It's important to be able to recognize events that are both important and urgent. Some might be important but not urgent, others urgent but not important while some are neither important nor urgent. However, mentions that are both urgent and important should be handled as top priority. HackerNews is a channel that commonly sees this type of mentions.
These mentions might be intimidating and/or hard to answer by yourself. Please involve several topic experts to respond instead.
When this type of mention comes up during a weekend, please ping more people than you would usually do. It's not considered rude (anyone and everyone can always snooze Slack notifications during weekends), you're just increasing the chance someone sees it in time.
| Mention | Important | Urgent | Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17032274 | ✖ | ✖ | The OP mentions GitLab out of context. |
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17101902 | ✖ | ✓ | This required an urgent response because the thread momentum was very perishable. |
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16914775 | ✓ | ✖ | The OP expressed dissapointment with his support experience - This is important to address, but not time sensitive (a one or two hour response time woudln't have any difference in impact compared to a 6h response time). |
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13537052 | ✓ | ✓ | Content is volatile and affects a lot of users and the company image. This needed to be addressed as soon as possible and with care. |
production Slack channelUsers might take to Twitter to report instances of spam on the GitLab.org Issue Board. To report this, post in the #abuse slack channel with a link to the issue board and the timing of the spam report. Respond to the user and thank them for getting our attention on the issue.
The same workflow can be applied for spam reports that come through on other social channels, however, Twitter is the most common place for these reports.
Thanks for reaching out! Our team has seen increased activity around cred stuffing lately. If you believe your account could be affected, visit the GitLab sign-in page and select "forgot password": https://gitlab.com/users/sign_in .Unfortunately, cred stuffing is becoming increasingly common. Our secops team works to limit the impact of active attacks. Users should be sure to create strong, unique passwords for every site/service (a password manager can help) and enable #mfa: https://gitlab.com/profile/two_factor_authTweets expressing positivity about GitLab.
Sample responses:
Zendesk macros serve two main purposes in the Community Advocate workflow:
No Response
Just as important as finding the right expert, or engaging in a friendly way, is knowing when not to engage. When our judgement or a process tells us not to engage in a mention online, we use one of the macros in the parent No Response macro. You will see details further drilled down into reasons for choosing not to respond. (ex. No Response::Media Mention, No Response::IPO status, No Response::Non-English, etc.) Choose the appropriate macro under the parent No Response macro and it will automatically provide a private note in the ticket, and will leave the ticket in an Open or Solved state, depending on the macro.
Involving Experts
Use these macros when you have reached out for an expert's assistance, and again once the expert has answered. The parent macro is Involving Experts and the choices are Involving Experts::Reached out to an Expert, which will put the ticket in an Open state, and Involving Experts::Expert Responded, which will put the ticket in a Solved state.
Advocate Responded
Use this macro when you yourself, or a fellow Community Advocate, were able to resolve or reply. This could be something as simple as a "thank you", providing links to the docs, or an issue, etc. This macro puts the ticket into a solved state.
When responding to community messages, you may face a situation where our documentation doesn't have an official solution. In these circumstances, you can consider replying with a link to an external resource.
Before that, consider documenting the missing piece. It is time-consuming, but it saves time for both you and your colleagues when this comes up again. Respond after updating the documentation. This approach encourages immediate documentation improvements/edits, and it allows avoiding all external resources. If you have any questions about writing the documentation, ask the relevant Technical Writer or Product Manager. When your content is ready, assign it to one of them for review.
If you determine that this question is too specific for our documentation and decide to use an external resource, please make sure that:
There are some common topics that surface in our community where the advocates team does not respond or engage experts.
Exceptions can be made if these are pressing issues, or if an expert is needed to correct misinformation. It's best practice to collaborate with Legal or External Communications teams before making these exceptions.
| Topic | Why We Don't Engage |
|---|---|
| Location Based Pay | Most participants in these conversations already have their mind made up on their perspective of our compensation model. Many conversations will naturally share relevant links from GitLab. There is no new information we can add to these conversations, and involvement on our part could just make people in the conversation angry. |
| GitLab's IPO Status & Being a Public Company | Anyone can read about the company's goals and plans in the handbook, however, use caution when dealing with these questions and err on the side of not commenting at all. Experience tells us that this conversation moves quickly to speculation and assumptions. |
| Country Specific Hiring Restrictions | All information about country hiring guidelines can be found in our GitLab Jobs FAQ section. We can share this list if users are asking questions, but we can add little value if users are angry about the policies. |
| Harassment by Community Members | We do not engage with members of our community who harass anyone on the GitLab team, or who do not follow our Code of Conduct. |
| Politically Sensitive Topics | We do not engage with politically sensitive topics unless there is a clear company response relayed to the advocates. If an advocate is unsure whether we shouldn't respond to a topic, we should reach out to corporate communications for clarity. |
