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Felipe Santos 2:46 pm on March 12, 2024  

Should mods delete links on topics when requested?

Hi, everyone. I would like to discuss a proposal to change how we handle requests to remove links on the forums.

The issue

We often have the following issues on forums:

  1. Someone creates a topic and adds a link — they might add the link directly to the topic content (or alternatively use the “page I need help with” field).
  2. This same person realizes that the link is publicly available (and often indexed by Google when added directly to the content), so they don’t want the link on the topic and ask moderators to remove it.
  3. As this is something covered in our guidelines, our moderators deny these requests (unless there is a safety reason for removing them), and this can sometimes trigger long discussions between everyone involved.
  4. Sometimes, these folks even contact the DPO mailbox to discuss this further.

Proposal

While I’m not trying to justify OP’s (original poster) reasons and definitely not recommending us to change it because of GDPR (we’re technically allowed to keep these links), I believe we should change the workflow because of the following reasons:

  • We should stop spending all this time arguing with people — it would take us 10 seconds to remove the links instead of 20 minutes arguing about it.
  • It would improve OP’s experience on the forums — it is always good to make people happy when we can.

With that in mind, I would like to recommend we start manually deleting links on new requests as an experiment. If this doesn’t work out, we can document the reasons and revert this idea (or explore automated options for doing the same thing).

How do you feel about it?

Marius L. J. 6:02 pm on February 21, 2019
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February 21st Support Team Meeting Summary

General anouncements

The Health Check pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party is getting a visual overhaul with a new UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. and UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it.. With this comes a noticeable amount of strings, both changes and new ones. In light of this there’s a ticket up for going through the various strings and states for them.

Once things are ready, we’ll also have the AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) Team look over it, this is especially important as parts of it are planned for inclusion in coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress..

WordPress 5.1

It’s release day! And unless something happens we will see WordPress 5.1 be released today.

As always, this means we will be following the proceedings in our Release Day Checklist, most importantly that we will keep channel banter to a minimum until over the weekend. This is done so that any issues that arise can be communicated clearly without being lost behind emoji and the likes.

A small set of users may be affected by a JS error in 5.1 as noted in #46280, the Hotfix Plugin has been updated to address this issue for now.

Checking in with international liaisons

Members of the Russian, Italian, Swedish, Dutch, Urdu, Serbian, Brazilian and Greek communities were present for this weeks chat to let us know things are progressing well for them.

Attendance

@abdullahramzan, @bcworkz, @benlumia007, @bethannon1, @binarywc, @clorith, @cristianozanca, @cristianraiber-1, @diddledan, @felipeelia, @fierevere, @firoz2456, @jdembowski, @JNashHawkins, @joyously, @keesiemeijer, @luciano1969, @macmanx, @nikolam, @numeeja, @otto42, @RDD, @sterndata, @t-p, @tobifjellner, @xkon and @zodiac1978 attended.

Read the meeting transcript in the Slack archives. (A Slack account is required)

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

Mark Twain

#weekly-chat

Marius L. J. 1:11 am on February 13, 2019
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January 31st Support Team Meeting Summary

Apologies for the tardiness, flu season was brutal, we’re back up and running now!

General announcements

Please help test the new WordPress 5.1 betas, the next version will include notices for users running out of date PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. version (versions lower than 5.6 at first).

Checking in with international liaisons

Members of the Swedish, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Hindi, Urdu and Dutch communities were present and giving updates on how things are going for them this past week.

Attendance

@abdullahramzan, @bcworkz, @bemdesign, @bethannon1, @binarywc, @contentiskey, @cristianozanca, @fernandot, @fierevere, @firoz2456, @hardeepasrani, @howdy_mcgee, @jcastaneda, @jdembowski, @JNashHawkins, @keesiemeijer, @luciano1969, @numeeja, @otto42, @RDD, @sterndata, @t-p, @tobifjellner, @verygoode and @xkon attended.

