Support Team Update for March 27th

Items discussed on today’s #wordpress-sfd support 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..

More 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. testing

Until 3.9 is released this will be a recurring item. The 3.9 blockers were mentioned and with TinyMCE being upgraded there may be a rash of TinyMCE 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 issues right after the release. @ipstenu brought up a trac ticket and there was some discussion about the alpha/beta forum.

HTTPSHTTPS HTTPS is an acronym for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure. HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. The 'S' at the end of HTTPS stands for 'Secure'. It means all communications between your browser and the website are encrypted. This is especially helpful for protecting sensitive data like banking information. issues for forum moderators

If you’re a moderator and you use the https URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org then the administration short-cuts such as deleting a spam post work fine.

But if you flip between httpHTTP HTTP is an acronym for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. HTTP is the underlying protocol used by the World Wide Web and this protocol defines how messages are formatted and transmitted, and what actions Web servers and browsers should take in response to various commands. and https then you may have problems. @keesiemeijer has a pair of scripts that not only address that but make it very easy for moderators to navigate the forums.

If you are a moderator then consider installing these. It’s made my forum workflow so much easier.

http://keesiemeijer.github.io/WordPress-moderator-tools/topic-redirect
http://keesiemeijer.github.io/WordPress-moderator-tools/

Many thanks to @keesiemeijer for sharing that. You can also use HTTPS Everywhere too and once the forums enforce SSLSSL Secure Socket Layer - Encryption from the server to the browser and back. Prevents prying eyes from seeing what you are sending between your browser and the server. for everything then this problem will go away.

Help first, moderate second

There was some discussion about moderating in the forums. The goal in the WordPress support forums is to help users and not be a stickler for the rules. As a result of that conversation a post for discussion was put up in make/support.

Please give that post a read and chime in. It’s not really to make more rules as much as it is for Dos and Don’ts.

Blue Welcome Box

This weekend I’ll give some thought to the verbiage for a Blue Welcome Box on the make/support forums. See the make/docs site for a very good example. I think it could be useful for new visitors, I like the idea of consistent branding and want to welcome more people to participate.

There’s also a real likelyhood of my copying the make/docs welcome box almost word for word… I’ll try to mix it up.

Next week’s #wordpress-sfd meeting will be at the regular time

DST will kick in and the meetup will be 1600 UTC or 12 noon EST and 9 AM US Pacific time.

Edit: Correction, The next meeting is noon EDT (Eastern Daylight Time).

You can see the transcript of today’s meetup via this link.