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  • Jen Mylo 2:28 am on April 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gnome   

    Gnome Outreach Program for Women 

    Hi support team. I would like to include Support in our Gnome participation this summer if there are any applicants interested in working in the forums etc over the summer. @ipstenu and/or other experienced team members: Head over to http://codex.wordpress.org/Gnome_Summer_Program_for_Women#Support and fill in project ideas (optional, I made a default idea that basically covers answering questions and beefing up support docs) and info on whoever from this team is willing/able to mentor an intern (ideally we put more than one mentor with each student so the time commitment isn’t too heavy). No idea yet how many student slots we’ll get.

     

  • Jen Mylo 4:06 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 20 questions, contributor drive   

    People seemed to like the idea when I pitched it. Can we pick a weekend to do it? Having at least 2 weeks notice would be good so people can clear time in schedules, read up on docs if they want, etc. Maybe weekend of February 15?

     

    • masonjames 4:10 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Works for me!

      Will be a happy Valentine’s weekend to WordPress users everywhere :)

    • Kathy Drewien 4:13 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Gotcha on the calendar…

    • Pippin (mordauk) 4:18 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Probably not open that weekend with it being my wife’s birthday and valentine’s day :D

    • Carrie 4:19 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      I’m down for that weekend. :)

    • Brandon Kraft 4:24 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      +1

    • Christine Rondeau 5:09 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      I have family from Scotland over that weekend. Wont’ be able to make it. :(

      • Jen Mylo 5:14 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

        Would the next weekend work?

        • Christine Rondeau 6:01 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

          The following one would work. However I might be able to pull away for a few hours. Looks like the boys might be going to Whistler. Whistler on Saturday? No thanks. They can go on their own.

        • Christine Rondeau 11:33 pm on January 26, 2013 Permalink | Reply

          15 works fo me after all. Brother in law just cancelled plans due to family emergency.

    • Jerry Bates (JerrySarcastic) 5:47 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Sounds like fun Jen; count me in!

    • Dan Bernardic 6:08 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Why not every weekend? Why only weekend anyway?

      All you really need is a way to allow helpers to indicate they just helped someone – A message containing only “yw” or “You’re welcome” is a good candidate.

      Then you parse the logs periodically for those, and as people reach a number of those, you do a check on each of their “yw”s manually, and confirm they actually did help someone – and give them the “prize”.

      • Jen Mylo 11:08 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

        A “drive” is a special event that happens infrequently, and gets a big publicity push. That’s what I’m talking about. There’s no reason there couldn’t be a “weekend project” based on this that is active every weekend, but you would need to always have enough people staffing it. The minute someone tries to participate and there’s no one to review work and mentor, that’s the minute the program has failed.

        As for having an ongoing “yw” system, that is kind of the opposite of the guided mentorship for new contributors that I’m talking about. What you’re talking about is more just stats gathering, which we already gather without having people enter “yw” on responses.

        • Dan Bernardic 12:51 am on January 26, 2013 Permalink | Reply

          I’m talking about IRC specifically.

          Anyway, OK, I understand you want to have a different focus, and don’t think my idea is awesome. Thanks for considering it anyway.

          • Jen Mylo 6:25 am on January 26, 2013 Permalink | Reply

            I didn’t say your suggestion “isn’t awesome,” it’s just not in line with the project/goals we’re talking about in this thread, as I stated before.

            Ongoing support contribution isn’t a numbers game, so tying a prize system to regular contribution would incentivize people to answer more easy questions and skip over the harder ones that take more time so they could get more “yw”s on the board. We do look at the numbers of responses already, as mentioned, and the team reps and current moderators just plain notice when people start stepping more. The prize there is more responsibility and moderator status.

    • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 6:16 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      The 15th-18th is tentatively good for me, ditto the next weekend. One or the other. I need to go see my Mom more often ;)

      Whatever we do – DO NOT pick March 10th, it’s US DST and you will mess everyone up ;)

    • Aaron Nimocks 6:26 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      I vote every weekend after the initial one. But I will be in Japan that week and flying back to US at the start of the weekend so I will miss a good day’s worth if we start on 15th.

    • esmi 7:24 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      I could manage the weekend of 15th. The following weekend might be iffy as that’s around my birthday/

    • EnigmaWeb 10:22 am on January 26, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      15th works for me
      +1

    • Jen Mylo 1:53 pm on January 27, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Sounds like the wekend of the 15th is the best after all. Can we make planning for this the subject of the next irc chat?

    • Aaron Nimocks 10:32 pm on January 27, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      As I helped people this weekend I was trying to take note of how many confirmed “helps” I racked up and this is going to be a challenge to track and get 20. I kind of feel those ones that are going to go through and verify count the “helps” are going to spend more time doing that than anything.

      Not quite sure how it is all going to play out yet and I don’t really have any solid ideas on how to do the tracking but the only reasonable idea I can think of is when a “helper” thinks they are worthy of receiving a “help” point they tag the thread with their name or a special keyword that everyone will use. Then when reviewed the tag gets removed.

