[wp-forums] Long Time Lurker, Few Observations

[Chip Bennett]

On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 4:33 PM, Jackson Whelan <jw at jacksonwhelan.com> wrote:

> Howdy,
>
> I've actively been trying to help in the forums whenever possible. Nothing
> makes me sadder than an unhappy WordPress user.
>
> Kudos to all who have been doing this all along. It's a great way to teach
> yourself to be patient with people.
>
> My few observations;
>
> - Code often gets scrubbed from the forum post after the fact, and the OP
> is unaware. If there was some way of alerting users to this so that they
> could use pastebin like they should, it would certainly help resolve things
> for them faster.
>

While I would like to see a *bit* more leeway here (the "about 10 lines of
code" sometimes gets taken WAY too literally), there's not really much we
can do. Just about the only viable option would be to have the moderator
*move* the code to a pastebin - but that is asking entirely too much of the
mods.

Perhaps a follow-up reply to indicate the code-moderation would be in order?
That way, at least the people involved in the thread would get email
notification.

>
> - Posts about specific plugins are often missing the [Plugin: Plugin Name]
> from the title of the post, despite being tagged correctly. So you end up
> with generic post titles like 'Not Working', which upon closer inspection is
> about a specific plugin I know nothing about. Perhaps this is user error but
> it seems inconsistent.
>

There's a very specific reason for this (and it pertains to your next
point): the way that the Topic subject gets pre-pended with [Plugin: Plugin
Name] is by posting the topic through the Plugin's specific support forum,
rather than in the general forum. Following the support link provided in the
Plugin's (note: or Theme's) Extend listing page ensures that the subject is
pre-pended, and the topic is tagged, with the Plugin's name.

If a post is tagged, but doesn't have a pre-pended subject, that's because
someone has tagged the post after the fact.

>
> - People don't read instructions. This document is well written -
> http://codex.wordpress.org/**Forum_Welcome<http://codex.wordpress.org/Forum_Welcome>- but I'd be willing to bet that maybe 2 out of 10 new visitors to the forum
> actually read it. I think more painfully obvious instructions on the new
> topic form would help. Something to the effect of 'Help us help you. Make
> sure to read the Forum Welcome before posting. State your problem clearly
> and the steps to replicate it (ie: "It doesn't work" will not cut it).
> Include a link to your site. Use wordpress.pastebin.com to share code.'
> You get the idea...
>

At the very least, the sticky posts should be made a LOT more prominent - as
in, obnoxiously prominent. (And perhaps, culled from time to time.)

...and if I can have another $0.02: thanks again to all the mods; you all do
amazing work!

Chip