Author Archives: Jan Dembowski

Jan Dembowski 6:14 pm on November 19, 2022  

November 17th Support Team Meeting Summary

Items discussed.

  • Nominations for Support Team Representative
  • Using a Discord server for live support akin to IRC
  • “I have this issue too” replies and how to handle those in the forums

The 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/. log of the meeting starts at this Slack link.

Nominations for Support Team Representative

The details are here in @sterndata‘s make/support post.

Call for Support Team Representative(s)
Any active Support Person can be a team representative and anyone can nominate a Support Person. Self-nominations will also be accepted.

If you know someone you wish to nominate or nominate yourself then please leave a comment in that post. As a matter of politeness if you do nominate someone, please consider asking them first. We don’t want to put anyone on the spot.

Using a Discord Server for live support akin to IRC

On the official 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/ site, support is limited to the support forums and the #WordPress IRC channel. The WordPress Slack is meant for administrivia and collaboration. It is not meant as a venue for live support.

Alan Fuller raised the idea about using a Discord server and that was discussed. This was actively discussed and pointed out that anyone can use IRC without an account. Discord requires an account to be used; that may not be a bar as Slack does too.

Many opensource projects use Discord as a way to provide live support to users and other contributors. The discussion left off with perhaps someone can try it and report back to the Support Team how that went.

“I have this issue too” replies and how to handle those in the forums

This was a follow up to an earlier conversation about this topic.

The consensus of those attending the Slack meeting was that for 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 topics if the developer is alright with it then let people pile on to those topics as much as they want.

The developers may inform the Support Team when they want the guideline enforced prohibiting that behavior enforced for a forum topic.

There was also some talk about making a determination if someone is interleaving support, meaning they have their problem and are taking over someone else’s topic.

The exception for that is if the “I have the problem too” replies become abusive. Then those may be moderated as any other abuse is currently handled.

Jan Dembowski 1:11 pm on December 20, 2016
Tags: 3rd party, Links, Self-promotion   

The Subtle Difference Dividing Assistance from Promotion

This is a post I’ve meant to write for a long time to talk about links in the support forums and elsewhere. It’s not targeted at anyone specific. The forum moderators have been dealing with this for years.

I’m going to walk through this with a few situations by example. I’m trying to illustrate a simple ethical problem.

  • If a 3rd party sends people to your site, that’s good.
  • If you send someone to an article on your site occasionally (not as a routine), cool.
  • If you are sending people to your site as a matter of routine then that could be a problem.

I know that’s vague. I’ll try to expand on that.

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 or theme authors in their WordPress 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.

A user posts a problem in a support sub-forum for a plugin or theme and Alice (the author or contributor) in reply  posts an external link to her plugin/theme company site or her own site.

That’s fine. If you have code in the WordPress repository then yes, you can send people to your site or service within your 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 forum.

If you have staff helping you and they’re not clearly designated as part of your staff then get them to add the words “Hey, I work for the author” in their replies. Don’t use signatures but have them make it clear who they are in their reply. If you are amenable to it then make that staff plugin contributors. The moderators will thank you.

Posting 3rd party links

Scenario: Bob comes across a topic in the forums and provides assistance via an answer in the small text box. He walks the original poster through the steps guiding them to a solution. At some point in the conversation he uses his favorite search engine and posts a link to a site that has some good information. The user reads it, gets assistance and solves their problem.

This is acceptable since the link Bob posted is a 3rd party to him.

There is no connection between Bob and that site. It’s not his blog, he doesn’t work there, he’s not getting an affiliate fee, etc. The link provided information that Bob believed could help the person with their problem. There isn’t a possibility Bob could benefit from that exchange except by gaining the satisfaction of helping someone.

Links to your own site

Now take the same scenario above but in this hypothetical another person named John directs the topic to John’s own personal site.

John has written a post extensively about a WordPress problem complete with images, detailed step by step instructions and a good video. It’s a great post on John’s site. He’s proud of his documentation and he maintains the article as versions of WordPress are updated. He has spent hours on that topic and John is the undisputed champion of solving that problem. His intentions are good.

He also shouldn’t routinely send people there like that from the WordPress forums. Note the word “routinely”, an occasional link is OK. Here’s why: John’s site isn’t a community resource. His helping people in the community forums shouldn’t possibly be about getting traffic.

At the moment John does not have ads on his site, he does not offer WordPress consulting services, he doesn’t gain anything but satisfaction. But what if that changed? What if he decided to supplement his family’s income with a small ad or offer paid WordPress consulting services?

