Supporting Everything WordPress

Updates from October, 2012 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 9:48 pm on October 18, 2012 Permalink | Reply  

    Meetup – Final Lap! 

    Incomplete Pages:

    These pages need to be done. If anyone knows an IIS/Plesk guru, please grab them and make them– Ask them nicely to help.

    02 Setting Up WordPress

    05 Creating Your Content With WordPress

    08 Advanced WordPress

    Cleanup/Copy Edit

    All the pages need to be cleaned up for typos/content. If you have editor access, just fix it. if not, leave a comment. Also I’m going to delete the .com pages soon (like by the end of today), so then we can search for en.wordpress… and see what reeeealy needs a replacement.

    Summaries

    Top Level Pages need a nice summary.

    Next week…

    Next week will just be open office hours, and minor cleanups. That weekend is WPCS, which was our goal for finishing Phase 1. Phase 2 is ‘Where do we put the handbook?’ which I suspect will be a beer filled discussion.

     

    • esmi 11:21 am on October 19, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Browser Issues & Getting More Views and Traffic have now been added. Still waiting for a response regarding the Creative Commons page content.

    • JerrySarcastic 6:06 pm on October 19, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Other than deciding *things* will you be also working on the manual during the summit? Happy to lend a hand over IRC…

    • esmi 4:35 pm on October 25, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Added Creative Commons & Static Front Page. Pretty sure that all top level pages now have at least basic summaries. Also split Browser issues into 2 sub-pages – issue for Authors (clearing caches etc) and issues for visitors (intro to validation)

  • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 2:34 pm on September 19, 2012 Permalink | Reply  

    Moving Sept 20th Weekly Chat! 

    After talking to Esmi and Andrea, we’re going to test something this week (aka tomorrow).

    The chat will be at UTC 2100 – That is three hours later.

    • 10pm London
    • 6pm Andrea Time
    • 5pm US Eastern
    • 2pm US Pacific
    • 2:30am (Friday) Bangalore

    If this works out, we may move it permanently.

    Apologies for my brevity this week, Jewish New Year + getting on a plane in 5 hours. If you have some time, please hit up anything on http://make.wordpress.org/support/user-manual/ that isn’t checked off (or has someone’s name). If it has your name, you know what to do ;)

     

  • hanni 11:09 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: goals   

    Post hoc ergo propter hoc: approaching and defining support goals

    Breaking out from the Codex thread below – and using, inter alia, Siobhan’s comment as a starting point, let’s get some outlining goals going on:

    • A clear division between developer docs and user docs
    • A self-contained, concise yet complete landing page for the user coming in
    • Plot a useful journey for different people who want to “learn WordPress”, from beginner to ninja/rockstar/whatever the individual wishes to be - (imho this needs to both respect that not everyone will want to do everything, nor indeed have the nouse (everyone is unique, and has their own strength), whilst respecting and encouraging the learning process – it’s a balance to ensure that eveyone gets to where _they_ want to be, with the best tools and information not where we, or anyone thinks they should be. Without passion, we’d not be here – I think at this point I’m merely restating what everyone thinks and goes without saying, but, let’s just get it documented.)

    So, there’s some overlap and a meeting point with the core contributors‘ handbook, and this is where we need to be super disciplined. I know so many of us, @ipstenu, @andrea_r, @lorelle, @esmi (and everyone here, and more!) have been mulling this over for a good deal of time, so I’m just very much about grouping the discussion and the years of thought and care into a thread.

    Let’s go!

     

    • andrea_r 11:25 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Probably first point is to identify actionable items, break ‘em down into manageable tasks and start the delegating / voluntold process?

      I;d say first thing is to get the wp.com useful docs over here with a first pass at editing to replace terms, then link it up to the main.

      • hanni 11:28 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        sidenote on wp.com docs – @andrea_r I’ve just grabbed an export of en.support.wordpress.com. Where’d you like to start gathering these? A category here?

        • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 11:37 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Reply

          I wish we had a CPT! Maybe @nacin will give us a sub-site make.wordpress.org/support/handbook?

          Edit! Make a /handbook page, import there!

