PeakD has a plan to prepare the site to be ready for full time content creators and that also includes being ready for an influx of new features and new users. Thus we need some help. This includes people to help test better and faster.
Over 40 people filled out the form to work with Peak Projects in various capacities. We are working on how we want to organize the different roles. (Maybe we'll be using the Brainstorm team to help come up with some enhancements to these processes)
Right now what we're planning is a tiered system for the different teams.
I think everyone knows that some people have the best of intentions and really want to be involved but time doesn't always permit it. We want to eventually get to the point where we can give incentives like pay to our very best testers based on their skill and capability. So having a system that helps identify those people is good for us.
TESTING TEAM
The idea behind the testing team is to primarily use beta.peakd.com (or peakd.com) and find bugs before regular users find them and then report them to developers or customer support team also to use all sorts of browsers and all 3 login methods.
Difference in a tester and a user?
Users find problems all the time... but a tester knows how to re-create that problem and bring it to a developer with the information they need to know or how to re-create that issue. Like if it's a specific browser or login issue. Also testing team has a much better understanding of the site and all the features that exist and how to use them all.
PRIMARY MOTIVATIONS
We should state that those looking to test really should be doing it first because they love our platform, they use it anyway so using a testing version isn't hard for them and they prefer using the newest features.
So for now volunteers for these roles should understand up front that what the primary motivations of a tester are likely:
- Early access to features
- Have a voice in the new features
- For us to see if you're the most capable of a customer support role or paid testing role when those come about.
Right now if you're really good at testing then you may also be very good at technical Customer support... and that is more likely to be paid first.
OVERLAP WITH BRAINSTORM OR SUPPORT
There is overlap with those on the SUPPORT and the BRAINSTORM team. Usually being on the testing team can help both those other groups. It's almost as if there are two camps with both of them meeting in the middle (testing) because testing would help both of those groups.
We encourage brainstorm team and customer service team to be part of tester team.
WHAT TO DO NOW?
- We have a preliminary open channel on Discord #testing-open-peakd
- Anyone can interact there and based on bug findings and communication skills we will promote.
- We will have a channel just for those officially on the testing team.
- Basically just stay active if you're on the team... as a volunteer that doesn't mean we expect tons but just stay active. We may not even have a ton to test and sometimes the tests may be very quick.
- We do hope to have the top tester with good organization and communication skills to be in charge of the team.
- Go find an error and report it.
- We will slowly add those who've applied to the official testing team. (badge and discord role etc)
Didn't apply but are interested?
Just start testing I guess and use the open discord channel. If you're good at communicating and testing we'll notice and I'm guessing you'll tell us you're interested and you'll also stick around and prove dependability.
ANOTHER NOTE ABOUT CUSTOMER SUPPORT
I should repeat what i mentioned earlier that the first likely paid role is gonna be for our top customer service team members... it will likely be because of the hours they save other team members. Presently there are a couple hours a day of time spent by other team members on helping users. We don't want the number to go up as we make the site moth more smoothly and work on an extensive FAQ project. But nevertheless there will always be need of a great customer support person and the truth is they'll likely come from the TESTING TEAM.
TOO SOON TO ORGANIZE A SMALL SITE?
This may all be pretty early (to organize teams like this) since we're still a small site and we may not have enough activity to keep many people occupied with testing. But it's still nice to be organized and have a system and also have a way to recognize who should be on the Customer Support team. We want to get polished up so we are ready to start bringing in content creators and marketing the site so having these systems in place for when things get a lot more busy is important instead of trying to organize it all during much more busy times.
LOTS OF INFO
Working with @peakd sometimes means you have to read long articles by long-winded @jarvie ... let me know if you actually did. We're trying to save time by making articles that hopefully answer a ton of questions instead of talking to each person individually. Brainstorm team... how could we have made this better? haha