It’s that possibility that I believe should be avoided in the community support forums. Posting a link to your site to help people is alright but making a habit of doing that for every reply may not be good.

If the article in question is that much of a resource, then please consider adding that info into the Codex. The Documentation Team is actively working on a Codex replacement. If you’ve a lot of information, articles and documentation on a topic then you may want to get involved with the Helphub project.

Links to a paid service, plugin or theme

I’ll take the hypothetical in a new direction. Elsbeth is a plugin author who also provides a paid service for WordPress users. Her plugin is hosted in the WordPress plugin repository.

I’ll pause to reiterate the opening:

This post isn’t about you, your plugin or your service or anything you’ve recently posted.

This has been an issue for years and it’s good to get it out in the open. Talking about things in the community is healthy even if you don’t agree with it.

That original person who posted in the forums with a problem? Elsbeth wrote a plugin that addresses the problem exactly. She’s part of a team that has built a company to solve that problem. Her company is staffed by pros, they are a market leader in that space and Elsbeth replies to that topic with a long step by step that gets them rolling to a solution.

Elsbeth also refers them to her company’s site. She provided the original poster with a link to sign up for a service they obviously need. She explains that they can sign up and their site will be fixed going forward. And when Elsbeth did that she went too far.

I’m not talking about something plugin authors have posted in their own sub-forum. I’m talking about visiting general topics and crossing the line into promotion.

It doesn’t really matter that Elsbeth’s company site has an extensive knowledge base written by experts. It now appears that she’s promoting her company and that’s not really a community activity.

What about other companies? Why do they get a pass?

If you think this post is about you then you may think moderators are showing favoritism or giving your competition a pass. You point to all the good your company has done, how you put community first, how your intentions are good.

Other companies do not get a pass in the WordPress ecosystem. When they cross that subjective threshold about links and promotion then they are politely asked to stop doing that. No one doubts anyone’s good intentions and if you are taking the time to help people in the forums then you are already in good graces.

But please, keep it in the WordPress forums or Codex. Avoid even the appearance of self-promotion. It will help you and the community if you do.

#3rd-party, #links, #self-promotion

Jan Dembowski 11:30 am on August 10, 2016
Tags: Reviews   

About Plugin and Theme Reviews

I’ve been reviewing the reviews. Occasionally there seems to be some misunderstanding about what reviews are and what they are for in the WordPress community.

I keep coming back to this topic in the review sub-forum so I thought I’d put this down for commentary.

Reviews are feedback, nothing more and nothing less

The reviews have always been about someone’s experience with a 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 or theme. As long as it comes back to their experience and is related to the plugin or theme then their commentary is fair game.

Everyone should leave reviews for themes of plugins and I’m going to make more of an effort to do that. I’ve only left 7 myself but it’s easy to do and I like to think that I’ve contributed by leaving them.

If you are leaving a review

Please try and be courteous and helpful to the author and the people reading your review. These two often referenced posts may help people who want to leave feedback.

Every plugin and theme in the WordPress repository is a gift to the community. The developers offer that gift and sacrifice their time and effort for free. If you are fortunate, and that happens all the time, the author will make the additional effort and support you as a member of the WordPress community.

Think about that for a moment. Someone is going out of their way to provide you with quality code for free and they want your feedback. So please consider leveling up and meet the author half way. Provide “good” reviews. A 1 star review is allowed but make the effort and turn that bad review into something productive.

  • Do start a support topic before you leave a review. If you have a problem with a theme or plugin please start a support topic about it before leaving a review. Give authors a chance to help you first. Just like the code, their support is offered for free.
  • Do share your experience with the plugin or theme and the author. If the author is upselling then feel free to discuss that as well. If you went from the free version to the “pro” or “premium” version then let people know how that was for you.
  • Do offer advice on how you think your experience can be improved. It could be as simple as “make this icon bigger”. Not all suggestions are accepted but many are.
  • Do reciprocate and work with the author. If you get a reply and the author is interested in your opinion then take the time and engage the author. Plugins and themes are updated all the time due to user feedback.
  • Don’t make reviews personal and attack the author. Offer an explanation of why you left a bad review. Include what you see as ways to improve the experience for you and other users.
  • Don’t leave reviews such as “If you fix my problem I’ll update my review”. Extortion is an ugly word and if your review comes across that way then you’ve left a bad review.

