Ideas to help support people during quarantine?

The WebRTC stuff looks like you could make some simple tools without needing anything more than a web browser.

I haven’t had time to go through any of the code/try some examples yet (maybe next week if I clear a few other things first) but there’s a lot of examples out there already (if only in demo-form):

https://rtcmulticonnection.herokuapp.com/demos/
https://www.webrtc-experiment.com/

Could the time we could burn on support for a commercial product be better spent on assembling something simple/with low barriers to entry?

Could the time we could burn on support for a commercial product be better spent on assembling something simple/with low barriers to entry?

Seems unlikely that it would: With a commercial product we can lean on loads of existing support online, family and friends, etc. If we roll our own, even discounting the time spent building it, we’d be left with the full weight of supporting it. And we’re talking about non-techy people here.

(Not saying it’s not a worthwhile project, but I don’t think it’s a quick and easy way to get non-techy people communicating online.)

Good points @p.j and @Ed_S.

I’m reluctant to ask FTC to do too much by way of running and triaging as I think they’re likely to be too busy. So I’m happy to take on the practical side of initial contact and triage, and either direct people to existing resources or pass them on to one of you for one-to-one support. Limiting things to a few applications seems like a very good idea.

Impossible to know how much time and effort this might involve, so let’s agree to do it on a best-efforts basis, with the understanding that no one should feel obliged to take on more than they’re comfortable with.

I agree it’s best if FTC pass people on to us rather than just advertising a free online support service. I’ve set up another email address – support@techshedfrome.org – for that purpose. For now I’ve just put myself on there, with the intention that I’d only pass a few cases on to the pool of people willing to help. What’s the best way to do that do you think?

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I am aware that my skills are limited but I am happy to do what I can. And if the issue is beyond me I should be able to give a reasonable brief to someone who really can help.

I am imagining it will be installing social meeting software and getting it set up, but without some preconditions, it could end up being almost any issue that is causing a problem. We could play it by ear or set limits in advance e.g. offering to set up Skype and Zoom and that’s all.

I had a very productive session on Team Viewer with Ed yesterday. Screen sharing will help overcome the clients lack of ability to understand what is being asked of them. But is only an option provided they are happy to allow the helper access to their system.

The elephant trap is accidentally doing damage, such as losing data or trashing someone else’s system, either through bad choices by the helper or client; or as the result of something that was going to happen anyway, like a hard drive crash or other component failure. Some sort of ‘safe start’ would be sensible, ideally a full system back up before starting, but somehow I doubt this will happen often, if at all. Fatal crashes are unusual, but not unknown and we should have thought about it and taken some reasonable precautions to help recover the system, avoid liability and generally to protect the reputation of the Tech Shed.

This means that some sort of disclaimer will be required that reflects the policy that help will be limited to areas of competence of the helper, and that the clients accepts that shit happens (the actual text may need some refinement). This is why I proposed that the Town Council is seen as the ‘owner’ of he scheme.

Agreed - we should be helping out under the auspices of a disclaimer, that’s it’s neighbourly assistance, on a best-effort basis, with no guarantees and we can take no responsibility (or no liability, or whatever phrase does the job. It’s customers using this car park do so at their own risk.)

On the question of alternatives to zoom and the possibility of building our own, I’d veer more towards helping people make a selection, and possibly trying to write a simple recipe for setting up a server - for jitsi, for janus, for bigbluebutton. But if we’re not careful we just end up rewriting existing set-up docs.

Just came across another chat/conference system, open source:

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