      But if something like that isn’t in place then the work for the mentors is going to be a bunch. Just an idea.

      • Jen Mylo 11:10 pm on January 27, 2013 Permalink | Reply

        Since we’ve done contest things with contributors before (like GCI) there’s a pretty simple way to handle this. Each contestant makes a list of their thread URLs and that’s what gets submitted at the end for review/tally. During the weekend, the mentors are all about helping people get the right answers. Then we take a day to tally results. Mentors can be keeping a list of thread IDs as well as they are helping, and then can check them off as yes/no easily when doing the final tally. Process for grading is not going to be the burden here, it will be making sure we have people around to help with questions 24/7 for the contest time period, getting the word out, and having documentation in place that helps people get started.

    • Brandon Kraft 11:24 pm on January 28, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Not directly related, but the post got me thinking about this. Overall, there’s no way for a volunteer to “ask for backup” when they’ve started answering a thread and either they’re not sure or it ends up being outside their comfort zone.

      For the weekend, the mentor would be the new volunteer’s fallback, but outside of that weekend, should there be a way to do that? Either a tag, or an established practice of pinging someone in IRC, or something?

      I e-mailed the listserv and seems there’s no practice short of saying I don’t know and hoping someone else checks on the thread.

      • Jen Mylo 10:15 am on January 29, 2013 Permalink | Reply

        Yes, setting up a contributor buddies/mentors program is on our list over in the /community group. Once the welcome wagon IRC channel staffing is done (hopefully this week) I think that’s one of the next projects.

        Realistically, yes, the right answer is that if you have started helping someone and then you hit a dead end, it’s time to tag someone else in. The problem with using actual tags for this is that people figure out the system quickly and suddenly everyone is tagging their posts with the special team-assist tag in the hope of getting more immediate senior attention. Leaving a comment that says, “I don’t know the answer and have run out of ideas for what to try next,” is the best thing. Pinging the list to ask for an assist or hopping into #wordpress to see if anyone there can help is an option, too.

    • Aaron Nimocks 11:54 pm on January 31, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      I know you all were anxiously awaiting to see if I will be around that weekend and I am please to inform you that I will be. My trip to Japan got cancelled, so game on. :)

    • masonjames 2:42 am on February 14, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      So, this is coming up? Discuss on IRC tomorrow? :)

    • Aditya 2:52 am on February 19, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Am I late?
      If you have a space I would like to contribute, count me in too.

  • Jen Mylo 9:59 pm on January 16, 2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: contributors, , training   

    Training Group, Team Reps, and Growing the Team 

    Hi Support Team! A bunch of things today….

    Welcome Training to Support

    At the community summit, we went a little bit team-creating-crazy. As such, we splintered people into groups (like docs out of support) rather than splintering into projects within larger teams. For Support, this meant that electing team reps was especially hard, since the people getting votes were repping other teams.

    One of these new teams, Training, started with excitement but then petered out with no activity for a couple of months. The solution to these two issues seemed pretty clear: merge Training back into Support, and have Christine Rondeau serve as the 2nd team rep. @ipstenu was in favor, so there we go. Welcome Christine back to the fold!

    Christine will be working closely with the Community Outreach group, and we’re starting to plan our first training project already. It’l be focused on Troubleshooting WordPress, aimed at leveling up people to the point that they can do more with WP professionally, and could be more confident contributing to forums. She’ll undoubtedly be asking you all for ideas and help. Note: in line with the diversity initiatives, we’re going to do this first workshop for women, a la railsbridge. It’ll also get posted online for all and sundry.

    Contributor Drive

    I’ve been scouring every open source project’s community sites to see how they approach things, and one had a great concept that I want us to steal modify, use, and redistribute. :) The idea was this:

    Weekend Project: Become a Contributor

    We’ve done things like this at WordCamps (usually on dev day, and mostly focused on contributing to core), but what I was thinking of for support was something not too intensive: 20 Questions.

    20 Questions Proposal:

    • Publicize the weekend project to become an official wp forums contributor, called 20 Questions.
    • People can sign up to be part of the weekend contributor drive. Current volunteers (approved as knowing their stuff) will be the mentors.
    • Their goal is to answer 20 questions successfully (mentor says yes, good answer) during the weekend before the cutoff time.
    • Keep at least 1 support person in IRC channel for team at all times during the weekend (make schedule in advance).
    • At cutoff, tally the results! People who got at least 20 right are officially congratulated and welcomed as support contributors. We can make a graphic they can put in their sidebars or something maybe. People who didn’t make it are thanked for their efforts, and pointed to resources to help them level up. The person with the most questions answered gets a prize. The person who answered the hardest question gets a prize (so they aren’t incentivized to just do easy ones). We can do wp swag and/or WC tix for prizes.

    What do you guys think? I think it would be super fun.

     

    • Tom Willmot 10:05 pm on January 16, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      A contributor drive sounds like a great idea. + 1 from me.

