Hi,
A while ago, the Technical Committee designated specific hours in the
week where members would make extra effort to be around on #openstack-tc
on IRC, so that community members looking for answers to their questions
or wanting to engage can find a time convenient for them and a critical
mass of TC members around. We currently have 3 weekly spots:
- 09:00 UTC on Tuesdays
- 01:00 UTC on Wednesdays
- 15:00 UTC on Thursdays
But after a few months it appears that:
1/ nobody really comes on channel at office hour time to ask questions.
We had a questions on the #openstack-tc IRC channel, but I wouldn't say
people take benefit of the synced time
2/ some office hours (most notably the 01:00 UTC on Wednesdays, but also
to a lesser extent the 09:00 UTC on Tuesdays) end up just being a couple
of TC members present
Conversely, office hours are relatively low bandwidth, IMO. Unless there is an active discussion, I'm usually working on something else and checking the channel intermittently. That said, I don't think it's a huge inconveince to monitor the channel for an hour in the event someone does swing by.
So the schedule is definitely not reaching its objectives, and as such
may be a bit overkill. I was also wondering if this is not a case where
the offer is hurting the demand -- by having so many office hour spots
around, nobody considers them special.
Should we:
- Reduce office hours to one or two per week, possibly rotating times
- Dump the whole idea and just encourage people to ask questions at any
time on #openstack-tc, and get asynchronous answers
I completely agree that we should encourage people to come talk to us at any time, but I think office hours hold us accountable for being present. We're doing our part by making sure we're available.
- Keep it as-is, it still has the side benefit of triggering spikes of
TC member activity
Thoughts ?
--
Thierry Carrez (ttx)