[wp-forums] Sigs on WP support posts

[Scott Merrill]

Murray @ PlanetThoughtful wrote:
> I also think there's a disservice being done to the general support user
> base. 

We've had some heated discussions in the past about ways to "reward"
support volunteers.  In the end, it was generally agreed that any reward
we offer would be superficial, and result in a class structure that we
want to avoid.  So, volunteers participate in the forums because they
want to.

One doesn't need signatures to develop a name; nor to earn incoming
clicks.  If you have answers, people will learn to respect your
contributions.  If you have a site, you can host quickie one-off plugins
or scripts on your site, and earn incoming links from posts in which you
make those available through the normal course of support.

What do signatures provide to the support experience?  What do
signatures provide to the user who's seeking help with their WordPres
installation?  If we permit signatures, how do we then forbid avatars?
Or, do we permit avatars, but not animated ones?  Where do we draw the
line?  How do we filter signature text out of search results, to ensure
someone doesn't pollute that?

> Ultimately, does this
> unofficial 'death to the sigs' policy exist because some individuals on
> the moderation team don't like sigs? Has anyone asked the *user base*
> what they think? Maybe you'd be pleasantly surprised. Maybe not.

I, for one, am quite pleased with the lack of signatures. The forums
have always been a place to seek help.  We don't have a lot of off-topic
chatter.  The forums _wonderfully_ support quick visual scanning,
because one's eyes need to filter out multi-line signatures and avatars.

The forums are _rich_ with information.  The density of info is
extremely high, and I want to keep it that way.

> So, put a sticky up which reads, "Yes, we know you put a sig on every
> email you send, we know you're used to PHPbb, FUDForum, vbBulletin,
> Invision Powerboard, etc, we know you're used to providing hours of
> support in email forums (with sigs), but we. don't. like. sigs." Or
> *something* to let people know that censorship awaits.

I don't think any reasonable human being using a forum today expects
carte blanche permission to write whatever they want on any forum with
impunity.

It is impossible to codify all the things which are forbidden, or
permitted.  For a long time, the driving condition was that the less one
notice's a moderator's influence, the better we're doing our jobs.

I don't consider it censorship to edit a post on a forum on which the
original poster is not the owner.  There's no guarantee that anything
posted will be preserved.

> And one last suggestion. If policing is important (and I agree that it
> is), please give some thought to implementing a 'Report this post' link
> so that, again, the user base can contribute to the effort. I'm sure
> that would be a great help in the process, since there's many, many more
> of them.

That's a super idea!

Cheers,
Scott

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