    • Carrie Dils 10:05 pm on January 16, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Hi Jane, I love the idea. I think the 20 questions would give someone like me the opportunity to know for sure whether my knowledge level is up to par (and the confidence to jump into forums). I also like offering resources to give people pointed feedback for increasing knowledge. +1

    • masonjames 10:08 pm on January 16, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Love this idea. It gives a very specific time to for engagement and criteria for success. Count me in. I’ll do what I can to bring some peeps with me as well and would be happy to be on IRC.

    • nofearinc 10:20 pm on January 16, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      I feel pity about the Training group, but seems like the majority of training academies and speakers are working solo. Anyway, that contributor drive is great and I look forward to it!

      • Jen Mylo 10:25 pm on January 16, 2013 Permalink | Reply

        There’s no reason to feel pity…. the people and the projects are still alive, but now in a more supportive group environment that will encourage participation.

      • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 4:13 pm on January 17, 2013 Permalink | Reply

        To add on to what Jen said, training is the other half of support. It helps us get better at giving support, and helps the people who get support get better at what they do. It’s a logical grouping :)

    • Emil Uzelac 11:35 pm on January 16, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      +1 Jen!

      • Avi_Lambert 3:30 am on January 17, 2013 Permalink | Reply

        +1 for the 20 questions concept – IRC, Google Hangout, Twitter Chat, I’m in for all of ‘em.

    • Kathy Drewien 6:17 am on January 17, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      I want to play. My intentions of getting more involved in training and support never seem to materialize into action. Perhaps a public declaration will propel me forward.

      • Christine Rondeau 5:05 pm on January 17, 2013 Permalink | Reply

        I declared it publicly on my about page years ago – http://about.me/crondeau
        It’s nothing official, but it’s there anyway.

        If you do contribute to the forums, core, themes, etc… I would just add that to your bio or wherever. I don’t think that there are any rules about that.

    • Aaron Nimocks 2:56 am on January 19, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Is the contributer drive a go for the weekend? I’m sure I’ll answer at last 20 either way but it is a cool idea. Gives me a goal.

      • Jane Wells 3:26 am on January 19, 2013 Permalink | Reply

        Not for this weekend; we would need to officially set up available mentors, publicize the drive etc. I would think we’d want 2 weeks advance notice.

    • Tom Auger 7:14 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Are we talking about the Smarterer WordPress quiz (ie: http://build.codepoet.com/quiz/)?

      • Brandon Kraft 9:10 pm on January 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

        My understanding is forum questions- let folks answer real support questions at wp.org/support

    • Kathryn Presner 2:26 pm on January 26, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Just wanted to say how much I love both the Contributor Drive and Troubleshooting WordPress for Women ideas. I’ll be away the weekend of Feb. 15 but will be glad to publicize the drive in the Montreal & Ottawa WP community groups, no matter when it ends up happening.

    • abletec 3:51 am on February 17, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Hello:

      I\’d like to get involved. I realize I\’m not a known quantity. I don\’t know if I\’m even close to being knowledgeable enough. I really like security & troubleshooting aspects of wordpress. I host WP sites, help folks set them up, troubleshoot various aspects, etc. I\’m also sight-impaired so interested in accessibility as well. I\’m also a lady, so working w/other ladies would be really cool!

      So am I even welcome, &, if so, where should I start?

      Thanks for any replies.

  • Jen Mylo 11:59 am on December 28, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Stats   

    Support Stats 

    When I go to conferences like Open Source Bridge and see the other project community managers trotting out their activity stats, a little part of me always dies, because we ain’t got none. Not this year! Yes, I know our systems aren’t set up well for automated stats. Pretend that’s not the case. For the next two minutes, pretend we live in a world where anything is possible, and suggest any and all stats you think it would good or interesting for us to start tracking. Don’t worry, Otto will bring us back to earth soon enough.

    P.S. This team more than any other will likely need some infrastructure changes if we want to start measuring progress/success. Feel free to add what you think is needed in your comment, but that’ll be my next round: “Hey, what infrastructure changes would make the forum experience better for users and moderators,” since the forums is the first point of entry for a lot of people, so improvements here can have a big impact on all the projects around contributor growth.

     

    • Jane Wells 12:05 pm on December 28, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Some of my ideas:

      • Number of questions asked (threads opened)
      • Number of questions that have been asked before
      • Number of responses per thread
      • Time from open until resolved
      • Number of comments per ticket
      • Number of people commenting per ticket
      • Number of tickets with activity per person (general and for official moderators)
      • How often a reply links to a codex page (or handbook, when those exist)
      • How long between ticket opened and first response
      • Percentage of responses from general users vs moderators

      Infrastructure ideas that might make tracking easier:

      • Having a “This solved my problem” button.
      • Having a “This suggestion is correct” button that moderators could use to endorse help given by random people

    • toscho 12:38 pm on December 28, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      If you need these numbers from external sources too, I can provide some (but not all) for WordPress Stack Exchange. For example: we had ~13000 unclosed question in 2012 and an answer rate of 88% (answers with at least one upvote).