Other users will read your review and make decisions based on the words you’ve written. Make that feedback count and help the community.

Just be aware that a user of free software is not a “customer”. A customer relationship is something different and anyone leaving reviews with the idea that an author owes them support or even a reply is misinformed.

A free software user is not owed anything. It is fantastic when an author engages users but that’s voluntary and optional. Providing support is not a requirement to host code in the WordPress repository.

Don’t be discouraged by that lack of entitlement. The fact that someone is hosting  code in the repository means that at least at one point they were open to the idea of sharing with the community. Engage them in your review as if you had a chance to sit with them across a table and talk to them. Your review should be like the beginning of that real life conversation.

Authors who reply to reviews

The majority of authors understand that WordPress is a community effort for an open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. project. They get that it’s not an online store but some people need reminding about the reality of community reviews.

If you are relying on the WordPress review system to generate sales leads then you are ignoring the man in the lookout yelling “ICEBERG!”

You are making a Titanic class business mistake if those reviews are part of your business plan.

Do not rely on 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/ for sales. For a variety of reasons those reviews can be deleted or modified without any notice or warning. The reviews are not the property of the plugin or theme authors. They belong to the community, they are part of the forum and the forum moderators do their job.

Reviews can be used as a sales supplement and it can enhance an author’s reputation. Good reviews from satisfied users should be held up like a badge for good community service. Having satisfied users can only benefit an author’s reputation.

The WordPress forums do not have a relationship with authors such as Famous Online Bookseller™ does. There is no incentive to generate more downloads or sales leads for WordPress.org. Nor should any such incentive exist, it leads to a system that is skewed from the beginning.

The only incentive for the community is to obtain productive reviews that are informative to the users and authors. Informative reviews can lead to better code and a better experience for everyone. Unvarnished feedback is the goal for the community based review system. How you respond to a 1-star review is often far more valuable than any 5-star review.

There are successful companies within the WordPress ecosystem that do not have any code in the WordPress repository. They rely on creating and maintaining their own community and provide a quality product. It’s not easy but their business plan relies on their user’s direct feedback. They do not use the WordPress forums except possibly to provide some support for the community.

That’s a good model. It’s not an easy one but removing community reviews as a leg for their business strategy means more stability for their customers.

An author’s reputation has value

Many plugin and theme authors are trying to make a living and represent themselves or their company. That’s admirable and having a good reputation in the community IS a business advantage.

But be aware that “wrdprezzuser678”, who just left a stunningly acidic review, does not have a reputation to risk. Replies to reviews are like everything else on the Internet. Your reply will be available forever and when you or someone on your team replies poorly it may become something you regret. It will not impact the anonymous person posting on the forums.

It’s not fair: nameless people on the Internet can leave feedback without risk. That’s just how it is. Any author or support person needs to be aware that their reputation has value and is a thing to be protected. It’s easy to say “Well, I don’t care what other people’s opinion about me is” but there may come a time when you do.

What are you as a software author trying to accomplish by leaving a snarky or angry reply? Abusive reviews and spam are deleted but the ones that are pressing up against the line are not deleted. If an author later comes to the Support Team and asks for their unfortunate reply to be deleted then then they may be in for a shock when it is not redacted.

Replying to bad reviews

If you do reply to those users then consider viewing this presentation from Rob La Gatta. The slides for that talk are located on Slideshare. Look at the replies to the 1 star reviews for The Event Calendar plugin as an example.

If there is a gold standard for handling reviews then this would be it. Many of those replies turned unhappy users into people who not only appreciated the effort but have updated their reviews. Anyone reading those exchanges will see that the authors care about their feedback.

Another take on reviews can be found via Mika Epstein’s WCUC talk titled “Reviews – The Good, The Bad, and the Stalker” It’s a great talk and that advice is very pertinent. That talk is focusing on a plugin author’s point of view but that advice applies to theme authors as well.

Overall

Reviews are nothing more than an exchange of feedback between the user of a free theme or plugin and the developer of that code. Users can help developers by providing polite and detailed feedback, even for a 1-star review. Developers can help both users and their own reputation by not replying to negativity with further negativity.

In the end, we’re all in this for the community as a whole, or we wouldn’t be leaving a review or offering a free code in the first place.

#reviews

Jan Dembowski 8:07 pm on December 7, 2015  

4.4 OMGWTFBBQ draft post

It’s a little rough and copy-pasta but here’s the 4.4 draft.