Read the meeting transcript in the Slack archives. (A Slack account is required)

#weekly-chat

Marius L. J. 5:47 pm on November 15, 2018  

November 15th Support Team Meeting Summary

General announcements

WordPress 5.0-betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 4 is currently out, if you can, please help test it to make sure we knock out any bugs whenever possible.

@macmanx put forth a call for reviews, so to speak, to encourage us (and others) to leave a Health Check review if they used it to resolve a problem. Negative reviews can be of-putting (although we’re happy to see that the reviews are read, which is pretty awesome), and negative ones weigh heavier than positive ones when users read them.

Checking in with international liaisons

We had members from the Russian, Italian, Greek, German, Urdu and Spanish communities present during this weeks discussions and updates.

Attendance

@abdullahramzan, @bcworkz, @bemdesign, @bethannon1, @binarywc, @clorith, @cristianozanca, @felipeelia, @fernandot, @fierevere, @firoz2456, @geoffreyshilling, @howdy_mcgee, @ipstenu, @jcastaneda, @jdembowski, @jeherve, @macmanx, @numeeja, @otto42, @sterndata, @t-p, @tobifjellner, @tokyobiyori, @xkon, @zodiac1978 and @zoonini attended.

Read the meeting transcript in the Slack archives. (A Slack account is required)

Just remember, when you’re over the hill, you begin to pick up speed.

Charles Schultz
Marius L. J. 6:01 pm on October 25, 2018  

October 25th Support Team Meeting Summary

General announcements

WordPress 5.0-beta1 has been released, please make sure you read the betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. post properly, as there are some considerations you may need to take for this beta period.

Checking in with international liaisons

Members of the Swedish, Russian, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, German, Serbian and Greek support communities took part in this weeks support chat.

Links in reviews

Our big ticket item, links in reviews.

We’ve long had a guideline mention that we do not allow links in reviews, but they’ve not always been upheld the same way. Basically, a link in a review to a persons own website is often used as an attempt to get a free link and some free visitors, which is why we’ve drawn a hard line to avoid spam.

There can be nuances here though, so evaluating things on a case by case basis will help in the long run. A link may not always be bad, it may have value in relation to the experience at hand.

Also, when redacting a post or flagging a user, always leave a post explaining what is happening so the user isn’t confused as to why their post has changed.

If in doubt, feel free to ask the rest of the team on SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/., we’re here for each other!

Open floor

Don’t forget about our work on improving the support guidelines, we’re collaborating on GitHub (https://github.com/Clorith/wporg-support-guidelines) for it, but discussions can also happen on Slack. If they do happen on Slack, please someone summarize them on to GitHub as well for visibility.

Attendance

@anevins, @bemdesign, @bethannon1, @clorith, @contentiskey, @cristianozanca, @fernandot, @fierevere, @firoz2456, @geoffreyshilling, @ipstenu, @jcastaneda, @jdembowski, @keesiemeijer, @macmanx, @nikolam, @numeeja, @otto42, @peterbooker, @RDD, @sterndata, @t-p, @tobifjellner, @wfsupport, @xkon, @zodiac1978 and @zoonini attended.

Read the meeting transcript in the Slack archives. (A Slack account is required)

When you take care of yourself, you’re a better person for others. When you feel good about yourself, you treat others better.

Solange Knowles
Marius L. J. 7:04 am on May 25, 2018
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May 24th Support Team Meeting Summary

General announcements

Auto-updates for WordPress 4.9.6 were enabled last night, and should be flowing out steadily at this time.

WordPress 4.9.6

Besides the usual need to clear caches after an update (especially one that includes editor updates).

We can note that there is a known regression in TinyMCE which may cause a handful of plugins to break when viewing the editor. The coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. team is already aware of this and are working on sorting that.

