.. _methods_of_contact: Methods of Contact ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Methods of contact for help differ in *requirements* and *privacy* level. In addition, while we try to accommodate a variety of means of *initial contact*, anything requiring *ongoing dialog* must use only a *preferred* method of communication. Please read about our :ref:`communication policies ` for more details. ====== ======= ============ ========= Method Privacy Requirements Preferred ====== ======= ============ ========= |ghd|_ |None| |ghacct|_ Yes |mst|_ |Some| |llnl| No |call| |Most| |llnl| No ====== ======= ============ ========= .. |ghd| replace:: GitHub Discussion .. _ghd: https://github.com/visit-dav/visit/discussions .. |mst| replace:: MS Teams .. _mst: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/team/19%3af2ed7be3682d40d1b8e038744e500a09%40thread.skype/conversations?groupId=70162982-9587-4bcc-ad53-20178c76fe11&tenantId=a722dec9-ae4e-4ae3-9d75-fd66e2680a63 .. |call| replace:: Hotline Telephone Call .. |None| replace:: World discoverable / readable .. |Some| replace:: Visible only in llnl.gov .. |Most| replace:: Same as ordinary telphone call .. |ghacct| replace:: Free GitHub account .. _ghacct: https://github.com/signup?ref_cta=Sign+up&ref_loc=header+logged+out&ref_page=%2F&source=header-home .. |llnl| replace:: Access to LLNL networks In general, **coverage** is during normal West Coast business hours, 8am-12pm and 1-5pm (GMT-8, San Francisco time zone), Monday through Friday excluding `LLNL holidays `_. **Response time** may be as much as four hours due to team member's multi-tasking among many responsibilities. A |ghd|_ is the preferred method of contact because it is likely to be seen by more people who can provide a timely response and because any response we produce can be viewed by the widest possible audience. If you are so inclined, we welcome you to read more about the VisIt project's :ref:`Site Reliability Engineering ` processes to understand how we provide support.