    • Drew Jaynes (DrewAPicture) 3:33 pm on December 28, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      I really like @jane’s “How often a reply links to the Codex” as well as the “This suggestion is correct” button suggestions

      • Number of users active in the last X days
      • Average number of threads started by users
      • Average number of answers per user
      • Number of unanswered threads
      • Total number of threads
      • Total number of resolved threads
      • Total number of closed threads

    • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 3:47 pm on December 28, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      • Number of posts marked resolved per week
      • Number of deleted posts
      • Number of users flagged as spam

      (Drew – Number of unanswered threads is 242,580ish right now. Probably +20.)

    • Andrea Rennick 12:39 pm on January 8, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Most prolific posters.
      Activity on non-english forums as well as top posters / mods there.

  • Jen Mylo 5:14 pm on December 24, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    Team Rep Voting Results 

    Hola! Here are the results of the voting for this team.

    11 people voted. The breakdown:

    Please describe your role with the support team

    • 5 – I am an active forum moderator, and have been active on the forums within the past 3 months
    • 4 – I’m an active participant and would like to level up to moderator status
    • 1 – I don’t plan to get involved
    • 1 – I have not been involved yet, but I plan to start
    • 0 – I’m a moderator who wasn’t active in the last 3 months, but I have been in the past

    Describe your forums activity.

    • 8 – I troubleshoot more difficult issues
    • 8 – I troubleshoot basic issues
    • 7 – I check for spam and inappropriate content
    • 6 – I help other people learn how to contribute in the forums
    • 4 – Other Option
    • 4 – I post questions in the forum
    • 2 – I don’t contribute to the forums
    • 0 – I comment on other people’s questions/answers but don’t troubleshoot
    • The four “other” responses were 4 docs and 1 IRC

    Mika won the 1st slot in a unanimous vote.

    The 2nd slot is not so clear. 9 of the 11 voters entered a name for the 2nd slot.
    Both Siobhan and Jan got more than one vote. Since we just broke out docs into a separate group, Siobhan will be the rep for that team. Jan hadn’t said he was interested and voted for someone else. :) Other names put forth only got one vote each (and a couple of those are reps on other teams now, too). I’ve pinged Jan to see if he wants to take the 2nd rep role, but probably won’t know until after the holidays. If Jan chooses not to take the role, I think it makes the most sense to have Mika choose from the other names that were proposed (if they are interested).

    Eventually I think we should rethink the “team” vs “project” designation, as we have already spread ourselves into so many teams (and so many people work on multiple teams’ projects) that appointing team reps is hard, which wasn’t the intention of creating teams/team sites. When we get to June and it’s time to vote again, we should consider consolidating some teams. I think the main reason separating them out seemed better now is because P2 makes it that way. If we had a modified theme that made it visually easier to have site sections for various projects (vs the plain text pages/cat list in the sidebar widget), we could bring more of the groups together.

    Anyway, Mika is re-upped! 2nd slot TBD.

     

  • Jen Mylo 5:18 pm on December 9, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    Team Reps 

    Howdy, support team! It’s that time again, for your group to elect a couple of team reps to communicate on behalf of of forum folks. You can vote for 2 people. They should not be responsible for any other team rep duties, so to that end, of your current reps, Ipstenu is still eligible, but Andrea_r and Esmi are already taken by other teams (assuming they keep those roles). Who else has stepped up lately that wants to join in the fun?

    These folks will be responsible for reporting on the progress of the group to the other team reps via weekly updates, as well as occasional chats and such. If you haven’t seen the spiel on one of the other team blogs about how team reps/voting/terms work, the longer explanation is after the jump.

    Note: It should be people who want the responsibility. Anyone interested in being a support team rep should leave a comment saying as much so people know who they can/should vote for. Voting is open until December 15, and results will be posted here once voting closes.

    Go vote!

    (More …)

     

    • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 7:04 pm on December 9, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      I’m still interested in being your rep for the next 6 months :)

    • cinghaman 7:11 pm on December 9, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Have always looked forward to supporting / contributing in any way possible to the growth and development of WordPress in general directly or indirectly.
      Would totally be interested in being a support rep.
      yee :)
      Robin

  • Jen Mylo 6:50 pm on November 19, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Documentation, teams   

    Per discussions at the community summit, Documentation is now a separate official contributor group. @raggedrobins will be the acting team rep. Have at it, folks!

    http://make.wordpress.org/docs/

     

  • Jen Mylo 3:43 pm on July 10, 2012 Permalink | Reply  

    Hello world! 

    Welcome to make.wordpress.org/support. This is the new blog for the Support contributor team, made up of support forum moderaters and documentation contributors, as decided on the mailing lists. Anyone helping in the #wordpress IRC channel is included as well. @Ipstenu is the team rep for this group, with @esmi and @andrea_r as the backup reps per the votes we took a while back from members of the two mailing lists. I’ve added them and a couple of other people as editors on this site, and they will be adding the more active contributors in turn.

