Help On The Way
 by jeff covey, in freshmeat - Sat, Apr 1st 2006 00:00 PDT

Despite begging, cajoling, writing FAQs, and renaming our "report problem" link to "broken links", we've never been able to convince everyone that http://freshmeat.net/contact/ is for writing us with problems with freshmeat itself. We still get a few messages each day from people asking why BloggyBlog 3.17 won't post their parakeet photos or telling us about misspellings in the Swedish translation of our firewall script. Until now, we've had to express our regret that we only list information about the 40,000 projects on our site, and can't provide tech support for them all. Today, we're happy to announce that's all changing.

As the day traders among you will know, our grandparent company recently posted its first profitable quarter. In the post-profit euphoria, we convinced the finance department to greenlight one of our long-running requests to Human Resources, and have been able to hire consultants to handle user questions.

As we hoped to do, we've engaged an international support group with centers around the globe, and so will be able to give realtime consultations 24/7. The staff will come on for shifts at appropriate hours for their locations, and two consultants should be available at all times. They'll be waiting to take your inquiries at:

channel: #helpdesk
server:  irc.freshmeat.net

While they obviously can't be familiar with every project we list, our consultants do have a wide knowledge of Unix and Mac software and access to a great library of reference material. Give them a little time, and we think they'll be able to help you through most of the problems you'll encounter with any software you find here.

We hope this will also take some of the pressure off you project authors, but please feel free to drop in as well and check the advice our team is giving.

Please stop by and let us know how we can help. Best of luck!

[Comments are disabled]

 Comments

[»] the idea is good
by endless552001 - Mar 14th 2007 21:58:49

the idea is good, and I support it.

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[»] Don't exaggerate with it
by D-Man - Dec 19th 2006 07:42:58

This idea isn't healthy for software industry, or anything else. Try not to o far with that April fool thing, kids!

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[»] Wordsmithing
by Youth Ministry Guy - Aug 21st 2006 23:57:03

"Despite begging, cajoling, writing FAQs, and renaming our 'report problem' link to 'broken links', we've never been able to convince everyone"

You're not alone. :) Similar issues come up with my client websites all the time and I've concluded that unless I'm willing to break the consistency of the page design with some kind of bright box or arrow or larger font, it's not going away.

--
daniel _AT_ tuggle.it

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[»] FM + 1.st april = Human resources joke
by malbrigt - Apr 1st 2006 14:19:30

Even tho the idea is good, doable is another issue.

Anyone remember last years joke?
As I remember ( at least something like this ), freshmeat was "hiring" writers, with an incredible salary ;-)

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[»] Neat idea for an April Fools Prank
by Psycho Blade - Apr 1st 2006 09:18:52

Gee I wonder if a post that was initiated exactly at midnight on the first day of April could possibly be a false announcement and really is some ridiculous hoax and ploy to all those who forgot about our special occasion of the day. =o)

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[»] Blocking Error
by David Hart - Apr 1st 2006 07:50:57

Error: Cannot find Pashtu translation!

--
Our DNSRBL - Eliminate Spam: http://www.TQMcube.com Multi-RBL Check: http://www.TQMcube.com/rblcheck.php Zombie Graphs: http://www.TQMcube.com/zombies.php

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[»] Vista Support
by r3d5un - Apr 1st 2006 07:30:55

Well, i'm wondering how long it will take until Microsoft puts it's new Windows Vista on freshmeat so they can use their Support team as a cheap solution to deal with the (many many) support request.

But i think Microsoft has to hurry because i doubt that this Support Team will last until tomorrow ;)

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[»] Is it just me...
by Jorge Pereira - Apr 1st 2006 06:12:55

Is it just me, or is everyone really taking this article seriously? I hate to break the news on you people, but it IS the 1st of April. Gladly, Freshmeat decided to stick to their colors and not go pink. ;)

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[»] hey, that's great
by Buanzo - Apr 1st 2006 05:10:50

I'll post the spanish translation at my blog. I'm a big fm fan :) - Thanks to you one of my applications got into Sourcemage gnu/linux :D :D

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[»] nice to ferashmaet give back to the comunisty
by mungkie - Apr 1st 2006 02:39:22

at last fraeshmeat is give back to the comunty. well done gays you playing the game with the good.

Now can you hlep me with my project, its not seem wurk sum times. How can I complie it, its say i need gcc.

regards and thanx

--
Signature, I have no signature?

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[»] Nobody available :-(
by Wilmer van der Gaast - Apr 1st 2006 02:22:11

I tried to get someone to help me with my FireFox problem. Suddenly my whole browser turned pink when I opened SlashDot this morning. Where's that Bob guy mentioned in the topic? I need his help!

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[»] one step ahead
by ponce - Mar 30th 2006 05:52:15

anticipating tomorrow news? ;P

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[»] IRC Network missing
by Andraž 'ruskie' Levstik - Mar 28th 2006 16:30:05

You might have mentioned this is on the oftc irc network... You know it helps since some of us are already on that network :)

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