of your head.
Come on. Not all of us talk english as a first language. We are an international community. (Would *you* want all of us in *your* country ? :-) ) Dont diss people on broken english. Else Next time I'm in the States, I'll start correcting you lot... :-)

General disclaimer: I'm not having a go at anyone about this - not one specific individual made me do this. Just a general impression. Please dont be paranoid, and think I'm out to diss someone. Not today.

Anywise. Thought I'd raise a few ideas and see what the forum consensus is.

Cheers, y'all, and thanks for putting up with another monster Bill "Rambl-gram..."

---* Bill
http://www.billbuchan.com