Starting with the boilerplate, first introduction post.

Hooray! FIX TITLE is here! But OMGWTFBBQ!? WordPress 4.4 broke everything?

Don’t Panic!

Before you go any further, make sure you’ve updated your plugins and themes to the latest versions, clear your browser’s cache and cookies and re-log into your WordPress dashboard.

Still having problems? Okay, read on!

This thread contains the known issues with plugins and themes found in 4.4. Please read this WHOLE topic and come back and check again later, as it will be updated.

Remember to be calm, be patient and be respectful. Volunteers are out here to try and help you, but we need your help too. All of the normal forum rules still apply. Remember, you are just as important as everyone else.

If your post doesn’t show up right away, please be patient. With the higher than normal post volume, more posts get flagged as spam by our auto-spam tool. We’re working hard to keep the queue clear, but making multiple posts slows us down, as we have to go back and check if you already posted. Post once.

  • Do use proper capitalization in post titles and body. Punctuate your sentence properly and humanely, it helps us read.
  • Do use descriptive subject lines. “All permalinks broken since 4.4” is much better than “Augh! Help ASAP! This version is terrible!”
  • Do describe the problem clearly. Explain what you’re seeing, include error messages and link to screenshots if needed. Linking to your site, if the problem is on the front-end, also helps.
  • Do be patient. We know it sucks to be down, but posting multiple times doesn’t get you help any faster.
  • Do make your own topic unless you are using the exact same version of WordPress on the same physical server hosted by the same hosts with the same plugins, theme and configurations as the original poster. You may find it weird, but it will be easier for us to help you specifically if you have your own topic.
  • Do mark your topic as resolved when it’s fixed so we know not to come looking there anymore.
  • Do remember you’re not alone.

Also keep in mind that not liking the direction of WordPress’s design does not a bug make. If you don’t like a feature, please don’t make a series of posts complaining about it. Look and see if someone already did, and post there, or consider joining the process earlier on (like in 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. or even test via SVNSVN Apache Subversion (often abbreviated SVN, after its command name svn) is a software versioning and revision control system. Software developers use Subversion to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation. Its goal is to be a mostly compatible successor to the widely used Concurrent Versions System (CVS). WordPress core and the wordpress.org released code are all centrally managed through SVN. https://subversion.apache.org/.). What you’re seeing today is the result of thousands of hours of work and testing, and unless something is outright broken, it’s highly unlikely to be changed.

Again, before you post:

Make sure you’ve read the entire Master List post – and the New Features in 4.4 Codex Article – https://codex.wordpress.org/Version_4.4

Go to your own install’s about page – `http://example.com/wp-admin/about.php` – to see what’s new.

And then make sure you’ve tried…

  • Flushing any caching plugins you might be running, as well as server and/or browser caches. Not just your browser, but any op cache or content network cache as well such as Cloudflare. That will solve many weird JavascriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/. issues.
  • If your host provider has a “Purge Varnish” option or if you can ask your provider to flush memcache on your server.
  • Deactivating all plugins (yes, all) to see if this resolves the problem. If this works, re-activate the plugins one by one until you find the problematic 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(s). If you can’t get into your admin dashboard, try resetting the plugins folder by FTP or PhpMyAdmin (read “How to deactivate all plugins when you can’t log in to wp-admin” if you need help). Sometimes, an apparently inactive plugin can still cause problems. Also remember to deactivate any plugins in the mu-plugins folder. The easiest way is to rename that folder to `mu-plugins-old`
  • Switching to the Twenty Fifteen theme to rule out any theme-specific problems. If you can’t log in to change themes, you can remove the theme folders via FTP so the only one is `twentyfifteen`. That will force your site to use it.
  • Manually upgrading. When all else fails, download a fresh copy of the latest.zip file of 4.4 (top right on this page) to your computer, and use that to copy up. You may need to delete the wp-admin and wp-includes folders on your server (NOTE: do not delete the `wp-content` directory or your `wp-config.php` file) Read the Manual Update directions first.

