Support Team Update for March 13th

With the daylight savings spring forward I was 1 hour early for the meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area.. It was deja vu all for me when the meetup started at 1 PM EST…

Today’s items discussed:

Test WordPress 3.9 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. 1

With the beta being released please install, test and report any issues that are found. If it’s 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 or theme related then create a topic in that sub-forum to let the author know. Topics in the alpha/beta sub-forum should be closed once a tracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. ticket has been submitted.

The beta tester plugin makes switching easy https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/ (it’s beta, not on production sites since things may break) and any feedback is appreciated.

Identifying active contributors in support

@jenmylo will be reaching out to team reps about identifying people to get badges on the new profiles that are being worked on. At some point that may be automatic but in the beginning the badges will be manual for this purpose.

Give this some thought re names. I have some idea about forum regulars but IRC needs to be included and at some point names will be discussed.

Blue Welcome Box for make/support

Last week @kpdesign brought up the idea with me about creating a blue welcome box for make/support like the one that the other make blogs have. It’s a good idea and @Ipstenu earlier this week said she was thinking about the verbiage.

The current stickey is on point but the welcome box should invite people to participate but not seek support here. Also it would go along with the whole look/feel/branding of the other make blogs.

YouTube and the parenthesis

More of an FYI: it was discussed that YouTube’s embed code is adding a close parenthesis at the end. It’s 100% on YouTube’s end and is not a WordPress issue.

The parenthesis can be removed from being displayed via a filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. (it’s still there in the oEmbed data) easily enough but I had some question about if the bad oEmbed results will be cached or not.

Dealing with misinformation in IRC and the forums

This happens in the forums a lot. Sometimes people insist that handing out bad (really, really bad) advice is valid. See some theme discussions about making changes as an example. In IRC it’s not child themes, it’s often “why are you even suggesting that function or a filter or… when we’re talking about a headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. image?”

How to deal with that without a confrontation? jackreichert suggested sandwiched feedback for that situation and provided a link to an example. The idea is to wrap the criticism (negatives) of what they’re doing with positives. Don’t just focus on what the person is doing wrong also talk about what they’re getting right.

It’s not a bad idea and it was an interesting conversation. In the forums most members, when asked not to suggest something like editing a theme directly or (much worse!) editing coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. will change their tune. But occasionally a member will get caught up and argue the point.

The transcript of todays meetup can be found at this link.

#support