Support Team Update for July 17th

Items discussed at the #wordpress-sfd 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.:

Status of the handbooks (not just the Troubleshooting one)

@samuelsidler (sams) asked about the difference between the handbooks and the organization of them. He was at WCKC and there was some confusion when trying to locate items in the handbooks.

The Support Handbook really is for moderators and people providing support in that role. For example many of the pre-defined replies in that handbook deal with managing topics. That’s for solving forum problems. It’s written for moderators.

The Troubleshooting Handbook in development is for people who want to assist others with WordPress problems. It’s a different audience and is definitely needed.

This item neatly segued into the next topic of

The Troubleshooting Handbook status

It’s looking good and parts of the new handbook are fleshed out. It still needs content but as @Ipstenu reminded me release and iterate also applies to documentation too. Contributions don’t have to be perfect but they have to be started or things will never get done.

That last sentence was more of a note to myself but all contributions to the handbook are welcomed. 😉 If you want to contribute but don’t have access then contact me via the comments and we’ll figure something out.

There was discussion of how and what belongs on the new handbook and the consensus was to keep it basic and inviting to new users.

Portions of the new Troubleshooting Handbook that do a deep dive into setting up things like WAMP, LAMPLAMP LAMP is an acronym for Linux, Apache, MySql, PHP – a stack of free software programs that can function as the environment for running WordPress., MAMP, VVV, etc. will be directed to other more technical resources. Their will be technical details there (see the break/fix examples) but the goal is to get users started and invite them to provide support.

We all want to get more people helping and keeping it basic may get that started.

Section topic titles

The sections and examples were obtained from @Ipstenu‘s Break/Fix site. The titles work with the content of the article but some of them may be unclear when people are looking around. Those titles are fun though and when you get into the examples you’ll understand Mika’s gift for titles. 😉

If you have a suggestion for modifying a title in the handbook please pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” the gang here.

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.!

I couldn’t figure out a good way to type that title with a Kirk “KHHAANNN!!!” effect.

The WordPress 4.0 beta1 is out and please test and beat up. There are some nice enchantments (the media library made me yell “Oh that’s cool!”) and feed back is needed and bugs should be reported to the Alpha/Beta sub-forum. For a good status or progress on the beta consider subscribing to make/core.

When you see topics in the Alpha/Beta sub-forum that have a ticket assigned and posted in that topic please mark that topic resolved. Don’t close the topic unless it becomes a run-away train or off topic in a bad way. Then the usual applies and that topic can be closed.

The transcript for this meetup can be read at this link.

#support