[wp-forums] Jan Dembowski

[Xen]

There is a moderator on the WP support forums called Jan Dembowski who is 
really badly humoured, or let's say chagrined, and who will do unfair 
stuff like close forum topics to new replies (after having the last say 
himself) for no other reason than that a contributor (like myself) said 
something that hit a wrong nerve with him.

Let's call it "looking at him in the wrong way."

And let's call it "abusing a power position to settle an argument instead 
of dealing with it as a grown person."

I had made a reply to my own topic that has existed for a while talking 
about my experiences with the 3.9.2 security update, which broke my 
(amateur, hobby) WordPress installation (that is allowed to be broken at 
every turn, more or less) in a slight way. And I related the interesting 
stuff I had learned from that.

Mr. Dembowski insisted that no person should modify core WP files like I 
had and that the breakage of this minor feature was my 'own fault' and 
that I would perhaps have more luck doing a search in the plugin 
repository with some obvious keywords he suggested.

I replied by saying that he was making assumptions as to the importance of 
my site's operation, that there was no problem whatsoever and I was not 
making a support request of anyone, I was just relating a fun experience.

I also suggested he take a break if he saw every supposed 'negative' as a 
thing that required immediate fixing, and that he take a step back if he 
could not enjoy any type of post that was not an utterly serious request 
for help on these forums.

Of course, I did not express these things as eloquently as I do now, or as 
verbally apparent, but that's what I said to him.

He responded by saying I was wrong about everything, and that the forum 
was not a place for having fun, and he ended with a jab at me for having 
abused his forum.

Such a badly humoured moderator who is so tensed up that he can only think 
in terms of problems and cannot appreciate anything even moderately less 
"important" or "urgent" or "serious" being discussed on the forums .... as 
if this is some life or death race to keep every single WordPress install 
on the planet running smoothly and without issue.... and it is also HIS 
responsibility to achieve that...

For he is acting like he is the "support guy" and I am the "noob who needs 
help". And that I am only on these forums to /receive/ help. But most of 
the time I am not asking help at all. Most of the time, when I do visit, 
when I do have time and focus in my life to be visiting these forums, I 
spend most of my time answering to other people's support requests.

I learn most from helping other people, so I pick questions that I want to 
know the answers to, and then I set about answering them. These questions 
are always smaller than the stuff I need to do myself, so they are like 
the sub-problems to my own needs and plans. Because of that, I save no 
energy or effort in trying to help these people and get them the perfect 
solution for what they want, sometimes spending hours and hours and hours 
to develop a solution for someone I don't know. And I believe the forums 
are a better place because of that, no matter how little I do....

And now suddenly I am not allowed to have a few jokes in my own thread in 
the HACKS subforum that is dedicated to core adjustment (my thread, I 
mean) for reasons of creating (and experimenting with) diversity design as 
an answer to automated spamming and spam registrations and the like...

...and this MODERATOR comes in to tell me that HACKING WORDPRESS IS NOT 
ALLOWED.

In the bloody HACKS subforum.

Fucking hell, what did I do wrong?

You tell me. Here is the link:

https://wordpress.org/support/topic/anti-spam-registrations

And I know this Dembowski is probably reading this, so I will say again to 
you: if you are living under such a tight schedule, maybe just MAYBE it is 
time to take a break now and then so you can appreciate the less serious 
aspects of life again, yes?

I think everyone would benefit from that, certainly here on this forum.

Bye now.

Oh, and I do expect an apology. I am not going to keep sitting around on 
these forums doing my best for everyone if the people in charge think it 
is a good thing for berating me for doing my work. That spells 
"unappreciative" like nothing else... No matter how valuable the forums 
may have been to me before, if I'm getting abused like that, there is no 
point for me to stay, or to be staying.

And I would just need to find some other way or mode of getting my 
information and my 'learning kicks'. That's all.


"xennex81" on the forums, or "Bart Schouten" from the Netherlands.