Next post for CORECore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. CHANGES

What’s New:

  • Twenty Sixteen is the new default theme.
  • Externally embeddable. WordPress 4.4 will now act as an oEmbed provider for posts. This can be disabled with a plugin.
  • Responsive images support This will display alternate size images for different view sizes in the browser via the srcset attribute. You don’t need to worry about anything. While your existing images won’t be ‘converted’ they also don’t need to be as the code is really smart and uses the image sizes you already have rather than make new ones. If you want to regenerate your images to use the new `medium-large` size, you can use one of the existing plugins (e.g. the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin).
  • Changes to the comment form layout.
  • REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/. support – You really want to use the REST API Plugin if you want to use the APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways.. If you were already using it, please upgrade to either 1.2.4 for the v1 branch or beta8 for v2 so things continue to work.
  • Term 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. – It’s awesome! the term meta functions will return a WP_Error object if the term has not been split.

What’s Changed:

Next post for NOT A BUG

NOT A BUG

My layout is all weird on the Dashboard

Flush your cache. If you’re using server caches, or a plugin, flush them too, especially Memcached/APC stuff. They can be sticky. This includes Cloudflare and Pagespeed and Varnish. Anything that caches.

I’ve upgraded and the posts are not styled correctly

Check if you are running `mod_pagespeed` and if you are try disabling it to see if your posts render correctly.

I’m on 4.4 but I have no JSONJSON JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML. Endpoints!

You have to install the Rest API plugin to actually activate the endpoints.

Warning: An unexpected error occurred. Something may be wrong with 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/ or this server’s configuration.

Despite how it sounds, this typically means that openssl on your server is out of date, unless of course WordPress.org is actually offline. You’ll need to ask your hosting provider upgrade openssl on the server to the latest release (currently 1.0.2e).

Next post for KNOWN ISSUES

Known Issues

  • WP CLICLI Command Line Interface. Terminal (Bash) in Mac, Command Prompt in Windows, or WP-CLI for WordPress. – Needs to be upgraded to WP-CLIWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/ v0.21.1 or v0.20.4 otherwise it won’t work.
  • JSON/REST API – Needs to be upgraded to the latest version of whatever branch you run to work.

Hopefully we will not need this one, with 4.3 we did not.

REPORTED OOPSIES

Jan Dembowski 9:27 pm on December 6, 2015  

New Support Team representative

Another item from the 2015 Community Summit is that James Huff (@macmanx) is now the new Support Team representative. I will act as his backup and provide assistance and coverage as needed.

Due to prior commitments I haven’t been able to spend the time I think is required to correctly represent the Support Team. This was something that I brought up at the summit and after some discussion James agreed to be the next representative.

I am not leaving the support team or the WordPress community. 😉 I get too much satisfaction from helping people and participating with this group. All of us collaborate online, but together at a 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. is a blast and we get a lot done.

I know James will do a good job. He’s already a key member of the support team and working with him will continue to be great.

Jan Dembowski 8:21 pm on December 6, 2015
Tags: ,   

2015 WordPress Community Summit Notes

Six members of the Support team attended the 2015 Community Summit, converging on Philadelphia from Singapore, the Netherlands, Norway, Canada, and the US. We covered the following agenda:

Upgrading the Forum Software

The current support forums are powered by a very outdated bbPressbbPress Free, open source software built on top of WordPress for easily creating forums on sites. https://bbpress.org. 1.x install. We’d like to upgrade to bbPress 2.x — which came out in 2011 — to take advantage of its greater flexibility and ease of 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 creation. Upgrading isn’t a simple process, and requires us to update old bbPress plugins to be compatible with bbPress 2.x.

We’ve compiled a list of old bbPress plugins and functionality and have labeled plugins that must be converted before bbPress 2.0 is feasible.

If you decide to help, follow the instructions below and we’ll send you a file — likely just a bunch of PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. functions — which need to be rewritten into an updated WordPress plugin.

If you can help:

  1. Inform @Clorith you want to work on the specific file
  2. Setup a WordPress site (latest)
  3. Install the bbPress plugin (latest)
  4. Rewrite the code as a WordPress plugin

The plugins needs to be:

  1. Open SourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. (GPLGPL GPL is an acronym for GNU Public License. It is the standard license WordPress uses for Open Source licensing https://wordpress.org/about/license/. The GPL is a ‘copyleft’ license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html. This means that derivative work can only be distributed under the same license terms. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD license and the MIT License are widely used examples. 2+ or compatible), and
  2. Rewritten to today’s coding standards

Each of these plugins will be open sourced once they are successfully ported.

HelpHub Participation

Part of the support team’s contribution to HelpHub is to define the Frequently Asked Questions in the forums. We categorized the main groups of users, and came up with the following questions.

