[wp-forums] 'Common Sense' Mod Rules when reviewing forum post that says 'me too'

[Mika A Epstein]

Yeah, I'm going to put that in Meta for Otto :)

https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/284

This may have to wait for bbPress 2.0 conversion since I know 'subscribe 
to post' exists there.
> Chip Bennett <mailto:chip at chipbennett.net>
> 20 January, 2014 at 9:55:41AM
> This could be another side-benefit of a "This Issue Affects Me Too" field:
>
> (though I think we do need a 'follow this by email' option so people DON'T
> _______________________________________________
> wp-forums mailing list
> wp-forums at lists.automattic.com
> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-forums
> Mika A Epstein <mailto:ipstenu at ipstenu.org>
> 20 January, 2014 at 9:52:49AM
> Mike, if you could use two line breaks between paragraphs, it would 
> really help readability.
>
> You don't have to like the guidelines of the forums, but respecting 
> them is appreciated. We try to phrase that in the most productive way, 
> but we know it's not 'normal' for everyone: 
> http://codex.wordpress.org/Forum_Welcome#Where_To_Post
>
> The 'me too' without -any- additional information is not a beneficial 
> reply to anyone but the person who posted it, which is fine, except it 
> does a couple things that make it harder for anyone to help the 
> original poster:
>
> 1) It removes the post from the 'no replies' list that many people 
> check on to see who needs the most help (the person with no replies to 
> their post).
>
> 2) We don't actually know it's a me-too. A high number of posts are 
> actually this: "Me too, except I'm using IIS and a different theme and 
> plugin!" That, as you can tell, is not a me-too, but a 
> similar-but-not-the-same
>
> 3) By arguing you managed to derail the whole post to the point where 
> anyone who replies has little hope of actually helping the original 
> poster. This is not to say you're right or wrong, just ... look at it 
> now :) Or not. Because I just wiped that argument part thread back to 
> the original issue, which no one seems to have been able to answer.
>
> 4) Multiple posts by different people are a great warning sign. If I, 
> as a user, see fifteen people posting "This doesn't work with Oauth!" 
> that aren't resolved, then I'm probably NOT going to use this plugin, 
> which is a great heads-up! Right now I see 3 that seem to indicate 
> this is broken ( 
> http://wordpress.org/support/plugin/nextend-google-connect ) so hey, 
> maybe I won't try this plugin.
>
> 5) The fact is, WordPress develops so darn fast, the problem someone 
> had a month ago may NOT be the same as the one you have today :/ So 
> while you think "its me too!" unless it's the say of a release and you 
> all just upgraded to get the same error, it's really unlikely.
>
> FWIW, better than "me too!" would be something beneficial like "I 
> can't make this work either, here's what I tried..." Even if you don't 
> have the answer, you may have more information that will carry things 
> forward and make it useful for someone who has an idea.
>
> (though I think we do need a 'follow this by email' option so people 
> DON'T have to reply to follow, which IMO is possibly the only valid 
> reason to leave a me-too post.)
>
>
> Mike Turner <mailto:miketurnermk at hotmail.com>
> 20 January, 2014 at 9:37:03AM
> So I use the forums quite a lot for plugin support and if I have an 
> issue the first thing I will always do is do a quick search through 
> existing posts to make sure it hasn't been raised before.
> If I find an issue that has been raised already and is in the process 
> of being investigating then I see no issue with just adding a simple 
> 'Me Too' message to the post, for 3 reasons:
> 1. To Let the person who submitted the issue know that they aren't 
> alone.2. To help prioritize the issue log for the author so they know 
> what are / aren't important.3. So I can get email notifications of
> To me, if I just raise another post with the exact same error report 
> then I would consider this as a duplicate (Most forums work this way 
> right?)
> So here is my experience today - see 
> http://wordpress.org/support/topic/please-update-oauth?replies=8#post-5132511
> Now I will rarely argue with a moderator, but in this case, for me it 
> just felt like she was taking the 'Forum Guide' a little bit too 
> literal and not applying some common sense. The issue itself was 
> basically that the install guide for a plugin was completely out of 
> date since Google had changed its API (OAUTH) functionality so no-one 
> could use the plugin. Now someone had already posted the issue, so I 
> just added 'Me Too' in order to be notified by email if the author 
> makes a reply. Yes I know I could have subscribed to an RSS feed 
> instead, but frankly I don't use RSS and if I was to check every 
> support feed that I want to read about through RSS I'd be checking it 