    I think it would be good for us to set up a weekly IRC chat time to get things started, gain some momentum, and round up some new contributors in the process. We can identify some common goals among the more active contributors to focus on at first, and put together a schedule for how to move forward.

    I have several goals for this group based on the surveys and feedback from the community that I’d like to see accomplished over the coming months:

    • Create a guide to contributing to WordPress support.
    • Start a mentorship program for potential support volunteers to help them ramp up with confidence.
    • Handbooks! Field Guides! Whatever we call it, discrete, targeted pieces of documentation tied to specific releases and each curated by a single editor for the sake of consistency and accountability (separate from the ongoing wiki that is the Codex), that can be viewed, downloaded, or printed. This will take a lot of discussion, so we should schedule a chat about this sooner rather than later to get started on the one for end users. Other contributor groups will also be tackling handbooks specific to their areas (core contributors, etc.).
    • Start tracking stats around support activities and sharing them with the broader community.
    • Make a plan for improvements to the support forums.
    • Make a plan for how to best bubble up support issues to the core development team.

    What are your goals for this group? Introduce yourself so everyone knows who everyone else is, say a little bit about your background and your general activity level as a WP support volunteer, and let us know your goals for the group are and what you think we should focus on first. Also mention your location/time zone, for the sake of being able to set up an IRC chat. Thanks!

     

    • Rev. Voodoo 1:24 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      I’m pretty excited about this! Great idea! I’m a support forum mod… I try to be active. The past coulpe of months has had me really tied up at work and school. So my participation comes and goes. I try to keep the forums clean when I have a moment, and answer questions when I have more moments! I’m on the forums at least 5 or 10 times a day I would say. Something that would be cool, although I don’t have a mental picture of what it would look like, is some sort of mod log…. what sort of actions are happening on the forum, and why? It’s hard to know who is being blocked, bozoed, etc. Dunno if that’s possible, or even desired? I’m in OHio, Eastern time… although I do the majority of my modding from work, don’t think I can even participate in any chats from work. All kinds of computer restrictions. If I can though, I will!

      • Kathryn Presner (aka zoonini) 12:51 am on July 18, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        Something that would be cool, although I don’t have a mental picture of what it would look like, is some sort of mod log…. what sort of actions are happening on the forum, and why? It’s hard to know who is being blocked, bozoed, etc.

        I really like this idea too. I’m a mod in a different forum (not WP-related) and we have exactly that in place, and it can be very useful to see who did what, when, and why. For every moderator action (i.e. delete, thread split, close, lock) a comment is required, and the whole lot is tied to a mod’s user ID, so there is always an easy-to-follow trail of explanations/accountability for every action.

        • Rev. Voodoo 11:17 am on July 18, 2012 Permalink | Reply

          Right, that’s what I was thinking. The mailing list is great, when it’s used. I have an absolutely terrible memory though, and surely can’t keep track of actions related to various user names.

    • Andrea Rennick 1:39 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Mmmm, stats….. :)

      I’m in the forums less than I was a year or so ago. Mostly I stick to multisite issues, but have been veering off to theme issues now that I do support for Studiopress.

      Some other users and I have collab on a doc on how to answer threads. I’d like to see an official doc here too – not as a “these are the rules” but general guidelines on How To Answer Posts for those who are new and unsure of the best way to go about it.

      In general, I’d also like to raise the attitude level of some responses to be nicer. :) Some responses by old timers or frustrated people can be oft-putting for new users. It’s way better than when I first showed up, but there’s still room for improvement.

      The biggest support forum improvement I can think of right now is improving the search. That’s a big job tho.

      Oh, I’m also in the Atlantic time zone – 1 hour ahead of Eastern (hi from the future!). Anything that hits the evening meal time usually leaves me out.

      • Jan Dembowski 1:58 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        Nuts, you posted re stats before I could. :-P

        Stats would be cool but I think a low priority item compared to tough problems like improving the forum and codex search functionality.

        The barometer for the WordPress forums has always been the general volume/noise/attitude regarding a topic. Look at how successful the 3.4 upgrades went, that’s a great indicator of success by the low volume of OMGWTFBBQ.

        I’m in NY and I get a kick out of when I see regulars chime in to provide support. It’s almost like watching the next shift start. ;) Having some sort of stats may be interesting just to gauge activity vs the release calendar, time of week etc.

        Not sure if it would add an immediate tangible value but it would be interesting and may help illustrate gaps in support (if any).

        • Andrea Rennick 7:50 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

          Actually some stats about the *kinds* of threads being posted would be really helpful. Are we getting a ton of empty threads being posted about installation? Then we know to make docs better / easier to find. (for example)

    • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 1:40 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      I can probably shorthand a lot of my intro ;) Chicago/Central Time US, I mod from home and work (the latter while I watch servers reboot etc, in 20-minute chunks).

      IRC is problematic, as I can only hit it after work hours (freenode, in its entirety, is blocked via my office firewall), but I’m usually home weekdays from 7pm ET onward, and Sundays.

