Standard responses
In order to get the ball rolling, how about we all chime in with our most-use responses?
Some tools you may wish to use to make answering posts easier/faster:
TextExpander
Popcrom
Lifehacker list of alternatives for Macs
Please feel free to use and adapt these to your own needs. Personally, I find it nicer for the users if each mod has a slightly different phrase. 
Otherwise, we’re just support bots. 
Andrea Rennick 5:28 pm on July 19, 2012 Permalink |
Here’s some of mine:
Great since the issue is resolved, I’ll close the thread. If you have more questions, please open a new thread.
Please post at the http://studiopress.com forums for this.
Please deactivate all plugins first to see if any of those are interfering.
WordPress has this new feature where it tries to place widgets for you when you switch themes. It stuffs some default ones in the first widget area it finds. In this case, the header right.
Go to Appearance -> Widgets.
Remove the widgets from the header right area.
Acces the child theme functions.php file using FTP or your webhost control panel. Then you can either fix the code or remove the bit you added.
See Nick’s Site Recovery tips:
http://designsbynickthegeek.com/tutorials/site-recovery-tips-and-tricks
See this handy tutorial.
http://wpfab.com/how-to-customize-a-specific-wordpress-widget/
Please try and stick to one question or issue per thread.
It really does help us help you better.
Can I get a link to your site, so I can go look?
For general WP help, see these:
http://wp.tutsplus.com/sessions/wp101-basix-training/
On the upper right of the screen, click the Screen Options tab. When it opens, check all the boxes.
esmi 6:52 pm on July 19, 2012 Permalink |
In terms of support tools, Windows users might want to have a look at http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Diary-Organizers-Calendar/CanRemember.shtml
I guess I have about 200+ stock answers. I f I can figure out a way to combine CanRemeber’s stored data in a a single .txt file, I’ll post it up somewhere.
Sheri Bigelow 5:32 pm on August 24, 2012 Permalink |
Yes, please! (about the 200+ stock answers)
Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 6:41 pm on July 19, 2012 Permalink |
I slapped the basic most stock ones up on http://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/stock-answers/ – I actually still write/copy pasta mine, since I use too many different computers to rely on one tool!
Andrea Rennick 6:44 pm on July 19, 2012 Permalink |
Ooo you made pages…. I had some thoughts, we should discuss those. Like, “common problems”, maybe split into technical and judgement calls (what to do when someone flames, how much help should you give, when to close a thread etc…)
esmi 7:03 pm on July 19, 2012 Permalink |
Email addresses: Where some people are posting these as a way of trying to get emailed responses, I tend to use:
[email address moderated - this forum does not provide support via email]
Generally speaking, if I’m adding a mod comment to a post (eg as above), I’ll place it in square brackets and italics.
Bumps:
I have 2 answers here. If someone bumps after more than 6 hours, I’ll use a response similar to Mika’s. If it’s less than 6 hours, I’ll use:
[No bumping. If it's that urgent, consider hiring someone.]
Most commonly this is for people bumping after less than an hour or so (had one today bumping after less than 30 mins). I do think this kind of bumping deserves something a little stronger.
Hosting:
At a slight tangent, I had an interesting exchange with Matt last week about hosting issues. Apparently, all of the hosts listed on http://wordpress.org/hosting/ are supposed to be patrolling the forums for any topics tagged with their name. That was news to me! So, if host-related topics aren’t tagged with the host name, we should add it. And if the hosts aren’t chiming in, Matt wants to know about it.. He also implied that this should be extended to other hosts such as MT and GD. Again, if they are not making at least the occasional appearance, he’d like to know.
Andrea Rennick 7:15 pm on July 19, 2012 Permalink |
“So, if host-related topics aren’t tagged with the host name, we should add it. And if the hosts aren’t chiming in, Matt wants to know about it..”
That is excellent news.
Christine 7:06 pm on July 19, 2012 Permalink |
I’ve been using Mika’s stock answer from day one and it’s been very useful. Thank you.
Rev. Voodoo 11:15 am on July 20, 2012 Permalink |
Ditto!
masonjames 2:58 pm on July 20, 2012 Permalink |
I totally love textexpander and probably can’t finish a real sentence without it anymore… Great resource. At WPMU DEV we have times where a user has not come back to let us know whether a particular solution has worked for them or not. At some point (normally 5 days to a week) we go ahead and mark it resolved for them.
Resolved:
Hiya,
Just checking in to see if this ticket is now resolved? As we haven’t heard back, I’m hoping it is and am marking it accordingly, but if you have any questions on this in the future, feel free to re-open it and let us know.
Thanks!
Andrea Rennick 3:08 pm on July 20, 2012 Permalink |
That’s actually really helpful, as it staves off people coming by 3 months later going “I have the same problem! what’s the fix???”
Or at least I hope it does.
masonjames 12:49 am on July 23, 2012 Permalink |
That’s definitely the idea. We have a specific feed for tickets (bbPress threads) that have gone longer than 3 days without a response (staff or member).
