[Pydotorg-redesign] pytdotorg-redesign notes from PyCon Open Space session

[Kevin Altis]

> From: Mats Wichmann
>
> At 10:54 AM 4/11/2003 -0400, Fred L. Drake, Jr. wrote:
>  >
>  >Mats Wichmann writes:
>  > > If people with /requests/ did the entering into the tracker it
>  > > might work.
>  >
>  >Of course, if there were a tracker that created issues from incoming
>  >emails, that would work like a charm.
>  >
>  >I'm certain this has been done before.  ;-)  I'm not familiar with
>  >what trackers are available that work like this, much less how to set
>  >them up, though.
>
> I've seen it work fine with several systems
> if people follow a submission template. I
> suppose something could just snarf up a piece
> of email to webmaster and save it as the
> body of the issue without processing, but I
> think without enforcing a template it's going
> to be pretty tough for it to be useful. And
> I don't see any way to enforce a template,
> "webmaster" is like "postmaster", it's an
> address that's expected to be there and
> people just send to it, free-form.

[Note that we probably shouldn't continue cross-posting to marketing-python,
so I've taken that list off of this reply.]

A typical help desk system would have some stock email reply templates with
FAQ answers, links to the FAQ page, tutor list, and other places to get
additional help. A web interface to the pending emails should allow any of
the people on help desk duty to send a stock reply with a single click. A
basic email can go out right away with some of the stock answers and an
issue tracking number.

If the person who sent the original email requires a follow-up, the issue
tracking number in the reply can be used to look at their original question.

If we expand the Help page http://www.python.org/Help.html to include a form
then a bulleted list of say the top 10 questions and answers can be on the
page. We can try that for a few months and see whether it reduces the
incoming email burden. To some extent that's what the current Help page
tries to do.

Are the questions that come in actually answered on the Help page? Is there
an online archive of old messages that can be scanned to look for common
questions...?

Is there an off-the-shelf solution we can use? I don't know. Anyone want to
volunteer to do a bit of research? We have to accomodate the straight emails
to help at python.org or webmaster at python.org... as well as submissions via a
web page.

ka