The four categories of users who post new topics are as follows:

  1. I am new to WordPress and probably installed WordPress via my host’s one-click install
  2. I can edit my files and likely have had some experience with WordPress
  3. I am comfortable with directly editing the database via phpMyAdmin
  4. I have setup my own server

1. New to WordPress, installed WordPress via one-click install — approx. 70% of users posting new topics in the forums.

Categories of Frequently Asked Questions

  • Locked out of their account (password resets)
  • My web site was hacked
  • Plugin and theme conflicts (how to disable plugins and themes manually and in the dashboard)
  • Incomplete updates i.e. .maintenance file or re-installing WordPress
  • Modify style, text, colors in your theme
  • PHP memory issues
  • Max upload size
  • File permission problems — cannot upload theme or plugin (WordPress asking for FTPFTP FTP is an acronym for File Transfer Protocol which is a way of moving computer files from one computer to another via the Internet. You can use software, known as a FTP client, to upload files to a server for a WordPress website. https://codex.wordpress.org/FTP_Clients. credentials)
  • My site does not look like the theme demo
  • Windows server questions/problems
  • I am not receiving mail from my WordPress install
  • Mail is from wordpress@mydomain.com — how do I change it?

2. I can edit my files. Installed manually or one-click but leveled up — 15% of new topics.

Categories of Frequently Asked Questions

  • Modifying plugins
  • Display excerptExcerpt An excerpt is the description of the blog post or page that will by default show on the blog archive page, in search results (SERPs), and on social media. With an SEO plugin, the excerpt may also be in that plugin’s metabox. instead of full post or vice versa
  • Modifying theme layout, fonts, and functions (dequeue fonts)
  • Featured images (adding or subtracting)
  • Caching problems, changes not showing up live
  • .htaccess issues
  • Permalink issues
  • wp-config.php constants WP_DEBUG

3. I am comfortable editing my database via phpMyAdmin or MySQLMySQL MySQL is a relational database management system. A database is a structured collection of data where content, configuration and other options are stored. https://www.mysql.com/. CLICLI Command Line Interface. Terminal (Bash) in Mac, Command Prompt in Windows, or WP-CLI for WordPress. — 10% of new topics.

Categories of Frequently Asked Questions

  • DB query questions
  • Search and replace in the database
  • Repair tables
  • Character sets

4. I have set up my own server — 5% of new topics.

Categories of Frequently Asked Questions

  • DNSDNS DNS is an acronym for Domain Name System - how you assign a human readable address to a website’s exact numeric coded location (ie. wordpress.org uses the actual IP address 198.143.164.252). questions
  • ApacheApache Apache is the most widely used web server software. Developed and maintained by Apache Software Foundation. Apache is an Open Source software available for free., NginxNGINX NGINX is open source software for web serving, reverse proxying, caching, load balancing, media streaming, and more. It started out as a web server designed for maximum performance and stability. In addition to its HTTP server capabilities, NGINX can also function as a proxy server for email (IMAP, POP3, and SMTP) and a reverse proxy and load balancer for HTTP, TCP, and UDP servers. https://www.nginx.com/., PHP upgrade/config questions
  • nginx reverse proxy or Varnish question.

The support team will provide FAQs and answers for each of these categories and topic ideas.

Annual Support Handbook Audit

The Support Handbook was reviewed by @Clorith and @MacManX and minor adjustments were made. The handbook is frequently looked at throughout the year and there weren’t many changes needed.

Clearing Out Admin and Moderator Accounts

As part of the annual account entitlement review the admin and moderator accounts were audited. If an admin or moderator had not posted in the forums for one year, their account was downgraded one level. So, an inactive admin was made moderator and a moderator went to member.

If there was an account that was downgraded by mistake, please inform the moderators in #forums 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/. channel.

How to Invite and Support Volunteers — aka Volunteer Wrangling

Helping out in support can often sound unappealing when it’s perceived as just repetitive replying to questions in the support forums. It can seem tedious and draining, constantly facing the challenges of dealing with unhappy people. The role can also be prone to burnout.

We feel it’s important to reframe the support role to counter these stereotypes and bring in fresh volunteers.

Sharing Support Experience with Developers

We need to remember that support people are often the first ones users deal with in their WordPress journeys. Asking a question in the forums is the beginning of that user’s relationship with WordPress and sets the tone for what’s to come.

WordPress developers need feedback from users. As the front-line crew, the support team has a unique opportunity to not only help people, but also to spot trends and consolidate issues that coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., theme, and plugin developers, or other contributor teams may need to address.

