Life Support

June 5, 2003 9:37 AM

Life Support is an online help desk for everyday life. It operates like a tech support web site (with tickets, responses, etc.), but the issues are about religion, love, and politics instead of printers and device drivers. I got some interesting and/or entertaining responses to the issues I posted.
posted by oissubke (15 comments total)

By the way, it seems that you have to register to use it, but I guess that's normal for a help desk system. It just needs an l/p and an e-mail address.
posted by oissubke at 9:56 AM on June 5, 2003

This is awesome! I hope they're a little helpful.

Is there a way to get in on the action? i.e. become a help desk support guy?
posted by taumeson at 10:31 AM on June 5, 2003

Yeah, I was hoping I could answer other people's questions. ;)

But I gave them a dilly of a mother-in-law question...can't wait to see the responses. (And yes, my MIL is a lunatic...full blown, Texas-sized, crazy person.) She, of course, thinks she's perfectly normal. But, as they say down here, just cause the cat gave birth in the stove, that don't make them kittens biscuits.
posted by dejah420 at 10:37 AM on June 5, 2003

"... just cause the cat gave birth in the stove, that don't make them kittens biscuits."

I love southern expressions like this. :)
posted by debralee at 10:51 AM on June 5, 2003

I wish there was an option to allow your questions and answers to be seen publicly.
posted by CoFenchurch at 11:10 AM on June 5, 2003

Do they require a real address--as in they mail you the password?
posted by squirrel at 11:40 AM on June 5, 2003

why can't you see other peoples' questions and answers? I would like this very much. Perhaps I will submit this query.

No, they don't care about the address, squirrel.
posted by luser at 11:59 AM on June 5, 2003

Nifty idea. I wish there was more background on the 'support engineers' though.

Imagine a MeFi Support system, where MeFi users answer life's greatest questions. Or, more practically, where members of an online community focused on a topic could collectively field questions about that topic.

A free Keen.com/AskMe.com? Makes me wonder how hard something like this would be to code. Like a forum or bulletin board, but with tickets (opening/closing queries), and perhaps a FAQ-building feature.
posted by pzarquon at 12:03 PM on June 5, 2003

pzarquon, the help desk system that Beautiful Nerve uses is powered by Support System Manager, which is free and seems to have pretty good docs/forum support.

Don't see the FAQ building thing, everything else is there.

Off to the races with you! Let us know when it's ready.
posted by luser at 12:15 PM on June 5, 2003

[this is great]
posted by dmt at 12:51 PM on June 5, 2003

Who are these people that answer the questions? I mean are they religious zealots, political radicals, nosey buttinskis? I mean what's the deal here? Are they going to tell me to put my faith in the Lord (TM) no matter what I ask or that Bush is the root of all my problems? I don't want to give them my e-mail or anything personal until I get some answers!
posted by Pollomacho at 12:53 PM on June 5, 2003

Actually, based on the responses I got, they seem to be remarkably evenhanded. I didn't detect any overt ideology going on.

Oh, and to answer a previous question, I don't think it has to be a real e-mail (i.e., there's no auto-verification e-mail). I think it's just so they can e-mail you when your issue has been updated.
posted by oissubke at 12:59 PM on June 5, 2003

Bah, it's just the newest revision of the omnipresent AI system thats been running the planet since Nixon switched it on back in the early 70's.
posted by blue_beetle at 1:54 PM on June 5, 2003

"Hello? Life Support? Yeah, this here's Jerry Falwell, and I got me a homerseckshul needin' some convertin' and damn if my VPN Tunnel to God hasn't gone down..."
posted by quonsar at 2:04 PM on June 5, 2003

Submitted a question yesterday and got a response today. It was exactly what I was thinking of doing. So either 1) the answer was obvious or 2) I'm BRILLIANT!

I'm voting for #2.
posted by widdershins at 10:05 AM on June 6, 2003