Marius L. J. 4:33 pm on November 12, 2024  

Support Team Meeting – October November 14th

The weekly support meeting will be held on Thursday, November 14th 2024, 17:00 UTC in #forums on 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/.. (a Slack account is required)

Headlines / Community updates

This is where news that are relevant or good to know for the team from across the community are brought up and shared.

WordPress 6.7 – How are we doing

With WordPress 6.7 (hopefully) just released, let’s focus on what is happening around the release, things to be aware of, information to share, get the knowledge out there!

Support Tools

Some of the team tools have been updated recently, while others may need to change a little.

Topic highlighter

The Topic Highlighter got some love and care the past weeks, with new moderator highlight rules for archived content, and the ability to consider replied to reviews as “resolved”.

Flagging accounts

Firstly, a reminder that any account that is flagged should have user notes added to them, from the offending post/topic so that there is an automatic link back to the content that led to a user being flagged. User notes must be clear enough that anyone can understand why the user is flagged (remember that user notes are global across WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/, so moderators on other language forums can see them, and so can users with access to HelpScout, our ticketing system for reviews, escalations, etc.). This means they should be consistent, descriptive, but don’t write a whole novel. One should also be mindful of the fact that during a data export request, this text may be provided to the user.

In addition, with WordPress.org’s size in mind, and the majority of its content being user generated, there are new regulations we should discuss.

Checking in with international liaisons

This is the section where we reach out to the non-English speaking parts of our community, to see how they are doing, if there’s anything we can help each other with, or just interesting things going on that it would be nice to share with others.

There’s no requirements for previous participation or “fame” to share here, anyone is welcome, and we encourage newcomers to participate!

Unable to make the meeting, or maybe meetings just aren’t your thing? We would still love to hear how things are going in other non-English speaking parts of our community. Please feel free to let us know via the comment section below, in your own time, if there is anything you’d like to share, any questions or concerns you have, or just to let us know you’re doing OK!

We will make a habit of putting this callout with every agenda post going forward, so that everyone has a chance to join in.

For any other items to discuss, please add them to the comments below, or bring them up in the meeting.

James Huff 2:18 am on October 17, 2024  

Support Team Meeting – October 17th

The weekly support meeting will be held on Thursday, October 17th 2024, 17:00 UTC in #forums on 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/.. (a Slack account is required)

Headlines / Community updates

This is where news that are relevant or good to know for the team from across the community are brought up and shared.

Troubleshooting and Site Health Tools Update

These decoupled from Health Check two weeks ago, let’s check in to see how that’s going.

Checking in with international liaisons

This is the section where we reach out to the non-English speaking parts of our community, to see how they are doing, if there’s anything we can help each other with, or just interesting things going on that it would be nice to share with others.

There’s no requirements for previous participation or “fame” to share here, anyone is welcome, and we encourage newcomers to participate!

Unable to make the meeting, or maybe meetings just aren’t your thing? We would still love to hear how things are going in other non-English speaking parts of our community. Please feel free to let us know via the comment section below, in your own time, if there is anything you’d like to share, any questions or concerns you have, or just to let us know you’re doing OK!

We will make a habit of putting this callout with every agenda post going forward, so that everyone has a chance to join in.

For any other items to discuss, please add them to the comments below, or bring them up in the meeting.

Marius L. J. 10:09 am on September 15, 2024
Tags:   

September 5th Support Team Meeting Summary

The weekly support meeting was held on Thursday, September tth, 2024, 17:00 UTC in #forums on 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/.. Read the transcript at your own pace (a Slack account is required)

The WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org//support page

Currently, if you visit https://WordPress.org/support, you are redirected to the documentation page, this also goes for https://WordPress.org/forums.

The quick fix to this would be to just move everything on wordpress.org/support/forums up one level, but that leaves the forum listing duplicated as well.

There is a desire from the team to be able to do more with a proper landing page, so we will create a collaborative outline of what we wish such a page to include, so that those unable to attend the meeting are able to participate asynchronously as well, the team will make a dedicated make/support post for this purpose.

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. US 2024

We do not at this time have ad dedicated table lead, but know that there will be participants available who may be able to help newcomers in a more “unofficial” manner.

Checking in with international liaisons

None of the teams international liaisons had any concerns or special events/news to share at this time.

#weekly-chat
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!

James Huff 10:48 pm on August 15, 2024
Tags:   

22nd August Support Team Meeting

The next Support Meeting will be held on Thursday, August 22nd 2024, 20:00 UTC in #forums on 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/.. (a Slack account is required)

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/Theme Rep Topic Lock Ability

Plugin/Theme support/authors have the option to sticky their own topics if they wish to, but they do not have control over closing topics. There is a case to be made for announcement posts and special situations needing a sticky topic and similar, and having them sticky, but not closed, is often counter productive.

The ticket at https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/5722 proposes extending the ability to close topics to plugin/theme support/authors, but only if it’s their own topic, AND there are no replies to the topic already.

How does that sound?

WCUS Support Lead Needed!

Will anyone at WCUS be willing to lead the Support table on Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/., please?

