Summary for November 18th Support Meeting

Community headlines and updates

WordPress 5.9-beta1 has been delayed, a new date for the 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., and consequently a new release schedule, is not yet announced, but will be posted once it is finalized by the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. team.

Team representative nominations are over, and with only one nominee, we have no need to hold a vote. The nominee is @sterndata, and instead of the vote which would have ensured if there were multiple nominees, we will instead have a ~2 week period in which any concerns can be raised, this can also be done privately to @clorith. If no concerns are raised, or they’re all worked out, the final announcement of the new representative will be done after December 1st, and we will prepare a handover period with some onboarding and similar at that time.

Next weeks meeting (November 25th), will be a very informal office hours, due to major holidays being celebrated in parts of the world, and other social events elsewhere, there are not a lot of regular contributors available at the time, so this feels like a good approach.

Open floor

A note was made that often folks join the channel after an incident, quite often relating to something unfortunate happening on for example the forums, and that the users may not feel very well received.

This is in part by nature of guidelines helping us enforce directives, but we can probably also be better at providing a more welcoming surrounding in such cases.

We, as volunteers in the #forums channel, should avoid “piling on” when someone has concerns. Letting one individual handle the case, of course another person may be asked to chime in, but it should then ideally happen at the original attendees request, to avoid giving users a feeling of being outnumbered and of a lesser voice, or may lead to confusion and frustration.

That’s not to say things do not some times escalate, and we know that not everyone wants to accept the answers that are given. If things escalate, and users do not wish to listen, it becomes an unwelcome environment for other participants 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/., so please escalate such cases to a Slack admin, and they can deal with it from there.

Read, or comment on, the complete original post on make/support.

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October 24th Support Team Meeting Summary

General announcements

There’s been a few questions, and comments, about access to 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/ access being limited from the Chinese region of late, so we figured we’d give some information when possible.

There’s an ongoing issue with a lot of malicious traffic originating from the Chinese region. This is making the WordPress.org security systems limit connectivity from affected areas, and unfortunately also negatively affecting legitimate users.

We’re actively monitoring the situation, and are looking into ways to remedy this for real users, but due to how internet traffic is routed it’s not something that is likely solved quickly.


The initial post for the WordPress 5.3 Master List has also gone up at https://make.wordpress.org/support/2019/10/wordpress-5-3-master-list/.

The Master List is a forum thread created by the support team for every major releaseMajor Release A set of releases or versions having the same major version number may be collectively referred to as “X.Y” -- for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, and all other versions in the 5.2. (five dot two dot) branch of that software. Major Releases often are the introduction of new major features and functionality. of WordPress where we pre-emptively gather information on what users may face and be confused by, mistake for bugs or need ot be aware of. It’s a living document, and as the release lives on the thread is populated with information of broken plugins or themes that impact a larger amount of users, bugs that are discovered etc. This allows us to have one location to reference for information, and to link users towards for troubleshooting steps.


@bethannon1 will be leading the Support Desk (aka Happiness Bar) at 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, and is looking for potential volunteers to help staff it. If this sounds like you, feel free to reach out to her!

Checking in with international liaisons

Members from our international parts of the community in Italy, Sweden, India, Brazil, Portugal and Russia were part of this weeks meeting.

We also looked into if the Master List could be made more easily available for translations for our international crew. @tobifjellner has some good insights on utilizing HelpHub/SupportHub once it’s ready for synchronization between locales, and we will revisit this at that point as it becomes more viable when those systems are in place.

Open floor

A question about process with user management was brought forth, in relation to theme submissions on WordPress.org.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough information to make informed recommendations on the scenarios mentioned, but we invited those responsible to return to #forums with more details for a more thurough check.

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

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Support Team Update – January 25th

General announcements

We updated the Health Check 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 to v0.9 last night, primarily focusing on user experience, translation fixes bug-squatting.

WordPress 4.9.3-beta1 is out, please test if you can!

A reminder to avoid name-dropping in 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/. room. We are in many ways the public face of WordPress, and perception is a fickle beast. It’s hard to properly convey intentions via text on the internet, and what we say can lose context or be misinterpreted. Let’s help each other to remember not to drop names/usernames in the channel moving forward.

WordPress 4.9.2

No new issues have arisen for 4.9.2 (thankfully, with 4.9.3 on the horizon).