      A guide! I have a compilation of little notes, I’ll clean them up and add them as pages here to get things started. (They actually include the how and why we do some things) Any guide would have a lot of overlap into a handbook, but the general draft of the OMGWTFBBQ? upgrade posts I was doing could stat here too. “How to handle the upgrade kvetchfest.” ;) This though would be my first target. Once we all get in a row and Gandalf the crazy (you shall not pass!) we may be able to speed up the rest. Also a central place for the boilerplate replies ‘When someone brings up paying, copy/paste and close…’

      Stats would be kind of amusing. How many posts do we close and resolve a month, how many people get bozo’d (knowing that counts for spammers), how many become blocked…

      Also reminds me to pester @otto42 about things I’d like to see ;) Like that spam hammer to click on someone, delete their posts, and block their account. For the actual spammers.

      • Jane Wells 2:30 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        Part of the intent of this blog is to reduce the number of individual pings we throw at Otto and to have an official list of things we agree we want to do to improve. That will also make it possible for members of other contributor groups to weigh in when we propose changes so that it will be more inclusive.

        • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 3:36 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

          Oh yes, hit him with a list rather than a ping.

          BTW, editors can’t add users (or edit the sidebar) of a blog, so I can’t actually add new users to add content.

          • Jane Wells 3:38 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

            Ah, duh. Upping your statuses to admin. Make other contribs editors

      • kmessinger 2:50 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        The guide and boiler plate replies would be great. I have been to lazy to set up some cut and paste replies to common problems.

        • Andrea Rennick 7:52 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

          There’s an extension for Chrome that I use called popcrom. That allows you to hotkey or marco whatever you like with common responses, like this:

          cl + ctrl+space get me
          “Great since the issue is resolved, I’ll close the thread. If you have more questions, please open a new thread.”
          :D

          • rachelbaker 7:21 pm on July 18, 2012 Permalink | Reply

            I use the Mac app TextExpander for the same thing. Really helps with common replies like: “Please include a link to your site” which I seem to use all the time

            • Andrea Rennick 2:41 pm on July 19, 2012 Permalink

              Yeah I have one for that too. :D Also for “Please deactivate all plugins first to see if any of those are interfering.”

    • Andrea Rennick 1:42 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Oh and I’m getting an error trying to sub to the feed for this site. I want it in my feed reader, not my inbox. :P

    • Remkus de Vries 1:45 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Hadn’t realized that there even was mailing list :)

      I’m the admin/moderator of the Dutch WordPress forum so that sets me in the UTC+1 timezone. I am mostly active on the Dutch side of WordPress things.

      My biggest gripe is also the search in general results, but more importantly the (lack of) localized search result. That and the fact that we’re still not on the bbPress plugin (although I’m told that’s going to be fixed soon.

    • Ze Fontainhas 2:08 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      I’m the admin/mod of the Portuguese support forums (both Portugal and Brazil), and am located in Lisbon (UTC).

      I like this a lot better than the mailing list and looking forward to help out making moderators of forums not in English feel more like part of the family. Despite the fact the nearly all of them already talk to each other over at Polyglots, they have much to gain by taking part in the conversation here.

      • Jane Wells 3:23 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        I just added you to the blog users, and you can add int’l forum mods as you see fit. That way they can discuss general issues here, and keep the non-english-specific parts on polyglots. Cool?

    • esmi 2:59 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Timezone: GMT/BST here. I work from home, so I tend to drop in & out of the forums all day (with the exception of weekends). Since I’m “The Boss”, I can IRC whenever, so I can act a central point to pass on messages for those who can’t IRC if needed.

      I’d love a mod log if that’s possible. Or at least some sort of “notes” field attached to user profiles that we can use to indicate reasons for mod actions or highlight any concerns.

    • Rafael Poveda - RaveN 3:21 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      I’m the admin and a moderator for Spanish (es) support forums. Also the maintainer for es_ES versions and translator. Located in UTC+1.

      I have the same request as Remkus about localized search results :)

    • Christine 3:23 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      I’m on the west coast, so just woke up and got this from @zoonini. I wasn’t on the email list for some reason. I’m not as active on the forum as I would like to be. I might be on there only two or three times a week. I do find bogged down, by really basic questions these days, like “help, I can’t change my font colour”. I don’t mind answering these, but sometimes I would like to have a standard… “have you google it?” answer. At times, I feel as though people have lost the ability to seek out and search for stuff and they just want others to do it for them… This is off topic and I have no idea how to resolve that on the forum. Hopefully some css/html tutorials will solve that. Perhaps compiling a list of some sorts for beginners would be helpful.

    • raggedrobins 3:43 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      I’m at GMT/BST and, like Esmi, I work from home/am the boss, so can attend an IRC chat most times.

      I help out with the WordPress Codex and, more recently, with writing the docs for bbPreaa. Also, I spend most of my time writing documentation for different WordPress stuff.