Stale MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. Tickets

(more of a request than an agenda item, but will be mentioned during the meeting for extra reach)

Please take some time to go through https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=accepted&status=assigned&status=new&status=reopened&status=reviewing&component=Support+Forums&order=priority

If you can add to any ticket (whether that’s with code or with comments), please do so!

If you close them (whether with code or if they’re simply no longer relevant), even better!

Meeting Time

Let’s take the opportunity to discuss the meeting time. Currently, it’s every other Thursday at 20:00 UTC, previously it was every Thursday at 17:00 UTC.

Do we want to stay with the same schedule? Do we want to move back to the previous? Do we want to try something new?

Happy Hour?

Docs hosts a monthly informal hour-long Slack huddle, just to hang out, chat, etc.

Do we want to try something similar?

Checking in with international liaisons

This is the section where we reach out to the non-English speaking parts of our community, to see how they are doing, if there’s anything we can help each other with, or just interesting things going on that it would be nice to share with others.

There’s no requirements for previous participation or “fame” to share here, anyone is welcome, and we encourage newcomers to participate!

Unable to make the meeting, or maybe meetings just aren’t your thing? We would still love to hear how things are going in other non-English speaking parts of our community. Please feel free to let us know via the comment section below, in your own time, if there is anything you’d like to share, any questions or concerns you have, or just to let us know you’re doing OK!

We will make a habit of putting this callout with every agenda post going forward, so that everyone has a chance to join in.

For any other items to discuss, please add them to the comments below, or bring them up in the meeting.

#forums

jordesign 11:48 pm on July 23, 2024
Tags:   

25th July Support Team meeting

It’s been a minute since our last team meeting – so it’s time for us to catch up. Just a couple of specific things that would be good to talk about.

Next Steps for DSA Changes

In March we started discussing any changes that might be needed in the forums to adhere to the new Digital Services Act. That conversation lapsed after that and, given there are legal requirements we need to meet, we need to turn this into some actionable items to move things forward. If you’re able to review the post (and comments) before the meeting that would be very valuable.

Support Team RepTeam Rep A Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts.

It’s been a while since we considered the Team Rep role. I’ve checked in with Marius – and he is happy for us to have a chat about whether we should nominate a new rep.

Checking in with international liaisons

This is the section where we reach out to the non-English speaking parts of our community, to see how they are doing, if there’s anything we can help each other with, or just interesting things going on that it would be nice to share with others.

There’s no requirements for previous participation or “fame” to share here, anyone is welcome, and we encourage newcomers to participate!

Unable to make the meeting, or maybe meetings just aren’t your thing? We would still love to hear how things are going in other non-English speaking parts of our community. Please feel free to let us know via the comment section below, in your own time, if there is anything you’d like to share, any questions or concerns you have, or just to let us know you’re doing OK!

We will make a habit of putting this callout with every agenda post going forward, so that everyone has a chance to join in.

For any other items to discuss, please add them to the comments below, or bring them up in the meeting.

#forums

jordesign 2:38 am on June 18, 2024
Tags:   

20th June Support Team meeting

The support meeting will be held on Thursday, June 20 2024, 20:00 UTC (20:00 UTC, June 20) in #forums on 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/. (a Slack account is required) or at https://make.wordpress.org/support/chat/.

In Matt’s post about WP’s 21st birthday, and also at the WCEU keynote, the Forums were called out specifically as an area to improve and focus on.

“Forums should be front and center in the community.”

This fits well with discussions we’ve been having over the past month or two regarding challenges and opportunities in the Support Forums/Team. In this week’s meeting I’d suggest we try and organise these thoughts into some proposed actions we can publish publicly to address the proposed focus on improvement.

This can probably be a pretty free-flowing discussion – but I’m keen for us to come up with a concrete list of actions. A few thoughts as starting points…

  • How can we address the issues we’ve discussed previously? dwindling volunteers, entitled users, how to make sure we unflag as much as we flag, continued improvement in handling sockpuppets.
  • What ways could we encourage more people to search for answers, and ask questions, in the forums?
  • What tooling improvements should we prioritise asking MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. for help with?

Checking in with international liaisons

This is the section where we reach out to the non-English speaking parts of our community, to see how they are doing, if there’s anything we can help each other with, or just interesting things going on that it would be nice to share with others.

There’s no requirements for previous participation or “fame” to share here, anyone is welcome, and we encourage newcomers to participate!

Unable to make the meeting, or maybe meetings just aren’t your thing? We would still love to hear how things are going in other non-English speaking parts of our community. Please feel free to let us know via the comment section below, in your own time, if there is anything you’d like to share, any questions or concerns you have, or just to let us know you’re doing OK!

We will make a habit of putting this callout with every agenda post going forward, so that everyone has a chance to join in.

For any other items to discuss, please add them to the comments below, or bring them up in the meeting.

#forums

jordesign 10:28 am on June 5, 2024
Tags:   

6th June Support Team meeting

The support meeting will be held on Thursday, June 6 2024, 20:00 UTC (20:00 UTC, June 6) in #forums on 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/. (a Slack account is required) or at https://make.wordpress.org/support/chat/.

Just a little reminder that this is a new time. We’d love to see you there – but if the timing means you are unable to attend – feel free to leave any thoughts or discussion in in the comments of this post.