Checking in with international liaisons

The Italian, Greek, Swedish, Portuguese, Russian, German and Hindi communities had representatives present providing feedback and input during this weeks meeting.

Open floor

Our January workshop was this week, check out the recap if you’re interested!

Next workshop will be in March, and our new Contributor Orientation is set for February, announcements for both to follow shortly!

 

 

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

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Support Team Update – Novemebr 16th

WordPress 4.9

WordPress 4.9 is out, and as is customary a new Master List has been put up on the forums.

As new bugs, gotcha’s 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/theme conflicts are discovered we’ll be updating the thread, so keep an eye on it for any new items.

Remember to keep general chatter 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/. to a minimum for the first 48 hours after a release, this is done to avoid missing information when it’s being shared at a critical point right after a new release.

Checking in with international liaisons

The Russian, Hindi, Italian, German and Spanish communities are having a good time.

Other topics

The next workshop is scheduled for January, more details to follow, but December is a very busy time for a lot of people so it makes sense for this to right over the new years hump.

 

 

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

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Support Team Update – September 28th

WordPress 4.8.2

No major new incidents, a few issues with the numbered arguments early on but they appear to have been sorted out petty quickly as plugins have been updated to fix their code.

General Announcements

A quick reminder that we’ll shortly be promoting the Health Check plugin as a means of getting debug data, as well as automating some system checks for users seeking assistance (once it’s been updated, the plan is to get it up to date within this week).

BBQ Post (Also known as the Master List)

The WordPress 4.9 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. is fast approaching, that means it’s time to start working on the BBQ Post. For those unfamiliar, this is where we preemptively create a support resource for what we suspect will be pain points for users in the next major releaseMajor Release A set of releases or versions having the same major version number may be collectively referred to as “X.Y” -- for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, and all other versions in the 5.2. (five dot two dot) branch of that software. Major Releases often are the introduction of new major features and functionality. of WordPress. We then fill it up with the issues that arise throughout the release cycle until the next major version is released, as a reference you can view the 4.8 Master List.

Support workshops

If you have suggestions for upcoming workshops, please do leave a comment, or drop by 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, we welcome input here as we’re certain we’ll miss out on great input if it’s just the same people cherry picking each time.

Our next support workshop is rapidly approaching as well, just as a reminder this time it will be from 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 representative and not a theme one.

Why solving the problem isn’t enough – A Support Workshop

Checking in with international liaisons

Things are looking good in the Swedish, Hindi, Russian, Italian, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Greek communities.

The Spanish team are keeping a tight ship, maintaining a consistent response rate so far, kudos to them!

 

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

#support

Support Team Update – July 13th

General announcements

The WordPress 4.8.1 release is tentatively scheduled for August 1st.

User notes

This weeks main event, user notes are finally live!

User notes allows a moderator to attach a note to any user, allowing us to keep tabs on why actions were taken, and historical data if we have repeat offenders and similar.

This information is also shared with the rosetta sites, so they can add notes for behavior we may not observe on the international forums (or vice versa), giving us more control than our previous approach with emails and P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. posts.

The handbook now has a new section about how and when to use user notes, moderators should familiarize them selves with the document, and keep in mind that the handbook is a living document, so remember to check back now and then for any changes.

Forum Welcome and Forum Guidelines

The new forum welcome is now live on the forums, and can freely be adopted by the rosetta sites as well. When translating it keep in mind that you don’t need to make it an exact copy of the international welcome, all languages and countries are different and what works for us might not be a perfect fit for your own locale.

In light of the much better experience a short welcome provides as part of the forums, we’ve migrated the forum guidelines into the forums as well, this ensures a consistent experience for regular forum users who may be put off by the sheer amount of information in the handbook (where the guidelines currently live).

Checkin With International Support Liaisons

The Portugese, Spanish, Italian and Swedish communities are doing well.

They’re looking into an odd issue with a specific Portugese forum being locked, 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. is on the case.

Other stuff

It was also brought up that the #forums channel might appear a bit off-putting when you join and you have to go through 13 pages of backscroll with nothing but emoji (my own over-statement for emphasis), which we can understand is less than ideal, so an effort will be made to keep the random outbursts of emoji down. This is not to say we’re going to kill any conversations between volunteers, as we recognize the value in blowing out in a friendly manner now and then, given the nature of support in general. So if you enjoy #forums emoji, don’t be too put off by this, we’ll say if it’s becoming too much.

 

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

#support