> almost constantly at the moment, rather than waiting for an update.
> Surely by making everyone that found this issue report it seperately, 
> it would be a complete waste of time, and results in duplication!
> Just in case my comments have already been moderated on the post the 
> conversation is below.
> Does any one agree? - It would also be great if their was the ability 
> to 'Follow this post' so you could be notified of any updates (without 
> then needing to post)
> 1. theig072Posted 1 week ago #
> The instructions for a new install of version 1.4.58 are outdated 
> because Google has deprecated OAuth 1.0. Does anyone know how to 
> register a domain and get it working properly? Also Google seems to 
> only allow https:// URLs when setting up the callbacks. Any way around 
> that?
> 2. ravenoakMemberPosted 5 days ago #
> Same problem here as well. :/
> 3. northantsphotos <<< THIS IS MEMemberPosted 5 hours ago #
> Me too :(
> 4.Esmi Theme Diva & Forum ModeratorPosted 4 hours ago #
> @northantsphotos: If you require assistance then, as per the Forum 
> Welcome, please post your own topic << HUH?
> 5. northantsphotosMemberPosted 3 hours ago #
> Seems a bit silly to me @Esmi since most forums will advise you to 
> look up existing issues so you're not raising duplicate posts. The 
> only reason I posted is that I wanted to be notified of updates to the 
> article which you can only do by adding your own comment on.
> But as you wish, I've created a new topic with the exact same 
> description just so that I can get assistance.
> @ravenoak, I guess the same will apply to you also.
> 6. esmiTheme Diva & Forum ModeratorPosted 2 hours ago
>
> "most forums will advise you to look up existing issues so you're not 
> raising duplicate posts"
> As you will see from the link I posted above, that's not how these 
> forums work.
> "I wanted to be notified of updates to the article"
> You can just subscribe to the topic's RSS feed - the link is at the 
> top right of each topic.
> HTH
> 7.northantsphotosMemberPosted 1 hour ago
> It's just symantecs in my opinion, I had the exact same problem and 
> wasn't even looking for seperate help but to add to the post that it 
> wasn't just affecting 1 person, in order to help both the original 
> poster know they weren't alone as well as to help prioritize the issue 
> for the author so that they know its an important issue.
> I've been using forums for over a year now and have seen exactly what 
> I did time and time again in posts and never seen a mod try to step in.
> In my view I was helping out by letting people know its a wider issue
> "Helping OutIf you are here to help others, you can view a quick list 
> of unanswered topics by using the "No Replies" link at the bottom of 
> the front page. The "No Replies" filter is often used by folk to find 
> questions to answer next. This is also a good reason why you shouldn't 
> bump your topics. Bumping is discouraged and bumps may be deleted by 
> the moderators."
> I'll feed back to the WordPress Complaints address about this.
> p.s. I don't use an RSS reader so whilst I "could" subscribe to an rss 
> feed, its much more useful to me to be notified by email. (Otherwise 
> I'd be constantly checking a lot of RSS feeds constantly)
> 8. esmiTheme Diva & Forum ModeratorPosted 1 hour ago #
> Posting your own topic is smiled upon. Unless you are using the same 
> version of WordPress on the same physical server hosted by the same 
> hosts with the same plugins, theme & configurations as the original 
> poster, do not post in someone else's thread. Start your own topic.
> http://codex.wordpress.org/Forum_Welcome#Where_To_Post
> 9. northantsphotosMemberPosted 0 seconds ago #
> It also says:
> "Duplicate postings will be closed or might be deleted".
> Maybe that should be a bit clearer that it means Duplicate Posting of 
> your own posts in the forum, rather than duplicating the same issue 
> that someone else has reported.
> Either way, as I said above, I was trying to 'Help Out'
> "Helping OutIf you are here to help others, you can view a quick list 
> of unanswered topics by using the "No Replies" link at the bottom of 
> the front page. The "No Replies" filter is often used by folk to find 
> questions to answer next. This is also a good reason why you shouldn't 
> bump your topics. Bumping is discouraged and bumps may be deleted by 
> the moderators."
> Moderators need to simply apply some common sense. Funny how you also 
> picked on me only when 5 days ago someone else had done exactly the 
> same but no mention of that here. One rule for 1 and then another for 
> someone else I guess.
> _______________________________________________
> wp-forums mailing list
> wp-forums at lists.automattic.com
> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-forums

-- 
Mika A Epstein (aka Ipstenu)
http://ipstenu.org | http://halfelf.org