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billy2

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Wedge support
« on May 28th, 2011, 12:06 PM »
Wedge is sounding very good to press, its only a matter of time until Wedge goes public and the hordes flock here.
What is your strategy for supporting 16000 [1] Wedge installations and the myriad of accompanying support requests?
Nao, Arantor and others will be knackered [2] by this time and I thought it a point to raise
Cheers
Billy
 1. give or take a few ten thou
 2. - as in tired
<br /><br />cough, cough.

Arantor

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Re: Wedge support
« Reply #1, on May 28th, 2011, 12:21 PM »
Two things.

Firstly, it's being designed to generate less support issues. Add-ons won't need to be done through code hacking like SMF mods.

Secondly, you know I have ~43k posts on sm.org, right? Did I mention that that occurred across 2 years, of which a decent proportion of the second year I wasn't even posting...? I don't see it as being a problem to keep up with support assuming I can finish up the other stuff I'm supposed to be doing at the moment and get back to working on Wedge.
When we unite against a common enemy that attacks our ethos, it nurtures group solidarity. Trolls are sensational, yes, but we keep everyone honest. | Game Memorial

Dragooon

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Re: Wedge support
« Reply #2, on May 28th, 2011, 12:47 PM »
Not to mention that not everyone will require support, some will also provide support.
The way it's meant to be

Arantor

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Re: Wedge support
« Reply #3, on May 28th, 2011, 12:54 PM »
*nods*

Fact is, support in SMF breaks down into three categories:
1. How do I do <x>? [where <x> is a built in feature] - either because they don't know where to find it or how to use it (-> underlying problem: poor UI design, solution: fix the UI design to make it more logical)

2. How do I do <x>? [where <x> is not a built in feature] - so clarifying what the system doesn't do and figuring out how to make it do it.

3. Help, it's broken, doing <x> - often a mod or symptomatic issue within the system.


1 is the kind of issue we hope to reduce anyway, and is the kind people will be most likely to help with.

2 is where add-on authors will be needed and those familiar with changing the code.

3 is possibly a bug, but possibly also the add-on authors' responsibility. These are also the types of problems I'll be concentrating on first, because these could be bugs and we need to eliminate that first.

billy2

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Re: Wedge support
« Reply #4, on May 28th, 2011, 01:26 PM »
I was not doubting Team Wedges' ability at all - sorry if it came across as that.
Billy

Arantor

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Re: Wedge support
« Reply #5, on May 28th, 2011, 01:27 PM »
It didn't come across as that at all, but concern - and a very valid one.

* Arantor is just grumpy this morning... oh wait, I'm always grumpy :P

billy2

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Re: Wedge support
« Reply #6, on May 28th, 2011, 01:48 PM »
Quote from Arantor on May 28th, 2011, 01:27 PM
It didn't come across as that at all, but concern - and a very valid one.

* Arantor is just grumpy this morning... oh wait, I'm always grumpy :P
ha ha - I don't think anyone putting as many hours into projects (as you all do) can remain jovial every single minute of the day - unless there is something psychologically amiss  :unsure:
Thanks for your responses
* billy2 will shut up now

Arantor

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Re: Wedge support
« Reply #7, on May 28th, 2011, 02:18 PM »
It's not for nothing that I've been going by the nickname Gruffen over on SimpleDesk, which naturally gets shortened to... :lol:

and

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Re: Wedge support
« Reply #8, on May 28th, 2011, 02:48 PM »
Will the organized support of the national versions?
example
Quote
Language Specific Support
If you need support in a language other than English, check out these child boards.

 Shqip (Albanian), العربية (Arabic), Bosanski/Hrvatski/Srpski (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian), Bosanski (Bosnian), Български (Bulgarian), Català (Catalan), 中文 (Chinese), Hrvatski (Croatian), Če¨tina (Czech), Nederlands (Dutch), Eesti (Estonian), فارسی (Farsi), Suomenkielinen tuki (Finnish), Français (French), Hilfe zu SMF (German), Ελληνικά (Greek), עברית (Hebrew), Magyar (Hungarian), Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian), Italiano (Italian), Bahasa Melayu (Malay), Polski (Polish), Português (Portuguese), Română (Romanian), Русский (Russian), Srpski (Serbian), Español (Spanish), Svenska/Norsk/Dansk (Swedish/Norwegian/Danish), ไทย (Thai), Türkçe Bölümü (Turkish), اردو (Urdu), Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
:hmm:
- more than just a forum <br />sorry for my english

Arantor

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Re: Wedge support
« Reply #9, on May 28th, 2011, 02:52 PM »
No idea right now. Which would you rather we do... spend time planning ahead for how we're going to support a product that doesn't exist, or spend time building it?

