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

[Kirk M]

I'll have to step in here to say that I have to agree with Paul that there 
are indeed better support forums available for free software . An excellent 
example of this is the Mozillazine Forums which offer support for all of 
Mozilla and Mozilla based software software plus forums for developers and 
testers as well. And answers to questions very often come within  24 hours 
and sometimes within the hour depending on the particular forum you're 
posting to. Understanding of course that WordPress.org and Mozilla are two 
very different entities and user base, the premise still stands.

I suppose the one thing I've never understood is why the WP forums *have* to 
be run on bbPress rather than phpBB. It just seems to me that the best style 
of forum for the users should come first before anything else and without 
meaning any offense here, bbPress simply isn't it. While I love the 
WordPress platform, bbPress IMHO has a way to go yet before it can be 
considered a viable forum platform.

'Nuff said from me then ;)

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Paul Robinson" <pablorobinson at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 12:00 PM
To: <wp-testers at lists.automattic.com>
Subject: Re: [wp-testers] Forum questions on testers lists ??

> 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
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> wp-testers mailing list
>> wp-testers at lists.automattic.com
>> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-testers
>>
> _______________________________________________
> wp-testers mailing list
> wp-testers at lists.automattic.com
> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-testers