Items discussed at today’s meetup 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.:
WordPress 4.2 preparedness
WordPress 4.2 Powell has been released! Please keep an eye out for any 4.2 issues and update the OMGWTFBBQ post as necessary.
There was some discussion about the pending 4.1.3 patch. The core Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. team’s priority is the 4.2 release with 4.1.3 slated for sometime after that. For 4.1.x users that will automatically install and some users may think they’ve gone to 4.2 when they haven’t. The 4.1.3 patch will address a DB UTF8 issue but a more comprehensive solution really is to upgrade to 4.2.
Mission statement or more accurately mission sentence
Sometimes a forum member will post something where a moderator will reflexively respond. I’ve done it and that automatic response or reaction usually works. That’s especially true when the forum poster is being brusk or even rude. But it’s not always a good thing and I thought some verbiage for the support volunteers may be helpful.
We already have a Forum Welcome for people who are looking for assistance, what I was looking for was something to remind me and other moderators what and why we provide support.
After talking about it and the difficult cases a little I think this summarizes what I had in mind.
“WordPress Support Team, because you know that deep down you really do care about the users and their experience.”
When someone asks for help with their WordPress installation, the support team isn’t just helping that person. You’re also helping all the people who visit that site. You are improving the experience for all of those WordPress users and that’s important. We all want people to come back and replying rudely doesn’t help that goal.
Don’t reply angry. Escalate to the Slack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. #forum channel and ask another volunteer to try. Go for a walk, walking is good. Respond later after you’ve drafted a reply.
Later on Andrea Rennick explained it better like so.
Any time I do answer a forums thread, I try and answer with the same level of professionalism as I do when I get paid to do so. Doing otherwise reflects poorly on the WP community and on me as a person.
That summarizes it perfectly and I’ve already spent more time on this topic than I intended to. 😉
View the meetup transcript in the Slack archives (A Slack account is required)
