Contact address
The contact@techinc.nl mail address is published as a general-purpose contact point for people outside of the space. It is actually an alias to address of volunteer members.
Contents
How to run it
You answer questions when they come :). Most often those are questions whose answer is obvious as a member or easy to look up. Or things you can forward to the mailing list (members AT techinc NOOT nl) / board (admin AT board NOOT techinc NOOT nl).
It's important to (re-)add contact@ in copy whenever you answer to (or forward) a message. This is to let the other contact@ people know that a message has been acknowledged so the sender doesn't get multiple answers (or none, if someone assumes someone else already answered).
There's only a handful of questions a month usually.
Typical requests
(When) can I come visit the space
Yes, when it's open. Always open on Wednesday evenings (that's when there's the most people), otherwise use the space opening heatmap.
I want to become a member
Someone didn't read the wiki. Just forward to board, they have templates and up to date information on tour dates.
I want to donate something
If it's very obviously something that can benefit the space, tell them how they can donate themselves, or arrange for transport. If not, ask the mailing list if someone thinks it would be interesting.
I want to sell something
If that's something that would be useful to fellow hackers, propose to forward to the mailing list, and help arrange for communication, payment and transport (doesn't have to be you, should be one of the people interested in buying the item).
I want to organize a workshop
Tricky, until we have clear documentation just forward to board (if it's hacker-related).
Spam
Just ignore.
Who runs it now
We need more (active) people :)
How to become someone that runs it
Just send a message to board with your email address, they'll add you to the alias. This is not something that needs to be voted in ALV AFAIK (ping board if you think it should). Make sure to add yourself to the section above.
The spam filter of the space is not that great (it's on the network committee TODO list) so you should have a solid one for now. It is a public email address after all.
You might want to create a filter in your webmail on "To: contact@techinc.nl" or "Cc: contact@techinc.nl" so those emails go to a specific folder or something (if you give an alias address just for this purpose, filtering on it might not work as the emails will technically be sent to contact@ ).
Possible future improvements
- Improve spam filter (Network committee)
- Make the alias a publicly listed mailing list so we can have proper address translation (and archival?) (could also make it into a ticketing system with templates and all, but might not be worth reducing the entry barrier for this low amount of emails)
