Helping Hand: More information in Off Topic

ID:14854
 
Jul 4 2006, 10:25 pm (Edited on Jul 5 2006, 12:16 am)
I realized after my last post the I was lacking a lot of information. Yeah, I noted my mission statement, but never really gave you any clue beyond "Helping others".

Ranks:

--Hand in Need: A hand in need is just that, someone who wants help and needs it quite often. This is not a requirement for getting help, but it does allow you to view a forum section for members only. This is a trivial rank, but it is here anyways.

--Small Hand: A small hand can only help a little. The potential is there, but the experience is not. Small Hands can make blog posts and upload files. They are around to help people with simple problems and do whatever they can to help. If I was to join a guild of this type, this is the group I would expect myself to be in, if this explains much to you.

--Helping Hand: The primary rank. This is what most people will want to be. Helping Hands have the power to make blog posts, upload files, and manage forums. They are expected to know the BYOND language like the back of their hand and have a strong will to help others. They should be helping the most by releasing tutorials and demos.

--Large Hand: The top rank. Large Hands can do everything Helping Hands can, but also recruit new Hands. Large Hands are held to the standard of Helping Hands, with the added responsibility of power. This does not rule out someone with the knowledge of a Small Hand from becoming a Large Hand. The reason for Large Hands is power, not skill. Helping is still a large part of their tasks, but they can pick their scale.

Applicants:

If you wish to apply, please state the rank you wish to have, but please do not request Large Hand, that one is only given to those I trust, and they do not have to ask, they will receive regardless.

If you only wish to be a "Hand in Need" please state that in your application, it is the only necessary information.

If you wish to be a "Small Hand" or "Helping Hand" please give a detailed summary of how you believe you can help. Along with this, please link to as many examples of your current knowledge as you can. This may include demos, libraries, blog posts, forum help replies, and game sources.

Game sources, demos, and libraries are far from required, but they help in judging your current programming prowess. The more information you can provide the better.

Extra Information:

The single most important quality we are looking for is will to help. We want friendly people who really want to help others. It is also a good idea for a applicant to have a good understanding of programming in general, not just DM specifics. This aids in the helping process greatly.


I really hope this clears some things up, I would love to see some more applications soon.
#1 Jul 5 2006, 9:48 pm
Now it just needs wheels to roll along. :\
#2 Jul 5 2006, 9:50 pm
I am working on recruting, we already have 1 "Small Hand", I really hope this will increase a lot soon. I will also be sending out invetations to people who I think could be Helping Hands.
#3 Jul 7 2006, 6:50 pm
What exactly is the purpose of this guild? Is it just to put a collective effort into helping people so that people can try to work together to help others?

For example, you mention a chat room helping environment. One person can't be on enough to be reliable; and even if someone puts up a chat room and tells other people who like to help to go on there when they aren't busy to help, even then the unstructured nature easily falls apart. But if you have an orderly, structured group that can collaborate on their efforts and you had enough people in it, you could make sure there is most often at least one person around in such a chat room. Is that the sort of thing you are going for?

This guild does sound interesting. I have several libraries, demos and a tutorial sitting on my hard drive unfinished because I haven't gotten around to polishing them off (or in the case of some of them, they are just still in outline phase), so I don't have much to show there as you can see by my 1 published project. But I do try to help out as best I can when people come to me with questions; as long as people are trying to learn and not trying to get work done for them (which is often the case, as is inevitable, though I still try to be as polite and helpful as possible) then I am willing to spend my precious time helping them to help themselves.

Yes, I know, you might not get that impression that I don't like to do peoples work for them from my forum posts, as I often include fully working code snippets with half my explanations; but I'm usually different when I'm browsing the forum, because I'm often browsing it when I'm in a programming mood and want to whip something up.

I'm taking a tutoring course at my college next semester, so I should be even better able to teach people after that. I'll consider applying.
#4 Jul 7 2006, 7:42 pm
Well, the helping structure right now is simple to group together like-minded developers who want to help others. This can be through any means possible. I really don't care if it is by the forums, tutorials, demos, or chat rooms. I do want to bring up a chat-room specifically for code help, but this will not come until we have enough members to be hanging out 'round the clock.

Right now our main focus is libs, demos, and tutorials, because most of the people who are willing to join already browse the code problems and help others. This guild is still in its infancy, so only time will tell. Most of use already hang out in a chat room and help those who are help-able.