On Saturday January 11th, the Firestorm team hosted the first of their informal question-and-answer sessions for 2014. The meeting was called at short notice, and I was unable to attend. Due to other pressures and work, I’m not in a position to provide a full transcript of the meeting. Instead the following is offered as a summary of the key discussion points raised in the meeting (with timestamps so that the relevant parts of the recording can be listened to), and a summary of the main questions asked during the Q&A session.
As always, please note:
- Questions /comments were made in chat while speakers were talking. This inevitably meant that replies to questions would lag well behind when they were originally asked. To provide context between questions and answers, questions in the transcript are given (in italics) at the point at which each is addressed by a member of the Firestorm team, either in voice or via chat
- There was some general discussion to topics such as lag and clearing cache which took place during the “Q&A”, notes on these have been included in the General discussion section below, rather than in the Q&A section
- This report is provided for informational purposes only. As such, questions on technical issues relating to Firestorm and / or project-specific questions cannot be answered here unless one of the Firestorm team drops by.
There was a lot of back and forth and sundry chat during the meeting on a range of topics which is not reported upon here.
As ever, my thanks to North for recording and supplying the video of the meeting.
General Discussion
0:00:01- 0:03:09 Firestorm Support: One-on-one Help
The Firestorm support volunteers will be commencing one-on-one help for users who feel they need it. The support will be offered as and when volunteers are available, and will take place in the ground-level central area of the Phoenix Firestorm Support Island. Sessions will likely be held on a drop-in basis: if you have a particular issue with which you need help, drop by and if there are volunteers available, they’ll do their best to help you, both in voice and / or in text.
Do keep in mind that the support team are all volunteers, and as such, they have individual approaches to providing assistance (some will not provide support in IM, for example). Also, as volunteers, it is possible that there may be times when the drop-in area is not staffed; if this is the case, people can either seek assistance through the Firestorm support groups or try the drop-in area another time.
0:03:15-0:10:00 Official Firestorm Support
There have been issues of users presenting themselves as “Firestorm advisors” and IMing people in the support group chat, etc. If anyone using Firestorm is unsure as to whether someone talking to them in support chat (or IM), they can verify the person’s status in a number of ways:
- If the conversation is taking place as a result of contact via the Firestorm support group chat (either in chat or initiated from their and taken to IM) – check to see if the person’s group chat is in bold – if it is, this indicates they have moderator status, and are a member of the Firestorm Support team
- If you use Firestorm legacy profiles, open the profile of the individual concerned and check the Account section – if they are a member of the Firestorm support team, it will be listed (If you’re using web profiles by default, go to Preferences > General and uncheck Use Web Profiles by Default, top right – a viewer restart is not required.)
- Check the Support page on the Firestorm web site. This lists the support volunteers – but do check the last updated timestamp at the bottom of the page, as it may not have been updated recently (although the team do maintain it).
This is a something of a sensitive issue, as the support chat is a community service, and as such the support team members appreciate other Firestorm users providing help to one another if official support team members are unavailable or already busy. As such, they do not wish to discourage users from providing such help to one another. However, what is (understandably) not appreciated is people presenting themselves as “official” Firestorm reps when they are not, and who consequently may not be in a position to access all information relating to a support issue or provide accurate information on the viewer’s future.
Continue reading “Firestorm Q and A January 11th: next release, fitted mesh and more”
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 