Proposal for updated support guidelines

The support guidelines serve as the guidestones for support moderators (and 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 reviewers) in setting expectations around what is and what isn’t acceptable behavior.

The guidelines were last fully reviewed during WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. San Francisco in 2013, and a lot has happened in those 10 years. Some guidelines were added ad-hoc to account for timely situations, while others have just become dated, and may not necessarily reflect the current state of the WordPress user base, it’s surrounding ecosystem, or the outward facing opinion we wish to nurture.

The following is a collaborative effort in refining, simplifying, and clarifying the guidelines as they are today, into something that is both easier to understand for users, but also makes the job of those moderating much easier in the long term.

The proposal is available in a separate document, to make it easier to reading in an isolated (and easily comparable to the current iteration) manner.

Note that some changes would initially impact existing forum content. As these are new guidelines; once implemented, they will only relate to new content moving forward. The reasoning being that existing content were a product of the guidelines of their time, and moderating this existing content every time a guideline changes is just not something that can be done..

Read the new guideline proposal
(the doc is ready only, please leave your comments in this post)

As these are a result of work during WordCamp Us 2023, if you are at the venue and wish to discuss something, please feel free to reach out and a summary of it will be posted as a comment here. Otherwise, please use the comment section below for feedback, or questions, if there are uncertainties as to why some guidelines may have been removed, amended, or added to, this helps ensure everyone that wants to can have their opinion voiced, and that the same response does not have to be repeated in private channels.

The feedback period ended on 2023-10-01 00:00 UTC