 

The GDPR approaches

Shelters are stocked for a weekend of fun! With the forums seeing around ~10k GDPR related topics and posts on the forums, we’re expecting more once the regulations kick in on the 25th. To address this, and the constant topics on pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party pages asking if they’re compliant or not, we’ve created a sticky post that will show up on the support forums, to hopefully help users find out where to go to get the right answers to their questions, and most specifically: Not to seek legal advise on the forums.

 

Checking in with international liaisons

The Swedish, Russian, Greek, Serbian, German and Brazilian community representatives dropped by this week to join the discussions.

 

Attendance

@abdullahramzan, @amboutwe, @bcworkz, @bemdesign, @clorith, @contentiskey, @felipeelia, @fierevere, @geoffreyshilling, @ipstenu, @jdembowski, @joyously, @keesiemeijer, @lakenh, @macmanx, @nikolam, @numeeja, @otto42, @presstigers, @pross, @stephencottontail, @t-p, @tobifjellner, @valeriosza, @xkon and @zodiac1978 attended.

 

Read the meeting transcript in the Slack archives. (A Slack account is required)

#weekly-chat

James Huff 5:47 pm on April 5, 2018
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April 5th Support Team Meeting Summary

Announcements

  • Common Gutenberg Questions – Keep populating the document if you come upon anything that should be covered by it. The callout may not have been in 4.9.5, but it’s imminent and it never hurts to be prepared
  • The Community Code of Conduct project team is having a survey they’d love to be shared as widely as possible within the community.

WordPress 4.9.5

WordPress 4.9.5 was released two days ago. So far we haven’t had any trouble.

Onboarding

Did you do a volunteer onboarding session with us in the past, and would you be willing to share feedback on it? Or, would you be interested in joining an upcoming volunteer onboarding session?

If so, please reach out to @zoonini in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.!

In our onboarding sessions, you’ll learn how to use the forums, how to best help people, and you’ll make a few friends along the way. 🙂

Our last onboarding session was in February.

Checking in with international liaisons

The Swedish, German, Brazilian, and Greek communities had representatives stop by our meeting this week.

If you do support for WordPress in non-English speaking communities, please do stop by and say hello during our meetings so we can share experiences.

Attendance

@macmanx @otto42 @geoffreyshilling @bcworkz @contentiskey @cthreelabs @zoonini @numeeja @tobifjellner @zodiac1978 @valeriosza @sterndata @firoz2456 @xkon attended.

Read the meeting transcript in the Slack archives. (A Slack account is required)

Contributor tips
Are you eager to help people, but you don’t know what to say? We have several pre-written replies that you’re welcome to use!

#weekly-chat

James Huff 6:14 pm on March 29, 2018
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March 29th Support Team Meeting Summary

Announcements

  • Common Gutenberg Questions – Keep populating the document if you come upon anything that should be covered by it.
  • HelpHub block descriptions – Help shape the new blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. descriptions for the new support front page.
  • The new About page is live, so there are plenty of strings to translate if you’re available to help.

WordPress 4.9.4

WordPress 4.9.4 has been out for a while. So far we haven’t had any trouble.

Meeting Time

Following the rest of the globe switching to Daylight Saving Time, and by majority vote, the meeting time will remain at 17:00 UTC (exactly where it is right now) with the hope that we never change the time again.

Therefore, the next meeting will be Thursday, April 5, 2018, 17:00 UTC.

Checking in with international liaisons

The Russian, Swedish, and Greek communities had representatives stop by our meeting this week.

If you do support for WordPress in non-English speaking communities, please do stop by and say hello during our meetings so we can share experiences.

Attendance

@macmanx @sterndata @geoffreyshilling @t-p @contentiskey @abletec @firoz2456 @fierevere @nikolam @bemdesign @cthreelabs @clorith @bethannon1 @ipstenu @anevins @howdy_mcgee @numeeja @stephencottontail @tobifjellner @xkon @otto42 @jdembowski attended.

Read the meeting transcript in the Slack archives. (A Slack account is required)

Contributor tips
Please consider contributing to WordPress by testing for bugs. Less bugs means less support topics.