      I think it’s really cool to see the support and documentation teams merged into one. Something that would be really helpful is to figure out a way for the support team to flag issues that are recurring again and again. This would enable the documentation team to update where there are any holes in the docs.

      I’m also happy to help out with any training guides etc.

      • Andrea Rennick 8:01 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        “Something that would be really helpful is to figure out a way for the support team to flag issues that are recurring again and again. This would enable the documentation team to update where there are any holes in the docs.”

        Yeah, that’s what I’m hoping some (even rudimentary) stats would help.

    • mrmist 3:51 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      I’m pretty much constantly on irc as mrmist (currently groupcat). Ping me on there if you need me to join a different channel from one that I’m already in for a meeting. If it’s at a reasonable time, I’ll join in.

    • Lorelle 4:00 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Thank you.

      We have some guides for using the forum, for volunteers as well as general public, on the Codex. See Support Forum Volunteers to start.

      I think that would serve best as a starting point and would love to discuss how to expand it.

      With so many of the international forum/independent site mods and coordinators here, it would be awesome to have a reference Page on this site listing who’s who doing what with some time zone references.

      The same applies to documentation. There are some amazingly generous folk out there supporting the WordPress Codex and documentation and it would be good to highlight who they are and their skill set for reference.

      As discussed on the docs mailing list, there is some concerns about blending forum support with docs. One of the big issues is reporting on spam and out of control topics. As the P2 Theme makes categories a little more challenging to use, we need a way of not letting such reports flood the site. They are critical and require immediate attention. They came through the mailing list for the forums before. Is there a best practices for such reports to mods?

      I’ve done some successful Codex recruiting in the past, and now that there is a better communications spot, I’d love to see these restored and new strategies in place for getting more people involved, and better yet, support continued involvement.

      I’m on PST time zone.

      The old IRC was freenode #wp-docs if memory serves. I’m sure it is still up and running as it was last time I checked.

      For those unfamiliar with me, I’m one of the original editors of the Codex from “way back when” it all started. I’ve been contributing to the forums and Codex since 2003.

      I started the WordPress Lessons section on the Codex and continue to support it, thanks to the continuing enthusiasm and contributions of so many for basic lessons in how to use WordPress. It still serves as a helpful resource along with the great work of the Learn WordPress.com team. We’re working on taking the WordPress Lessons section a step further than Learn WordPress offers, going into more detail and supporting their efforts.

      I also host the WordPress Documentation Team Task List which has served as a to do list for getting things done and taking on tasks in the Codex for a couple of years. Please have one of this site’s admins contact me so we can transfer content and to do lists here.

      Thanks!

      • Michael 5:45 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        I been around WordPress for about a year and a half now.

        I got hooked when I attended a WordCamp in Savannah while doing research on a WordPress project. I’ve attended a couple of other WordCamps and started going to the local meetups.

        I did theme reviews for the theme review team for awhile but I felt my PHP knowledge level was not adequate to do a good thorough review so I backed off from that.

        I do contribute to the forums when I can.

        Trying to find a place to contribute.

      • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 5:54 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        I think spam and that sort of drama can keep to the email list (at least for now). Spam in forums should be reported via the modlook tag, and discussion about said spammers would stay on the mailing list. (BTW if you see a spammer, you only have to tag one thread with modlook ;) When the spammer’s obviously trying to sell Viagra, we delete all the posts)

      • Andrea Rennick 8:00 pm on July 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        “We have some guides for using the forum, for volunteers as well as general public, on the Codex. See Support Forum Volunteers to start.

        I think that would serve best as a starting point and would love to discuss how to expand it.”

        Yeah that’s definitely super skimpy.

        I’m envisioning things like:

        • guidelines for mod behaviour (Don’t be That Guy, for example)
        • common responses
        • tips on what to do when things get out of hand
        • where to send people for help on things outside the scope of WP (general css for example)

        I have talked to people who have read that, know their way around the forums, but are lost when it comes down to actually *how* to answer the thread while being helpful. That’s where they get stuck.

        For some people, it does come natural, but it can also be a learned skill.

      • Mercime 3:43 am on July 18, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        Hi Lorelle. Just wanted to thank you for your contributions to the Codex, among other WP stuff, “way back when” to present. Kudos. The Codex and your blog were my top resources when I started out with WP back in 2007 :-) Thanks again.

        • Lorelle 5:30 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Reply

          Somehow I missed this comment. Thanks for the kind words. I’m so lucky to have worked with some of the best folks in the world that give so much of their time on the Codex, Support Forums, etc. for the love of WordPress. For me, it is a never-ending source of joy and reward.

    • Kathryn Presner (aka zoonini) 12:43 am on July 18, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Glad to see this project happening and great to see everyone here!

      I’m a WordPress designer/developer currently running my own business, working from home in Montreal – Eastern time zone. I also do a lot of public speaking, giving talks on WordPress at WordCamps and other events, most recently at WCNYC where I had the pleasure of hanging out in the hackers’ room with Siobhan (aka raggedrobins). I’ll be giving two talks at WordCamp Montreal on August 18-19 so if anyone will be in town for that, please let me know as I’d love to meet you.