      • hanni 11:56 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        OK, we had some quick ad-hoc “IRL”conversation action going on here with @ipstenu, @nacin, @otto, @jane and others – noting:

        • Since even /handbook/ etc wouldn’t potentially even be the “final destination for this info, it’s pretty academic where we put them, as long as we keep them as pages (arguably most flexibility wrt simple portability
        • With all of this in mind, we don’t need to ask of anybody’s time (would require a couple of hurdles @nacin’s part which just make it not worth it) to just create a page and import as a sub of the Handbook page @ipstenu has already created

        • hanni 12:05 am on August 6, 2012 Permalink | Reply

          Done! @otto helped me mass move everything to under “Handbook”. Falling timber, but it’s something.

          • andrea_r 12:14 am on August 6, 2012 Permalink | Reply

            Dang, you guys work fast – and yeah, something somewhere anywhere. :D

          • hanni 12:42 am on August 6, 2012 Permalink | Reply

            So, the general principle of restricting isn’t something you’ll ever see me getting behind, and, was careful to only export / import “published” pages so there is no sensitive anything, I have made the pages private whilst we do a very quick _ initial triage – otherwise 340+ pages is a bit overwhelming to just dump out there, so:

            • @andrea_r, @esmi @ipstenu @hanni- let’s grab any and all pages where we can and, without investing the time to reformat it, or whatever (should this be hard), do a quick once-over to see if the actual page itself is something useful for .org and then make it public, if it’s not relevant, delete – I’ll presume, by Wednesday morning 10AM PST that anything still private can be made public.
            • Then, once we have the public set of pages which are, in theory, the relevant ones, we can do deeper triage, updating, and editing – as @ipstenu pointed out, this may actually be quickly done too! :)

              • This is just for 72 hours, whilst we scrub. If we can do it before then, that’s great.

    • Siobhan 3:42 pm on August 6, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Amazing – I go to bed and loads of stuff has happened! Is there anything I can do to help? Have some time to review pages tomorrow if needed.

      • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 5:38 pm on August 6, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        As soon as we can go through and delete the totally non-relevant .com stuff (like how to set up email/domains with .com etc), and remove the links to .com support, I think we can roll the pages out, have everyone comment, and figure out how to structure a ‘user handbook’

        @hanni and I were talking about this with the Core Handbook, and she has a great idea for overviews.

        If we can come up with big ‘header’ sections, like in a book, and lead people through what you need to know, then we can present a guided path.

        So with WP Codex we should figure out what our ‘path’ is.

        1) What is WordPress
        2) Installing
        3) Using
        4) Extending (? Themes and/or plugins … maybe Personalizing)
        5) Coding

        And then the Coding one would be where we’ve got all that advanced function calls etc. Core can link back to the Core Handbook.

    • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 11:49 pm on August 6, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Pages sorted and done. I have a draft post, but since the handbook doesn’t list them all, I asked @otto42 and @nacin if we could have the shortcode for child pages like they do on .com (and like the plugin in the repo) so we could just list ‘em.

    • hanni 11:52 pm on August 6, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      @ipstenu, you are a marvel.

    • Lorelle 4:55 pm on August 10, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Wow, I duck into academia and miss out on all the fun. Is there a place to find all these? What can I do?

      WordCamp PDX is coming up and some people have asked me to do a Codex unconference meeting during it. I’d love to tap into their brilliance and point them at specifics. The WordPress PDX Meetup team also wants more directions when it comes to how they can help with the Codex, especially after the very successful recent Codex events.

      Awesome.

  • Andrea Rennick 5:24 pm on July 19, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: advice, responses   

    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. :D

     

    • Andrea Rennick 5:28 pm on July 19, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      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. :)

    • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 6:41 pm on July 19, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      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 | Reply

        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 | Reply

        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 | Reply

          “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 | Reply

      I’ve been using Mika’s stock answer from day one and it’s been very useful. Thank you.

    • masonjames 2:58 pm on July 20, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      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 | Reply

        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 | Reply

          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 | Reply

        This ones great. Thanks masonjames!

    • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 12:15 am on July 21, 2012 Permalink | Reply

    • Lorelle 5:28 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      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 | Reply

        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 | Reply

          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?

    • Chris Olbekson 12:56 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      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

    • rachelbaker 1:58 am on August 14, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      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 | Reply

        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 | Reply

          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 | Reply

            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 | Reply

      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 | Reply

        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 | Reply

          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. :-)

  • 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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