The support staff monitor this feed and do ‘triage’ where we close up any tickets where members have failed to come back or escalate a ticket if it’s waiting for a staff response.
And yeah, we always encourage folks to open their own unique threads – esp 3 months down the road
Sheri Bigelow 5:30 pm on August 24, 2012 Permalink |
This ones great. Thanks masonjames!
Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 12:15 am on July 21, 2012 Permalink |
I’m always using @esmi‘s ‘hacked faq links’
http://codex.wordpress.org/FAQ_My_site_was_hacked
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/268083#post-1065779
http://smackdown.blogsblogsblogs.com/2008/06/24/how-to-completely-clean-your-hacked-wordpress-installation/
http://ottopress.com/2009/hacked-wordpress-backdoors/
http://sitecheck.sucuri.net/scanner/
Lorelle 5:28 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink |
Are Codex shortcode links still working in the forum? I couldn’t get them working recently.
If so, how about a list of your most linked to Codex and Learn Pages?
That would help both teams to know which pages you link to the most from the forums to keep them updated and protected.
Thanks.
Andrea Rennick 7:20 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink |
I can rattle off a short list of the codex pages I refer to most, when replying to users in the SP forums.
Lorelle 5:03 pm on August 10, 2012 Permalink |
I don’t see this answered. We had shortcode links that went directly to the Codex like [Template Hierarchy] which would resolve to the article on the Codex. Are those still working?
Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 6:50 pm on August 13, 2012 Permalink |
Good question… Hey, @otto42 – Do you know?
Otto 7:09 pm on August 13, 2012 Permalink
Yes, they work in the forum. Use double brackets.
[[Template Hierarchy]]
Like that.
Chris Olbekson 12:56 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink |
One thing that is very helpful when giving support in the #WordPress IRC channel is doc-bot. Maybe some of the commands could be integrated as short codes.
I’m sure it would be pretty easy to convert Sivels bot command responses. http://codex.wordpress.org/IRC/wp-doc-bot
Andrea Rennick 1:03 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink |
They have a similar bot over at wordpress.com – make me a wee bit jealous!
Sheri Bigelow 5:44 pm on August 24, 2012 Permalink |
I like how it’s documented with short descriptions in Codex like that.
rachelbaker 1:58 am on August 14, 2012 Permalink |
Does anyone have a stock answer for questions that clearly would require hiring a developer/consultant to resolve? I hate leaving the questions open and unanswered, but seriously questions like this are beyond a support forum response:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/how-do-i-make-my-portfolio-look-like-the-demo-instead-of-static-posts?replies=1
Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 2:35 am on August 14, 2012 Permalink |
Oooh that one. I was thinking just a normal ‘This problem is above my pay grade’ sort of thing, not a ‘You bought it’ one. We should have some standard ish “Dude, you bought a premium theme…”
“Themes and plugins which provide their own support in return for the purchase of their product are best supported on their sites. In order to support the community, as well as provide the best help possible, it’s in your best interests to go to the source for this sort of thing.”
Anyone have standards to add to it?
rachelbaker 2:38 am on August 14, 2012 Permalink |
That question was just a particular example, but even when the question the question isn’t related to a premium theme (such as twentyten or twentyeleven) but does require css/template editing… is there an acceptable/standard response?
Andrea Rennick 11:54 am on August 14, 2012 Permalink |
I’m thinking it may be a good idea ot have such a response, explaining their request was reall yinvolved and since we’re volunteers, they may not get a steo by ste tutorial for anything that is more than a 15 minute change (for example).
This way we;ve set the expectation that they can;t show up and expect someone to help them code their entire site for free and all they need to do is blind copy pasta.
We use somethign like this:
“This level of coding is beyond the scope of the support we are able to provide in the forum, as it requires custom code to be written and tested, but I will leave this thread open in case a community member is able/willing to assist you.”
It will help knock down the list of unanswered threads (people will know for sure someone saw it) and will set some realistic boundaries.
If it;s basic css, i leave an example, a link to a Firebug tute and sometimes a link to somewhere (I guess not w3 schools any more) explaining the css property.
esmi 2:25 pm on August 14, 2012 Permalink |
If it’s a CSS issue, I usually point people towards http://www.css-discuss.org/ Their Wiki is pretty good and there’s always the mailing list if they want to get some CSS advice.
Sheri Bigelow 5:39 pm on August 24, 2012 Permalink |
Do you think the “Themes and Templates” forum at http://wordpress.org/support/forum/themes-and-templates/ is a good place for WP.org users to ask for CSS help?
esmi 8:35 pm on August 24, 2012 Permalink |
Not if it’s a general CSS question & the forums are busy. There’s nothing special about CSS in WordPress and people can ask these kinds of questions elsewhere whilst we focus on the WP-centric ones. If the forum’s are quiet, though, I’ll probably answer a few myself.