Support Team Funding Sept-Nov 24

This proposal is for the on-chain funding of the Support Team for the period of Sept 1st, 2024
to November 30, 2024.

The Secret Network Support Team is responsible for providing timely and effective support
to users on the network through all available communication channels. This includes
addressing technical issues, moderating community channels, and collaborating with
builders, validators, relayers, and the Core Team to improve the overall user experience.

Target Deliverables for this Funding Period

  • Be at the front-row supporting users in their ecosystem exploration with IBC, the depreciation of the old eth bridge and assets and anything else users may have trouble with
  • Provide timely and effective support to users on the Secret Network through all
    available communication channels (Secret Network Discord, Secret Community
    Telegram, and Secret Forums)
  • Moderate community channels (Telegram, Discord) to ensure a positive and
    helpful environment for all users
  • Collaborate with builders, validators, relayers, and the Core Team to identify common user issues and improve the overall user experience

Budget Request

The Secret Network Support Team asks for compensation for the following roles.

Compensated Roles

MrGarbonzo $2500/ month | 75 hours per month

Discretionary Budget

No discretionary budget will be asked

Total Ask

Total Proposal Spend for 3 Months: $7,500 ( ___ SCRT @ .__)

1 Like

Thanks for all the things you do acting as support for the network.

In your opinion, what were the biggest positive and negative experiences in the past months and how can we do better as a network moving forward?

Do you happen to have some metrics of the past period? I’m mostly interested in the main issues people seem to be having and whether that’s changing over time. Would also be interesting to hear what the volume of support requests is and how that compares to a year ago.

Thanks in advance!

2 Likes

Would also like to see this data.

Supported, thank you @MrGarbonzo :pray:

Good questions,

One of the biggest improvement to the network is that infrastructure is more stable than it was in the past leading to less errors out of the users control.

Some common things I see that cause a negative user experience is bad error handling where users see an error on mintscan/keplr popup but its not always clear what is causing this error and users who try to use multiple wallets (except starshell which needs more love) it breaks all your viewing keys.

Two common issues that have been going on for a while are stuck IBC and viewing key related issues (usually after bridging).

The only metrics I have saved are from discord tickets, which is usually around 1/2 the amount of users I help, the other half come from Telegram.

From June 1st to Aug 31 2023 there was 270 tickets
The same period this year is currently at 178

3 Likes

Great, thanks for those numbers and insights. Interesting to see that VKs are still one of the main issues. You mention its mostly after bridging, does that mean users don’t understand they still need to create a VK, or are there other issues? VKs will hopefully be replaced by permits for most usecases at some point but would be good to know where the painpoints are currently. Do you perhaps have rough estimates on the percentage of tickets that are stuck IBC transactions and VK issues? Are they both around 30%, more, or less? Do you also have rough estimates (/guesses) on how many support requests are made by new users vs users that have been around a while?

SNF has some moderators active currently, is there any coordination with you as support, or are these two things strictly separate? Is there regular communication regarding issues that keep popping up or do you handle that on a more ad hoc basis? What would be the ideal process for these things in your mind and are there options for closer collaboration?

Thanks in advance!

1 Like

I dont have exact numbers for how often an issue comes up. id guess 20% is viewing keys and 20% is IBC stuck and the rest is made up of random issues. I dont have exact numbers on old vs new users but id guess its breakdown is old user > cosmos but new to scrt > new user. im gonna see if I can track this some of this data next Q because it would be interesting to have.

There is no coordination between myself and the new mods hired by SNF. Any repeating issue is brought to the appropriate teams attention whether its a constant bug or an area of UI confusion.

3 Likes

Yeah more metrics are always interesting, especially in this case where it helps us understand issues better to improve the overall experience.

Do you think some form of coordination between yourself and SNF (mods) would contribute to overall increased efficiency? Do mods just always refer to you or handle the easier requests themselves?

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The SNF mod team is only responsible for moderating the chat rooms and do not help with users having issues. anyone having an issue is redirected to me

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Fully support you as always @MrGarbonzo

I hope the time comes again when Secret support is overwhelmed & we need to pitch in again. I miss those days m8 :people_hugging:

I’m quite conflicted about this current prop, you do a great job as far as I can tell but it feels like there are still several ways to increase efficiency and improve the support processes and I don’t see any of that in this proposal.

Low hanging fruit would in my opinion be closer collaboration with SNF, both at mod level but also at leadership level. Moderators have to monitor chats anyway and could already answer a number of common questions that aren’t difficult to solve without causing a higher workload. This could free some of your time to work on process improvements and closer contact with SNF to improve UX, which has always been one of the main issues around SCRT and its dApps. I’m sure there are more ways your experience could be useful for SNF as well.

For now I’ll vote abstain, but that might still change over the next days.

1 Like

For clarity, mods do answer common questions in the chats already, IE how to stake, claim rewards, what platforms to use for XXX, etc.

They dont attend to or close tickets. They direct people to submit tickets when there is something outside of basic items which need higher levels of support or something outside their experience.

Sorry for not being very known. But what is the difference between the current “admins” like aliyu and such and this. I’m not sure if these admins get payed as well. But if we have a support team + a admin team that gets payed I think that this is too much of the good.

Correct me if I’m wrong btw.

I rather see one of the 2.

I believe you are referring to admins by the admin role in TG, they are one and the same. Mods have the admin role in order to be able to moderate.

And support team and moderators are separate functions. The support team is Mr Garbanzo only, and he does fantastic work. (I am voting yes)
Mods help the way any good and experienced community member would on support questions in the public forum but they do not overlap in the role of support. So I do not see it as too much at all. In fact I hope very much to need to add new support team members to clear tickets soon because of tons of traffic hahaha.

Ah gotcha, thanks, then I assume it’s fine haha

Effective Dec 1st I will be joining Secret Foundation to handle support and assist in other areas as needed. So there will be no more Support Funding props. Id like to thank the community for the support over the years.

-cheers

4 Likes

Congrats Garbonzo. Happy to see you / and ultimately the support function join SNF :slight_smile:

Future is looking good🚀

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Bullish on support and Garbanzo!

Garbanzo has been a pillar of the community providing support to countless tickets. Amd in the coming months, we will be needing the expertise more and more.

Glad to see you moving to SNF!

Very excited to have you on board, MrGarbanzo. You’re a real OG around here.