Being a part of the support team isn’t just about support. We also have a responsibility to be users’ advocate and represent their interests in the wider WordPress community. Bringing new focus to this key collaborative role is something the support team needs to work on.

We discussed the following ways we can accomplish this:

Document how the support team can create good TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. tickets

One complaint from users is that they feel that their suggestions and requests are ignored. One way we can address this is by documenting their issues in Trac.

Not every user request should be made into a Trac ticket. For example, requests that are too narrow in focus and don’t serve the wider WordPress community. But if a user identifies a bug or potential enhancement in the admin interface, that could be made into a Trac ticket, and we can provide the user with a link to the ticket so they can follow its progress.

Keep an eye out for trends in the user experience that should be brought to the core team’s attention

When we notice a trend, a support rep should attend the #core team 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., bring it to their attention, and represent the concern to that team.

Don’t Just Solve the Problem, Help People Solve Problems

For example, it’s tempting to just give the forum member the exact CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. needed to solve their problem. Instead, it’s better to also provide the method and resources you used to arrive at the solution, which gives them the opportunity to become more self-sufficient.

While a more in-depth reply can take longer to formulate, spending that extra time not only helps the user solve their own problems in the future, it also helps other users searching the forums down the road.

Get the Word Out There About Support

Document your experience in support through public channels like blog posts. Emphasize the positives, like how being a part of the support team has improved your skills and performance in your day job.

The support team is friendly and welcomes new people to give it a try. We have a make.wordpress.org site and Slack channel (#forums) where conversations about support take place.

The support team has a low barrier to entry and is a great way to learn about using and developing for WordPress. Approach people and invite them to join the support team. Recruit them into the team; if they’ve ever helped a WordPress user, then they are already part of the support team.

Once they realize and feel that they’re part of a team, it’s likely we’ll see more of them in the future.

Wrap-Up

At the Community Summit the support team was able to address our agenda and determine things to work on in 2016. By working on the bbPress plugins, providing feedback regarding HelpHub, and recruiting new volunteers, we will achieve our goal: to help users and continue to promote the growth of WordPress.

#community-summit, #wcus

Jan Dembowski 3:13 pm on November 24, 2015  

November 19th Support Team meetup summary

Items discussed at the Thursday 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.:

Feedback needed on HelpHub wireframes

Please give Hugh’s post on the HelpHub wireframes. The HelpHub effort moved along and any help or feedback will be appreciated.

WordPress 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. 4 testing

Please test, test and test somemore. The OMGWTFBBQ post draft will be presented for comments once RC1 drops.

More IRC mods?

The vote was “Yes we’re all open to the idea, but it really depends on who the mod is.” Just saying we need more IRC moderation isn’t necessarily productive. At the next meetup names will be offered and if there is a consensus then that should happen.

“Don’t feed the trolls” is still good advice

Occasionally someone in the forums or IRC will (sadly) lose their mind and follow you home or worse stalk you online.

As Mika stated in the meetup:

Don’t feed the crazy trolls.​ If folks follow you to twitter or email or your site, please let me or Jan or James or Otto know who they are. It’s not okay, it’s not allowed, and it’s a first class ticket to banville, population them.

Don’t get involved with them, don’t engage them, just 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. them and walk away.

No meetup November 26th

In the U.S. it’s Thanksgiving and many of us will be preparing to get stuffed. The next meetup will be December 3rd during the Community Summit. That will be different as many of us will be present IRL for a change. 😉

Read the meetup transcript in the Slack archives. (A Slack account is required)

Jan Dembowski 1:13 am on November 13, 2015
Tags:   

November 12th Support Team meetup summary

Items discussed at today’s Support Team 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.:

WordPress 4.4 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. 4 testing

It’s up to beta 4, please test and test again.

Give Aaron Jorbin’s WordPress 4.4: Field Guide a read, it’s very good. Aaron also suggested in the Slack #forums channel to read up on the new responsive image features. The comments there can provide material for solutions that 4.4 users may need.

Community Summit Agenda 2015 for Support

Please consider commenting on the agenda post even if you are not attending. While the summit is 2 days, it’s important that agenda items get represented where there’s interest.

For those that can’t attend in person we’re hoping to sort out something. The summit is a unconference so what actually happens may not be what we intended. It will be fun and I’m sure a lot will be accomplished.

