Questions about xmos.com Support Board

Non-technical related questions should go here.
huw
Member++
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2010 10:41 am

Post by huw »

Hi Folknology, apologies for my phrasing. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to post on the support board, but anyone who does must be aware that if threads go off topic they may be removed. On xcore, however, a question can lead to many diverse branches of discussion - projects/applications/different technolgoies - which may throw up ideas that bring other people into the discussion. You know a lot about XMOS products and other technologies so you input is very helpful and welcome wherever.


User avatar
Folknology
XCore Legend
Posts: 1274
Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2009 10:20 pm
Contact:

Post by Folknology »

In most of the communities I have been part of, the community is the first port of call to attempt to answer the questions. Often when commercial companies are involved (or a benevolent dictator think Linus) there are often escalation mechanisms to help get issues resolved that would otherwise lay stagnant of course, often through peer review for example.

But one thing that tends to work rather well for more structured support purposes is the dissemination of community discussions into more structured documents like a wiki and FAQs etc.. I am aware that the community wiki is imminent (having already being invited to contribute) this could form the very same sort of support mechanism of which I speak. The wiki in effect becomes the repository of sharpened/polished information from the community and as such provides a great first port of call in problem resolution and education.

The question then stands as to why there would exists a further two separate channels of support. One you indicate remains confidential for commercial reasons the other public but more highly moderated. On the public side the support will almost definitely overlap with both the forum and the wiki as a result there will remain a certain level of confusion about which to use. More importantly we will more frequently see duplication of information between the two support channels and maybe even contradiction if care isn't taken to manage the hinterland between the two. Maybe it would be a good time to take a 50,000 feet view of all of the support offerings from Xmos in order to make sure that your customers remain the priority and it is clear to them on which channels to use and when.

My guess by the way would be something like; Documentation, Wiki, Forum, then support ticket.
If its something that is commercially sensitive then a private channel from the outset (they could already have checked community and documentation etc..).
User avatar
jonathan
Respected Member
Posts: 377
Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2009 6:07 pm
Contact:

Post by jonathan »

Let's simplify this.

Everyone who currently posts on XCore, you might as well keep posting on XCore. It seems to work well and the XMOS guys are doing a great job of answering questions here.

The major problem for XMOS with this is editorial - there's no way they can sift through the mountain of XCore discussion and extract relevant FAQ-style editorial content from it. It looks like they are intending for this to happen by creating a highly-moderated support forum that will mean threads appear a bit like an FAQ...

This is still impractical though, as bugfixes etc posted there will just rapidly go out of date, without constant editorial scrutiny.

The only way one can provide any editorial integrity to this collected information source is through a community-driven Wiki, which is coming soon.

Reckon the Support Board, the Knowledgebase, and the ticketing system are therefore of little practical interest to the XCore community, which, with the generous help of XMOS and its awesome engineers, will look after itself!
Image
User avatar
XMatt
XCore Addict
Posts: 147
Joined: Tue Feb 23, 2010 6:55 pm

Post by XMatt »

jonathan wrote:Reckon the Support Board, the Knowledgebase, and the ticketing system are therefore of little practical interest to the XCore community, which, with the generous help of XMOS and its awesome engineers, will look after itself!
As we have seen recently the XMOS support board and knowledge base are extremely useful to members of the XCore community (Folknology's linux development tools problem is a prime example) where official information is available and guaranteed to be correct by XMOS. I would expect to see a lot more answers on XCore linked to the the XMOS knowledgebase and support system over time.
Post Reply