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jordesign 11:17 am on July 18, 2024

Proposed updates to the Support Handbook

It’s been a little while since the Support Handbook had been reviewed and updated – so I thought maybe it was a time to give it a bit of a refresh.

As a start – I’ve gone through and reviewed the handbook (and associated pages) and drafted some proposed recommendations. I’d appreciate all and any feedback on these proposed changes (and suggestions of others) from the community before we move ahead with making any changes.

Please take some time to review the changes in this document – and offer comments and feedback. I’ll leave the feedback open for 2 weeks – wrapping it up on August 1st to prepare for making the actual changes.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zBsYOwzoFyHYHv0AsvTCJDh0HIU8FKYqgZAKkZhpEqE/edit

Thanks in advance!

Kavya Gokul 12:58 pm on August 23, 2024
I’m listing the changes made under this below, grouped by a link to the particular handbook page
- https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/
  - Updated intro text – The WordPress Support Handbook is the number one destination for tips, tricks, and advice to assist you in giving the best WordPress support possible.
    
    Quick links
– Re-titled “WordPress.org Also Viewing” to “Helpful Tools” and linked to https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/appendix/helpful-tools/
– Removed text-expander link as it now goes to an “AI automation” Chrome extension. A better alternative to be added to the page with predefs.
- https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/
  - Added a link to Follow this blog!
    
    Changed IRC details to mention Libera chat instead of Freenode, and added a link to the IRC page
- https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/forum-structure/
  - Re-arranged sections to match the order of the main forums page, and added links to the headings so someone can directly go to the respective forum.
    
    Updated descriptions of the sections wherever needed.
    
    Replaced the Themes and Templates and Plugins and Hacks sections with just one general section
- https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/how-to/
  - Proofread and fixed some issues related to grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure.
    
    Added under “Help them help you:” — “Everyone working on the forums is volunteer, and no user should have an expectation or obligation to support. This is a community space where we all try to help each other.“
- https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/when-good-users-go-bad/
  - The section “Reply Kindly” updated to read — “Sometimes it’s really just someone having an off day and a gentle nudge will get them back on the path to greatness. It’s easy to forget that text is difficult to read (interpret) and people can misunderstand your tone and/or meaning.“
    
    Under the section “When they follow you home…“, removed reference to emailing the mods, and replaced with directions to use ‘Report this topic’.
- https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/
  - Updated meeting time based on latest meeting’s notes
    
    Under “Support responsibilities”, added a mention of SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/., and removed mention of Codex
    
    Under “Common Tasks”, replaced mention of Codex with “documentation/handbook”
    
    Under “Prior Knowledge”, added mention of themes, plugins, site editor, etc
    
    Added referenced to the IRC help page wherever needed.
    
    Added a mention of joining Slack under the “First steps” section.
- https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/faq/
  - Under “Someone’s spamming! What do I do?“, changed the mention of modlook to ‘Report this topic”
    
    Under the section “Why aren’t my posts showing up?“, added advice to be patient, and removed reference to emailing the mods.
- https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/giving-good-support/
  - Fixed some grammar and sentence structure issues
    
    Fixed some formatting (lists etc)
- https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/giving-good-support/examples-of-good-vs-bad-support/
  - Formatting fixes to make it more legible
- https://wordpress.org/support/guidelines/
  - Added an info blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. saying that this page is from the POV of the moderators
    
    Under “Contacting the moderators” section, reworded “please consult the FAQ before contacting the moderators” to “In many cases, the FAQ already might have an answer to your question. Please remember that the moderators are also volunteer contributors and may not always be online to respond immediately.“
- https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/contributing-to-the-wordpress-forums/support-forums-in-your-language/
  - Under Other Support Forums, added an info-box about these being external links
Kavya Gokul 1:00 pm on August 23, 2024
Potential next steps for documents which need a larger review, more significant changes, or anything else:
- https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/giving-good-support/getting-help-its-okay-to-not-know/
  - Possibly rework this page entirely. This can include WP Support Docs and Dev docs as resources, as well as crowdsourcing with other volunteers in #forums
- https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/giving-good-support/pre-defined-replies/
  - This could do with its own separate review to make sure things are still relevant, and formatted correctly.
- https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/contributing-to-the-wordpress-forums/the-no-replies-view/
  - This page seems redundant (as the information is covered in the ‘filtering posts’ content.)
- https://wordpress.org/support/welcome/
  - The section talking about Commercial plugins/themes could be moved to the ‘Asking for Support’ section
    
    This could probably do with an editorial review to make it more readable.

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