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

[Chip Bennett]

As a matter of fact, Plugin authors *are* labeled as Plugin authors in
Plugin-specific support threads. For example:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/updated-3?replies=12

The same is true for Theme authors:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/remove-viewhide-from-sidebar?replies=14


On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 12:38 PM, Christy Eller
<iamchristyeller at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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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> >
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