[wp-forums] Abusive use of resolved status

[Francisco de Azevedo]

*@Esmi:* You made very good points, especially about OPs tendency to go MIA
after opening threads or receiving solutions that seem to work.
I also agree with you that clear guidelines should be set in order to
"police" these forum practices.

Perhaps we could take the example under discussion to further narrow this
down. What I noticed, is that:
*1.* the plugin dev never actually posted anything (the url request came
from me);
*2.* a url was not really necessary for the plugin dev to instruct the OP
how to make the change she wanted, since he knows his code and could very
easily have told her where to look.
Taking these two items in consideration, one of the requisites to change
the resolution status could be for plugin devs to have actually tried to
address the OP's problem(s). That, added to the explanation you suggested
(also supported by Andrea) should be enough to clear any doubts regarding
the use of the resolved status.

Marventus


On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 11:22 AM, Andrea Rennick <andrea at ronandandrea.com>wrote:

> "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."
>
> Plugin authors resolved old threads that have not had responses in a month
> or so should definitely use this sort of phrasing.
>
> That way, there;s at least an explanation.
>
>
> a.
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 11:16 AM, esmi at quirm dot net <esmi at quirm.net
> >wrote:
>
> > 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
> > --
> > http://quirm.net
> > http://blackwidows.co.uk
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>
>
> --
> --
> Andrea Rennick, http://wpebooks.com and http://ronandandrea.com
> Co-author of WordPress All-In-One For Dummies http://rml.me/aio
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