Open Stack

Narayan Desai wrote:
> I'm also not meaning to suggest that there aren't users that are
> stepping into the fray in terms of user support. We all know the
> familiar names from the mailing list and IRC of people that step up,
> but there seems to be an insufficient number of these people for the
> community as it stands, nevermind the community we hope to have
> tomorrow.
> 
> This leaves the question, how do we effectively build out this part of
> the ecosystem? I'm not sure that I have easy answers on this, but I
> think that this is the key issue that the user committee needs to
> tackle.

One way to effectively build out this part of the ecosystem is to give
it the right tools. Mailing-lists, IRC channels and forums all have
drawbacks when it comes to user support, in particular you end up
answering the same question over and over again, with no simple way of
consolidating answers, improving them, or come up with a great FAQ.

The tool of choice for that is a Q&A site (like stackexchange). This
allows casual users and experts to efficiently provide answers to the
most pressing questions, avoid repeating yourself and build a reputation
that gives you more control over the site features. I think it will go a
long way in enabling that part of the ecosystem.

Good news is that the Foundation staff is working on setting one such
site up.

Regards,

-- 
Thierry Carrez (ttx)
Release Manager, OpenStack