[wp-testers] Forum questions on testers lists ??

[Paul Robinson]

I agree completely with you. The flame wars are immature & should be deleted
on sight. The search is rubbish, the forum should probably use something
like VBulletin & although people might get sick of the same question being
asked it is extremely immature on the part of anyone who answers to start
attacking the asker. Just leave the post empty if you don't want to point
the person in the right direction. That's what I do.

I Also agree with Mattias, the forums are said to be the major point of
support for WP & as such stupid questions or questions that have already
been asked get asked again, this is partly due to the poor search, but
theres no need to insult the person.

Anyway this is my last email on this subject because I think we've gone
extremely off topic. Oh and Otto I don't think you should get premium
support for free software, but I have seen better support forums for free,
for example the Ubuntu forums. That's not a dig at WP just a hint that maybe
things could be done to make the wp.org forums a little better.

2008/12/23 mrmist <listswptesters at mist.org.uk>

> In message <161617690812230806r5c03532ctd6e0dc84aa6ca8bc at mail.gmail.com>,
> Otto <otto at ottodestruct.com> writes
>
>> Unfortunately, the questions asked on the wp.org forums are, 7 out of
>> 10 times, the first result in a really obvious Google search. People
>> simply don't search for their answers. They just don't even try.
>>
>> Also, the search function on the forums really sucks (a problem with
>> searching wp.org in general), so people can't search the forums
>> easily. Google gets better results.
>>
>>
> Yep. Whilst I'm running fairly OT for this list, the main issues with the
> forum are its poor (internal) search and the shear volume of posts combined
> with a relatively immature boards UI (compared to say vbulletin or similar).
>
> The poor  search means that the same questions get asked over and over [1]
>
> The volume of posts means that people asking questions can get poor quality
> or no responses.
>
> The UI just means that the forum is not quite as accessible as it should
> be.  For example, I find it really odd not having the "latest post" details
> on the front (forum index) page.
>
> Plus then of course you get the odd flame-war, but that's inevitable on the
> internet. (Though in some cases it's fuelled by the above.)
>
> Then you've got the whole thing where there's an expectation amongst the
> wider community that people (core devs normally) should be there to answer
> their really important question RIGHT NOW.[2]  That's a whole other story,
> and probably wouldn't be solved by a mailing list, as it's primarily an
> attitude issue.
>
> [1] And the same questions being asked over and over leads to abrupt
> responses which hit nerves with some posters.
>
> [2] And if they don't, then WordPress is rubbish, etc.
> --
> mrmist
>
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