Nao

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Re: Wedge support
« Reply #10, on May 28th, 2011, 03:07 PM »
Quote from Arantor on May 28th, 2011, 02:18 PM
It's not for nothing that I've been going by the nickname Gruffen over on SimpleDesk, which naturally gets shortened to... :lol:
Interestingly, that's the exact same reason I'm not changing my nickname to Butters. :P
Posted: May 28th, 2011, 03:02 PM
Quote from Makar on May 28th, 2011, 02:48 PM
Will the organized support of the national versions?
Short answer: no.

Long answer: if the community requests for something and it makes sense, then yes they'll get it. But right now I'm developing for myself and about a dozen other people (i.e. those who give me feedback over my work.) And they all speak English fluently, so there's no point for it. As a rule of thumb: if it takes time to do and it's no fun and nothing justifies doing it, then we won't do it. We're not the 'SMF Team' who strive to be seen as 'professionals' but never release a thing. We're doing our thing for ourselves. If it ends up being a hit, then we'll devote some time into building something of a community. Right now, it's for Wedge friends and enthusiasts. And it'll be less pressure to us, too.
Re: Wedge support
« Reply #11, on May 28th, 2011, 03:12 PM »
Quote from billy2 on May 28th, 2011, 12:06 PM
Wedge is sounding very good to press, its only a matter of time until Wedge goes public and the hordes flock here.
I don't see that happening anytime soon, with the pressure the SMF Team is putting over the community...
Just look at how they destroy every single signature with a reference to us.
If I can trust the Facebook page numbers, we have 37 friends, so that's about the number of people (give or take a hundred) who'll be using Wedge eventually. SMF has hundreds of thousands, AFAIK. Not the same league. They're in the 'big boys' league. We're in the independent league (i.e. those who do all the work but don't get the publicity.) At least we don't have to put up with the support. Well, I don't.
Quote
What is your strategy for supporting 16000 Wedge installations
I don't see us having more than a thousand installs at the end of the year.

And with a bit of luck, everyone else will end up agreeing with my desire to remove the 'hack' system for mods, and thus we'll get next to nothing in terms of support requests for mods. (Except for the usual 'Do you have a mod for XXX', to which I won't even bother replying.)
Quote
Nao, Arantor and others will be knackered [1] by this time and I thought it a point to raise
 1. - as in tired
If I can't take it, I'll just go back to my cave and resume work, while others will fill in, take bug reports and transmit them to me.

spoogs

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Stick a fork in it SMF

Nao

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Re: Wedge support
« Reply #13, on May 28th, 2011, 05:09 PM »
Yeah, that's me! (I can't get enough of me.)

Soms

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Re: Wedge support
« Reply #14, on May 28th, 2011, 05:31 PM »
Quote from Nao/Gilles on May 28th, 2011, 03:12 PM
I don't see that happening anytime soon, with the pressure the SMF Team is putting over the community...
Just look at how they destroy every single signature with a reference to us.
If I can trust the Facebook page numbers, we have 37 friends, so that's about the number of people (give or take a hundred) who'll be using Wedge eventually. SMF has hundreds of thousands, AFAIK. Not the same league. They're in the 'big boys' league. We're in the independent league (i.e. those who do all the work but don't get the publicity.) At least we don't have to put up with the support. Well, I don't.
I don't for one really believe one word you wrote here Nao. The reason there are only 37 Wedge friends on FB now is that people still don't know about Wedge, the product. Once they see the end product, I am sure you dont need to hire PR company to spread the word. Some of us noobs with no technical skills are roaming and salivating in the background to spread the word once we get to taste the "forbidden" fruit[1].

If the product is good, which without a doubt Wedge will be, people will flock to it. Who were the people responsible for some of the most popular mods that drove traffic to SMF in 2009/2010/2011? And if you have all of those people combining their skills to make Wedge, one can only hope that you guys are capable of handing the tsunami of people who undoubtedly will use Wedge once it is launched.

No you are not in the same league as SMF. You are going to probably going to be in a super league of your own before you know it  :eheh:

 1. SMF is trying its best, some might say its worst, to erase all references to Wedge. I'll bet you a Euro, they will fail as soon as Wedge appears on the scene
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