Tuesday, March 19, 2024

HTMLGoodies Community Mentors: Mentor FAQ


Mentor FAQ


Here are
some answers to many of the common questions our Mentors have. If you have any
additional questions or you need to contact us at HTMLGoodies you can email us
at mentors@HTMLGoodies.com.

Q. How do I get and answer questions?
A. The Community Mentor system uses standard email to send
and receive questions and answers. All the Mentors in a category will
receive a copy of each questions that is submitted. To reply to a question
simply do a "Reply to All" and answer any questions that you like. By using
"Reply to All" each Mentor will be able to see what questions have been
answered and what answers they might like to add comments to.

 

Q. What questions should I answer?
A. You will find that you get a wide variety of questions.
The idea of the Mentor program is to provide assistance to beginning and
intermediate level web developers and designers. Fell free to answer any
questions that you feel reasonably confident about. Do not feel obligated to
answer any extremely broad requests like "Can you fix my website at …" or
"Please send me the code for doing pop-out menus in JavaScript". The idea
behind HTMLGoodies is to help people learn good design and development
skills, not to do the work for them.

 

Q. How should I compose my responses?
A. Be polite and keep your responses as short as possible.
Try to explain your answer and give examples when appropriate. Usually
people learn more from the explanation of the solution than the solution
itself.

 

Q. What if the people requesting help are rude and/or
belligerent?
A. Don’t feel obligated in any way to deal with anyone that
is rude or offensive. The best method for handling these type of people is
to not reply at all.

 

Q. What if I or one of my fellow Mentors gives an
incorrect solution?
A. No one is perfect. From time to time people are going to
make mistakes. If you see an incorrect solution to a question that one of
your fellow Mentors answered then contact them directly to let them know
that you think there might have been a problem with their solution. This way
the Mentor that made the error can reply again with an updated solution.

 

Q. What if one of my fellow Mentors keeps giving wrong
information or never seems to reply to any questions?
A. On occasion we expect that some Mentors may become too
busy to devote the time to helping in the community. If you notice that
someone has not responded to any questions in quite some time then send us
an email and we’ll contact them.

If you notice that
a Mentor is consistently giving out incorrect information then send us an
email with a few examples. On occasion Mentors may be selected that don’t
have the skills necessary. While we appreciate their willingness to help we
also understand the need for a reasonable level of accuracy.

 

Q. What if I get a question that belongs in a different
category?
A. If you know the answer to the question then feel free to
answer it. Do mention that there is a category that the question would be
better suited for. This will be a great help for future question
submissions.

If you don’t know the answer to the
question then simply forward the message to the correct category with
"FORWARDED MENTOR QUESTION" in the subject line. This will let your fellow
Mentors know that they need to cut and paste the email address when they
reply.

 

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