
Rails Hotline (live phone help with RoR) - stevefink
http://www.railshotline.com/
======
GavinB
It does seem like this would be a lot easier if there were also chat (or even
if it were chat-only). If you're talking about code, it would be really
helpful to be able to paste in snippets or links to resources.

~~~
eof
#RubyOnRails on freenode is basically this.

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keeran
Give the #RubyOnRails users a way to paste a link (shorturl?) to people who
come into the channel asking for premium help.

Make a game of it for the users, have a bot which reports the user stats
(which users can auth via privmsg/ctcp password).

edit: a bot which reports stats on a request basis only, and privmgs all
interactions with other users! no channel spam!

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_chap
Thanks for the ups guys.

As I said on the site I owe a lot of our success to the generous spirit of the
open source community and wanted to give a little back.

If you're interested in volunteering to take calls:
<http://www.railshotline.com/apply.html>

~~~
stevefink
chap, as I've mentioned before, I think this is yet another great way to
contribute to open source. It's not always about writing code - projects like
this are just as valuable as someone who works full time on documenting open
source projects, writes code or creating user interfaces. thanks for a fresh
idea!

~~~
ujjvala
Really great idea. Other opensource community should learn from this.

~~~
_chap
Thanks! If anybody else is interested in getting a community hotline setup,
we've been working on making that really easy.

Shoot me an email: chap@pockethotline.com

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JoshTriplett
Reading this and pockethotline.com, and thinking about your offer to help set
up other community hotlines: what about a Founders Hotline? Call to talk to a
real live business founder, whether to get some advice, get a recommendation
or opinion for a particular service, bounce an idea or pitch off someone for
feedback, or just get a different perspective. And the "experts" would get the
benefit of hearing from some interesting people doing interesting things, and
having a nice conversation with a fellow founder, as well as the recognition
and networking you mentioned elsewhere.

~~~
dpkendal
The only issue I forsee with this is that such a hotline would get spammed up
with idea-mongers who refuse to share anything without signing an NDA, and who
equate a TechCrunch link with a guarantee long-term success.

~~~
JoshTriplett
So say "no" and hang up. :) Easy enough to add a FAQ making expectations
clear.

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swombat
So, I guess this is like going to Freenode#RubyOnRails, but for people who
don't know what IRC is?

You should absolutely, totally, utterly figure out a way to charge for this
service.

~~~
stevefink
The major distinction here is voice is much more personal and one on one than
IRC. IRC can be intimidating for a novice, and let's be quite frank, many
times people's IRC persona does not reflect who they are in real life. As
someone who's been contributing to major networks such as EFnet for many years
now - I've learned IRC can be a great tool for learning, but it can also be
downright aggressive and humiliating, particularly to the majority of users
who this service would be targeting.

A voice on the other hand is more personal, synchronous and on-demand. I think
there's value there and that it's possible to charge for that additional
value.

~~~
jrockway
EFNet and Freenode are quite different, however.

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leoc
Seems like a promising idea, and I have no absolutely intention of knocking
it.

But ... you have to admit that it's a wide-open target for parody: picture the
earnest young Rails beginner calling (from Chennai, of course) and getting
DHH. From there it slides into some kind of ChatRoulette nightmare involving
DHH, _why, Zed ("fuck this shit! Just use Python"), a werewolf, ...

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jat850
This is a neat idea and I commend you for the effort this has taken and will
continue to take. I have some questions for you about how you perceive people
using the service:

How do you bridge the code-to-voice gap; that is, someone calling in with a
question about coding and you have to describe something that requires a lot
of code syntax. Do you pass that off to some sort of e-mail type discussion or
screen-sharing process, anything like that?

This seems like it could be a great consulting-style opportunity, but also an
awesome way to get new developers over the stumbling blocks they experience
commonly when picking up new languages.

 _edit_ My curiosity on this stems from past experience, doing phone-based
coding or tech support to family or friends - it has always been a major
challenge for me to verbally describe some more complex tasks, and 9 times out
of 10 I find myself saying, "you know what - I'll just swing by and show you,
it'll be a lot easier and faster for the both of us". (I am not a very good
auditory learner/processor - I need tactile or visual assistance, and teach
others better using the same methods.)

~~~
_chap
Thanks!

Obviously, some questions you're going to need to work through the code, so we
can always move the conversation to text.

So far lots of the calls have been about documentation and best practices
which are pretty easy to talk through.

~~~
raywu
Agreed - maybe an Rails environment similar to <http://tryruby.org/> for Ruby
IRB?

~~~
lenary
an, if only herokugarden lived on, that would be ace!

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zwp
Neat idea.

What do you suggest for non-US volunteers (and callers, although I suspect
that is harder to solve, at least for free)?

