[wp-forums] Abusive use of resolved status

[esmi at quirm dot net]

on 16/08/2012 14:37 Francisco de Azevedo said the following:
> @Esmi, I see your point, but I would have to agree with Chris that this
> plugin dev's use of the "resolved" status seems inappropriate, especially
> in the thread I posted a link to where no actual effort to solve the OP's
> problem was ever undertaken.

Ah but is that because the OP never responded to the request for a page 
link? :-)

> Also, I fear that letting these things slide could open the door to plugin
> devs not actually posting real solutions and then waiting long enough to
> mark the threads as resolved.

I agree that these have to be judged on a case by case basis but when I 
sampled a few of these "resolved" topics for that plugin, in every case, 
the OP had never responded to a question or a posted solution. Did I 
miss something?

> Lastly, these practices seem to also render plugin stats purposeless, as
> the resolved to unresolved data inside plugin pages will not be accurate at
> all. And as Agent Smith and his clones (Matrix Reloaded) would put it, "It
> is purpose that created us, purpose that connects us (...) that guides
> us...", etc, hahaha.

There's the other side of the coin to consider here too. People 
(including plugin authors) often post solutions or ask further questions 
in these situations only for the OP to apparently ignore them. 
Currently, if plugin topics are left unresolved, this reflects badly on 
the plugin's support stats and I can understand only too well why this 
causes concern amongst plugin devs who do monitor the forums regularly.

FWIW, I've started do the same thing on eShop topics. If Rich or I 
respond and there's no reply from the OP, then after a while, I'll go 
back and post something along the lines of:

"As there has not been an update to this topic for a while, I can only 
assume that the issue has now been resolved and I am now marking it as 
such. If this is incorrect, please feel free to change the topic's 
status and/or post a followup."

If I didn't do this, then we end up with a resolution status of less 
than 50% which, IMO, hardly reflects the support work we actually do 
(most topics are answered within 24 hours). So we're caught between a 
rock & a hard place.

> So, could you please reconsider? Pretty please, with sugar on top? ;-P

I'm more than happy to open this up for further discussion. Given that 
plugin devs can resolve and close(?) their plugin's topics, how should 
this be policed fairly?

Mel
-- 
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http://blackwidows.co.uk