[wp-forums] FW: FW: Using the forums for contacting people outside of the forums

[Christy Eller]

As another list lurker who intends to get involved... I really appreciate
this conversation, and think it is good for the health of the forum and
WordPress in general.

I would assume that it is the job of plugin authors/staff to participate in
the support posts that refer to their plugins, so it would be
*really*helpful if they were labelled as such. And there are many
times that it
would be necessary and helpful for such a support person to log into a
user's site in order to solve a problem or get information that may end up
benefiting the whole community in the end. It seems like this happens all
the time, as I often see threads wherein a user thanks a support person for
some help that is not described exactly, but it is inferred that the
subject was solved off-list. What is the accepted procedure?

Thank you to all of you who have responded and for all your contributions
in the forum. I have personally received help from all of you. Thank You.

Christy Eller
IamChristyEller.com
970-314-1840



On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 10:15 AM, esmi at quirm dot net <esmi at quirm.net>wrote:

> on 27/01/2014 16:30 Mike Turner said the following:
>
>  Ok so I see that part that says that you shouldn't 'take the
>> conversation to a private location' but I would suggest that there is
>> a difference between taking the conversation to a private location
>> and asking someone to just email you some account information
>> relating to your website in order to continue the investigation.
>>
>
> I'm sure that this has already been covered but I'll give it another go...
>
> There are two reasons for this "rule".
>
> (1) The forums are community based - which means that the forum discussion
> that ensues when troubleshooting or fixing an issue benefits *everyone*.
> Take that discussion off the forums and the whole community loses that
> benefit.
>
> (2) Sadly not everyone who browses the support forums is exactly...um..
> ethical. There have been cases of people asking for contact or site login
> details in order to try a "bait & switch". We'd like to try and protect WP
> forum users from this.
>
>
>  There is no differentiation between an author plugin or a contributor
>> in terms of this rule so in theory by your logic NO-ONE can gain
>> access to a persons wp-admin site or ftp in order to investigate a
>> complex issue.
>>
>
> Actually, there is but it's on a case-by-case basis. Theme & plugin
> developers who are assisting users with their own themes/plugin get an
> automatic free pass. The Jetpack forum is the the best place to see this in
> action. The Jetpack support team often ask for details via email and no one
> bats an eyelid.
>
>
>  The point of the above mention seemed to really be
>> about not taking the whole conversation away from the forum so that
>> future readers couldn't see the resolution.  In this case, I'm sure
>> that the investigation would have continued on the forum but who
>> knows...does that mean that you should just jump straight in?
>>
>
> The topic that caused you to raise this discussion contained posts from
> someone who was *not* identifiable as the plugin's developer/support
> person. Which is why a forum mod intervened. We simply had no idea who this
> person was. As soon as we did know, he was advised to amend his support
> profile to make his status with respect to the plugin transparently clear
> in order to stop such an intervention happening again.
>
>
>  The 2nd site link, as I said completely contradicts what is in the
>> welcome guide. You have 1 page that says : "THIS IS NOT A SUPPORT
>> MAILING LIST. It is for Support Volunteers Only." but then the
>> welcome page saying; Hey, if you want to discuss a problem on the
>> forum itself then join this list.
>>
>
> The forums are for support posts about WordPress. This list is for support
> about the support forums. There is a difference. :-)
>
>
> Mel
> --
> http://quirm.net
> http://blackwidows.co.uk
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