Support Team challenges

Let’s spend a little time sharing and discussing the challenges we see in the forums, and in the tasks performed by the Support Team.

Support ForumSupport Forum WordPress Support Forums is a place to go for help and conversations around using WordPress. Also the place to go to report issues that are caused by errors with the WordPress code and implementations. opportunities

Let’s also have a little think about opportunities we see to make the Support Forum experience better, more helpful, or more compelling to WordPress users.

Checking in with international liaisons

This is the section where we reach out to the non-English speaking parts of our community, to see how they are doing, if there’s anything we can help each other with, or just interesting things going on that it would be nice to share with others.

There’s no requirements for previous participation or “fame” to share here, anyone is welcome, and we encourage newcomers to participate!

Unable to make the meeting, or maybe meetings just aren’t your thing? We would still love to hear how things are going in other non-English speaking parts of our community. Please feel free to let us know via the comment section below, in your own time, if there is anything you’d like to share, any questions or concerns you have, or just to let us know you’re doing OK!

We will make a habit of putting this callout with every agenda post going forward, so that everyone has a chance to join in.

For any other items to discuss, please add them to the comments below, or bring them up in the meeting.

#forums

jordesign 12:39 pm on May 13, 2024
Tags:   

16th May Support Team meeting

The support meeting will be held on Thursday, May 16 2024, 20:00 UTC in #forums on 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/.(a Slack account is required) or at https://make.wordpress.org/support/chat/.

Just a little reminder that this is a new time. We’d love to see you there – but if the timing means you are unable to attend – feel free to leave any thoughts or discussion in in the comments of this post.

Automated Support Badges

There’s been plenty of discussion about this both in TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. and in past meetings. But with a proposal to have this worked on at the WCEU Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. – it’s time to some to some final decisions and clarity around what we’d like. Please keep in mind that getting anything in place and automated would be good – so we can make recommendations for the purposes of the work being done, and then course-correct later on if needed.

Encouraging more Forum contributors/contributing

Let’s continue our brainstorm from last meeting about how we can be more open and inviting, and celebrate/encourage contributors who are regularly helping others in the Forums.

Proposal for a Support Trac bug scrub

This has been discussed a little already – but lets further discuss the potential of having a Bug Scrub on the week’s we don’t have a meeting. Would this be useful? When should we hold it? What would we expect the outcomes to be? Let’s talk about it.

Checking in with international liaisons

This is the section where we reach out to the non-English speaking parts of our community, to see how they are doing, if there’s anything we can help each other with, or just interesting things going on that it would be nice to share with others.

There’s no requirements for previous participation or “fame” to share here, anyone is welcome, and we encourage newcomers to participate!

Unable to make the meeting, or maybe meetings just aren’t your thing? We would still love to hear how things are going in other non-English speaking parts of our community. Please feel free to let us know via the comment section below, in your own time, if there is anything you’d like to share, any questions or concerns you have, or just to let us know you’re doing OK!

We will make a habit of putting this callout with every agenda post going forward, so that everyone has a chance to join in.

For any other items to discuss, please add them to the comments below, or bring them up in the meeting.

#forums

jordesign 11:19 am on April 8, 2024
Tags:   

Brainstorming a Support Team Contributor Ladder

One of the things that will help with the long-term sustainability of the Support Team is to start getting more contributors involved at different levels.

Currently we have a situation where the Support Team is made up of a small number of Mods, and then we have a handful of contributors within the forums who answer a lot of threads, but are not really involved or aligned with the team in general.

I propose that we have a great opportunity to engage and connect with Contributors in the forums in such a way that we start building them towards greater involvement and impact within the Support ecosystem of WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/. This in turn would create a funnel or pathway towards future Support Team membership.

Contributor Ladder

A Contributor Ladder is a process and tool (based on the 5 stages of volunteering) that many other Make teams have used to identify ways to involve contributors at any stage of experience, and help them ‘level up’ their involvement. It is a great way to think about how to get more people involved, but also what skills and experience Contributors would need to take on different tasks within the team.

Here’s a few examples of how other teams use a Contributor Ladder

Step 1: Identify tasks

The first thing to do is write out all the things that the Team (in our case, including the broader contributor base) does. This is my shortlist – but I’d love to hear of others we should consider:

  • Checking Pending queue, Spam queue, and Modwatch queue
  • Identifying and removing Spam
  • Answering questions in #forums
  • Handling the password reset queue
  • Taking part in fortnightly team meetings
  • Answering questions in the general forums
  • Discussing and providing input on decisions
  • Supporting end engaging other contributors
  • Strategy and planning

Step 2: Match to the 5 stages of volunteering

The next thing is to assign those different activities to the stages of volunteering. At this step we can also identify why training/experience is needed in order for a Contributor to achieve a certain level, and how we acknowledge them.

Here’s my rough first attempt here:
Table displaying details of the Support Team Contributor Ladder

Let’s discuss and workshop?

I propose that we spend 10-15 minutes going over this brainstorm/process in our next team meeting on April 11th as a helpful step towards better understanding the work of the team and how to plan for the future.