OMGWTFBBQ draft

The draft will get posted after RC1 is dropped. This will include the usual boiler plate material as well as (naturally) 4.4 specific items. If I miss it or am unable to then Mika will post the draft.

IRC moderation

Clarification that @clorith didn’t post on last week’s summary: moderation in IRC does not mean ban people. That’s an option of last resort. Before that happens or is even considered a polite talking to is the way to go. Most people will respond to being asked to be civil and anyone can do that step, moderator or not.

Commercial theme (or 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) support in the forums

How should moderators treat commercial support topics? A user who posts “I need help with ” usually does not know they’re postin in the wrong place. What they should be doing is contacting the author for support directly on the author’s own site.

After some reiteration (check the transcript, collaboration is cool) this was settled on as a stock reply.

Since that is a commercial theme or plugin, we ask that you please go to their official support channel, so you can get support from the people who know it best.

[support link]

Forum volunteers are also not given access to commercial products, so they would not know why it is not working properly. Other community members who may have faced your issue might be able to help you but your best bet is your product’s developer. Keep in mind we encourage you to use the official support venues, as it allows the developers to be aware of issues with their code and gives back to the community in a more robust way.

Which will work fine. If someone is asking for support for nulled product or abandoned theme then that’s a different matter. Also if an author routinely uses the volunteer support forums for the customers then a shoulder tap will happen to that author.

Use of the “user moderation” flag in the forums

The phrase “user moderation” being a euphemism for the bozo flag. The bozo word is problematic. 😉

Otto pointed out that the bozo flag isn’t meant to timeout users but more “this guy shouldn’t be causing this many people to get notification emails” flag. If someone is spamming the forums then 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. their account. If someone is behaving like a jerk, then escalate to the #forums 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/. channel or pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” Otto. The big hammer of doom can be used if necessary (and as a last resort).

If a moderator sees an account that’s been flagged and there isn’t anything in that account’s recent posts that shows why then unbozo the account.

Read the meetup transcript in the Slack archives. (A Slack account is required)

#weekly-chat

Jan Dembowski 8:59 pm on November 5, 2015
Tags:   

November 5th Support Team Meetup summary

Items discussed at today’s support team 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.:

Matthew S WordPress profile was given a support team badge

The badges on WordPress profiles for support are manually assigned. Matthew S has been a routine member in the 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/. channel, participates in the forums and really helps users. Thanks to @kenshino for pointing out the oversight. 😉

WordPress 4.4-beta3 is out

You know what to do. Please test and report any problems in the Alpha/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. sub-forum and create tickets via https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. The targeted date for that release is early December so there’s only a month or so to test.

Draft OMGWTFBBQ post

At WCNYC I had a chance to sit with Aaron Jorbin and he gave me a small list of items to watch out for with WordPress 4.4. Mika Epstein has started an unpublished post and I’ll touch base with her before posting the 4.4 draft.

Volunteer Wrangler

What was talked about is that perhaps steering people to some sort of mentoring may encourage people to stay. This topic will continue to be discussed but as James mentioned

Essentially, when you identify a great volunteer, reach out to them, and let them know they can always pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” you if they’re uncomfortable going to #forums . Also, keep an eye on their threads and offer feedback.

Mentoring could be a way to get people inspired and stay around, but it is something that can need some real time allocated to it.

IRC moderation

Sometimes someone spams, trolls, or otherwise abuses people in the IRC channel. If there’s someone online who can deal with it (meaning ban people if needed) then that’s good. When that someone isn’t online it could lead to some terse moments in IRC.

To deal with that it was discussed that @gagan0123 and @kenshino should be promoted in the #wordpress IRC channel to deal with this. This isn’t something that will occur that often but it would be good to have more people in different timezones for coverage.

.pages in IRC

The verbiage for .pages has been settled on this.

.pages To clarify the term “Pages: WordPress pages are those are made in the dashboard under add new page. Site Pages are those exist on the front end of your site but have no page in the admin such as archive pages, the 404, etc.

Jon will ask to get that updated on the bot.

Read the meetup transcript in the Slack archives. (A Slack account is required)

#weekly-chat

Jan Dembowski 11:01 am on November 5, 2015  

Daylight savings, the meetup will be bumped up 1 hour

Last weekend some parts of the world adjusted their clock, so today’s 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. which is normally at 1600 UTC will (for now) be at 1700 UTC instead. So for Eastern that will be 12 noon, Pacific 9 AM.

Please use this handy link to confirm when the time will be in your timezone.