~~~
JoshTriplett
Seems like you have several independent problems there. First, issues of
timezone, language, and similar. Second, technical issues of long-distance and
connectivity. You can pretty trivially solve the second set of issues with
VoIP and other means; however, that doesn't address the non-technical problem.
To address that one, you might consider making it easier to connect with
people in the same general locale, which would also solve the second problem.

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ZackOfAllTrades
Idea:Record calls and make them available to others through the website. Less
repetition of questions and you will be available to have a much wider
outreach.

~~~
LuisZaman
Great idea. With some simple transcripts and text-based search, it could be a
great searchable tome of information one day.

~~~
ZackOfAllTrades
Just called in and talked to Chap. I wanted to make sure he got to see the
idea and know about before it got lost. He immediately made the jump to
transcripts and text-based stuff.

Chap: Recording calls with skype forum post:
<http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=477581>

Good luck!

~~~
_chap
Thanks for the call!

I love the idea of sharing recorded calls to help more people.

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BrainScraps
The Rails community is serious about outreach. Good on ya!

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dsifry
Just used the service and had a great chat with Chap, one of the founders.
There's something qualitatively different when you're talking to someone using
voice - it makes it easier to articulate some of the bigger questions that
aren't just syntax or "help me debug this" type of questions. Anyway, I think
this is a great idea, and love that these guys are making it happen. Kudos.

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eof
Wow. I saw this and thought, 'genius.' What's it going to cost.. $50/ 20
minutes.. that would be more than fair for an expert.

FREE?????

~~~
michaeldhopkins
It better be free so long as they're not picking up the damn phone. :)

~~~
stevefink
I'm assuming they're getting overwhelmed with traffic after being linked here
and other high traffic properties. With only two volunteers on staff, there's
only so much you can do. I am sure they are rapidly going to look into adding
volunteers if the volume stays persistent (and/or hopefully grows even
larger).

~~~
davidw
Perhaps raising the price would help keep demand from outstripping supply?

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bphogan
If you can think of a way to bring this together with railsmentors.org, ping
me. I'd love to see what we could do.

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kindlyviking
These guys are brave!

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mdink
Ok so how many prank calls have you gotten? Anyone mistakenly call thinking it
was a phone sex number?? Rails does have a lot of connotations...

~~~
gsd
haha awesome.

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weehuy
I'm not sure if it was intentional or not (to grab attention) but the blue
text with drop shadow on that red background hurts my eyes.

~~~
_chap
Nope, suppose to be white.

I'm guessing you're browser is automatically creating a link to that phone
number and using some default stylesheet. What browser are you seeing that?

~~~
GFischer
I see it as white, but the Skype plugin for Firefox changes phone numbers to
highlight them.

I have it installed at home, will try it and then get back to you. Maybe some
phones do that as well?.

~~~
GFischer
Just tried it, it doesn't look blue, but it does look awful with the Skype
plug-in.

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rickdale
I called, no hold time. Good stuff. Though I am an excellent holder.

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jambalaya
Called and was walked through my problem with a working solution!

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user7584
What is a rail shot?

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mahmud
do they offer quiche as well?

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jamesbritt
Has Rails become so complex that people need a hotline?

~~~
jamesbritt
Seriously, downvoters, I'm curious as to what motivated this. What's the need
for a hotline? If there are problems, is a hotline really the best approach,
or does it suggest that there's some larger underlying issue that makes it
necessary?

People used to tout Rails as being stupid easy to use. I.e.
<http://www.amedias.org/img/java_vs_rails_books.jpg>

So, just how complex has Rails become? What are the difficulties people run
into?

~~~
dreyfiz
It's not about the complexity of _Rails_ , it's about helping a learner get
comfortable at their own speed, outside of the usual channels of support. It's
about creating something that will unexpectedly delight people. No one expects
free phone-based tech support for an open-source project.

This is ridiculously awesome. I think your reply did not contribute much of
use to the conversation, and I think that's why you got downvoted (wasn't me,
I can't downvote).

~~~
jamesbritt
Thanks very much for the response.

 _No one expects free phone-based tech support for an open-source project._

That's true, but there are various reasons for that, one being that it's
rarely needed. Now, offering it despite any demonstrated need is an
interesting experiment, but it also suggests that the typical paths for
learning and support are lacking.

 _I think your reply did not contribute much of use to the conversation, and I
think that's why you got downvoted_

I asked a question with an unflattering (albeit realistic) supposition.