#weekly-chat

James Huff 6:26 pm on March 1, 2018
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March 1st Support Team Meeting Summary

Announcements

  • HelpHub draws ever closer, please read about the current state of it, as it affects our support efforts
  • We have an upcoming support workshop on March 16: Dealing with Angry Users
  • Just a reminder that WordPress 4.9.3 broke automatic background updates, so if you encounter anyone still on 4.9.3, please kindly direct them in how to update manually from Dashboard > Updates.

WordPress 4.9.4

WordPress 4.9.4 has been out for a week. So far we haven’t had any trouble.

Checking in with international liaisons

The Russian, Italian, Swedish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Greek communities had representatives stop by our meeting this week.

If you do support for WordPress in non-English speaking communities, please do stop by and say hello during our meetings so we can share experiences.

Attendance

@stephencottontail @macmanx @lasacco @cristianozanca @firoz2456 @jdembowski @bethannon1 @anevins @numeeja @bcworkz @zoonini @sterndata @fierevere @contentiskey @t-p @otto42 @zodiac1978 @howdy_mcgee @tobifjellner @pmfonseca @fernandot @xkon @sergeybiryukov @clorith @yaniiliev attended.

And, a special thanks to @stephencottontail for leading the meeting while @clorith was traveling!

Read the meeting transcript in the Slack archives. (A Slack account is required)

Contributor tips
If you simply use WordPress, you already know enough to help people. It’s ok to seek out topics that you’re comfortable with. You don’t have to know everything to make an impact in someone’s WordPress experience.

#weekly-chat

Marius L. J. 6:00 pm on February 1, 2018
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February 1st Support Team Meeting Summary

General announcements

Out first online-only contributor orientation will be held next week.

Support Volunteers Orientation, Tues, Feb 6, 17UTC

 

Also a reminder to moderators: When making edits make sure the post hasn’t somehow been converted to a draft. This appears to happen when editing things in the back-end when they aren’t yet published (spam or pending posts). If you make edits, take responsibility for your edit and make sure it goes live.

 

WordPress 4.9.2

(Thankfully) no new major items have been trending for 4.9.2, the release of 4.9.3 has been postponed until next week to avoid doing any automated updates right before the weekend.

 

Checking in with international liaisons

The Italian, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, German and Hindi communities had someone in attendance this week

 

Open floor

The 500 errors when moving posts or topics is identified as being caused by a counting mechanic in bbPressbbPress Free, open source software built on top of WordPress for easily creating forums on sites. https://bbpress.org. that does… crazy counting. For now making the move from the back-end in wp-admin is the way to go, as the counts only run when using bbPress on the front end.

If you’d like to help shape the future of our support pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party, head on over to the GitHub project page to add issues, and provide feedback on existing ones!

Some improvements are being made to the child themeChild theme A Child Theme is a customized theme based upon a Parent Theme. It’s considered best practice to create a child theme if you want to modify the CSS of your theme. https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/. documentation after seeing a fair amount of confusion about best practices, and will be seeking some cross-team efforts from the Theme Review Team.

If, as a volunteer, you feel users demand too much of you in a manner that feels like you were an employee, reach out and we’ll assign you a custom title to denote that you are in fact a volunteer 🙂

 

Attendance

@anevins, @bcworkz, @bemdesign, @clorith, @contentiskey, @cristianozanca, @fierevere, @firoz2456, @geoffreyshilling, @glorialchemica, @hardeepasrani, @howdy_mcgee, @jcastaneda, @keesiemeijer, @kimwhite, @macmanx, @numeeja, @otto42, @pmfonseca, @stephencottontail, @sterndata, @t-p, @tobifjellner, @zodiac1978 and @zoonini attended.

 

Read the meeting transcript in the Slack archives. (A Slack account is required)

 

Contributor tip
If you find your self providing a lot of support, check out the support teams handbook page for helpful tools. They are there to make your days easier!

#weekly-chat