      My time in the support forums is sporadic, depending on what other projects I’ve got going on.

      For me the priorities would be:

      1. creating a bank of standard responses we can all share and adapt to prevent reinventing the wheel when answering common forum questions
      2. adding essential forum tools such as the ability to add notes to both users and threads, with the notes only visible to mods
      3. developing a set of more fully fleshed-out standard procedures on handling common (and less common) forum issues – aka moderator’s handbook

      I look forward to seeing how this develops.

    • Sergey Biryukov 3:35 am on July 21, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Howdy!

      I’m an admin/moderator of Russian WordPress support forums (also a maintainer of ru_RU releases since 2007). Located in Rostov-on-Don (UTC+4).

      There were times when I could easily spend the whole day answering questions :) Last year I’ve shifted most of my activity to Trac, but I’m still on the forums several times a day.

      So far my biggest concern regarding the forums is that topics with Cyrillic titles cannot be found via Google: http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/19011

      As a workaround, I was able to switch the search form on ru.forums.wordpress.org to use a Russian search engine (which works great). However, as Remkus and Rafael noted earlier, there’s no way to get localized search results using the “Search WordPress.org” form in the header (the trick from comment 14 didn’t work for me, probably for the same reasons as in the ticket above).

      It would also be nice if WP profiles included volunteers’ activity on local forums as well: http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/17917

      The handbooks, stats and improvement goals outlined in the post all sound great, looking forward to contribute wherever I can.

    • Michael Beckwith 10:35 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      I can jump in here. I’m Michael, I am a freelance web developer slash theme developer with occasional personal dabblings in plugins. You can find me as “tw2113″ pretty much everywhere online. I have spent most of my “support” time in the IRC channel. It’s been long enough that some consider me some sort of “guru” which I try to deny all the time.

    • hanni 9:32 pm on August 8, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      OK! Let’s do this thing!

      We need to be clear of other chats, including UI (Tues, 11AM PST) and Dev (Weds, 1PM PST) chats, and make the time as friendly to the greatest number of people as possible so… Thursday sounds like a plan.

      Starting next week so: Thursday, 16th August 1800 UTC will be the inaugural chat, we can always adjust for the future, but let’s plan on making this time slot – have discussed with @nacin, who is kindly helping out- we’re still figuring out which channel would be optimal. TBA!

      But, yay :)

      • Jane Wells 9:37 pm on August 8, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        I’ve already talked to @sivel about setting up a permanent channel for this group. Main issue is choosing a name for it that people won’t see and think means “come here for support” instead of “come here to join the support team.”
        #wordpress-support (no way, they’ll show up in droves)
        #wordpress-support-team (kind of long, but works)
        #wordpress-support-group (ha, couldn’t resist)
        Suggest away, and we can set up the new channel before the inaugural meeting. Speaking of which, @matt would like to be included when discussion on handbook kicks off. I’l leave it to you guys to coordinate with him.

        • hanni 9:39 pm on August 8, 2012 Permalink | Reply

          Yeah, @nacin was mentioning that the jQuery guys use #wordpress-meeting, but… You’re absolutely right about #wordpress-support being a bit of an uhoh invitation to uhoh.

          • Jane Wells 9:41 pm on August 8, 2012 Permalink | Reply

            The idea of having dedicated channels for each contributor group is mainly based on being able to log them so differently-time-zoned members (and new additions later on) can read logs without having to wade through other stuff.

        • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 12:15 am on August 9, 2012 Permalink | Reply

          #wordpress-ms (make support). Hidden rather well. Or #wp-make-support if we don’t mind a drop back?

          As I mentioned to Hanni, I don’t get Daytime (US) IRC back until August 27th.

          • Jane Wells 12:21 am on August 9, 2012 Permalink | Reply

            People would think #wordpress-ms meant multisite. Better to use #wordpress- as base than #wp- for freenode naming standards on official channels. Could go with the initials idea and do something like #wordpress-sfd (support, forums, and docs). Side benefit: someday someone would do a spoof video about the SFD team that is a parody of the LXD, and would use stills and video from drunken WordCamp afterparty dancing to do it. Potentially also a song to the tune of VFD by Michelle Shocked.

      • Hanni 5:06 am on August 16, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        Something fairly sad, necessitating immediate time and attention and therefore somewhat taking me away from the internet has come up in my personal life. It’s highly unlikely that I’ll be able to make tomorrow. I apologise.

        IRC channel: looks like there is a consensus around #wordpress-sfd, however it’s late in the day for tomorrow and setting this up on time requires asking a bit much of @sivel and @nacin so late on. So.. perhaps #wordpress-dev for the initial chat, if this isn’t possible?

        @andrea_r, @esmi, and gang looks like things, as per email, are in your more than capable hands, given @ipstenu‘s absence.

        I will be “back” in full, the week of the 27th to help out wherever the need arises.

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