[wp-forums] Drinking coke zero

[Handy]

I think Moshu nailed it.  I think the volunteers are doing great with
restraint -- and I think the entry level is definitely lowering.  Good for
market penetration I suppose, but we do field more and more questions that
just aren't WP related except by a very then tangent.

And frankly, some days I just avoid those.

Where we could improve?
Volunteers probably need to watch the "herd" approach a bit.  If one
volunteer goes off on a poster or they are arguing, that thread rarely needs
all the other volunteers piling on.  Somedays we look like a big ol' game of
"kill the carrier" from gradeschool recess...big monkey pile.  But even that
doesn't happen all that often these days.

I vote we lose the "5 minute install" phrase.  I'm too tired of eating those
words as non-geeks turn to WordPress.  :-p

I'd give my left "man-part" to see the search, when in the forums, default
to searching the forums.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I just can't help but think
that would help people find stuff.  Face it, most users don't even see the
checkboxes to change what's being searched.

And double-face it, the codex is just not all that helpful to the newbies.
Lots of stuff in there, no doubt.  Some of it even still valid.  Some of it
woefully out of date.  Put your newbie hat on and go to
http://codex.wordpress.org/Getting_Started_with_WordPress  Scroll through
that sucker.  No wonder some folks just don't quite know how to start.

Time to pay/find/incent a Pro to document WP in my humble opinon.  Open
wiki's just tend to suck for useful documentation after more than 2
releases.



On 8/30/06, Moshu <moshu at transycan.net> wrote:
>
> I don't think it is worse.
> I believe because of the growing popularity of WP more and more
> absolute newbies are turning to it - "users" that have never used the
> computer for more than writing email and documents in Word.
> For them the "easy" 5-min install "advertisement" is a huge trap!
> When opening the install instructions they realize that it is full
> with words ('terminology' as one of them put it in the forum) they can
> barely understand. So they panic and come to forum with naive -
> sometimes annoying - questions.
>
> I am not talking about special _knowledge_ here... I am talking about
> the fact that for some new users words like host, domain, ftp, html,
> css, unzip, upload are absolutely UNKNOWN words and notions.
>
> And let me add one of my old obsessions: I was asking for a long time
> to draw a line where the WP support ends and other issues start (like
> server setup for wannabe self-hosts, design, basic html etc). Now we
> arrived to the point that we have even questions for CSS and alike
> from people coming from the street - so to speak. People who don't
> even use WP but asking CSS and IE vs. FF and similar questions,
> _This_ will get worse and worse...
>
> m.
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: wp-forums-bounces at lists.automattic.com
> > [mailto:wp-forums-bounces at lists.automattic.com]On Behalf Of Podz
> > Sent: 30-Aug-06 6:06 PM
> > To: wp-forums at lists.automattic.com
> > Subject: [wp-forums] Drinking coke zero
> >
> >
> > and it's damn good stuff.
> >
> > Okay.. the forums.
> > How bad is it / do you think it is / in comparison to times past?
> > Is it because we have less regulars possibly because of
> > summer but an
> > increasing number of people needing wise words?
> > Has the atmosphere actually degenerated?
> > Should mods kill threads faster and harder?
> > Is expectation exceeding reality?
> >
> > 1. Please keep this nice.
> > 2. If you want something said but you are shy, email me and I'll
> > cheerfully say it ;)
> >
> > This is not point/blame. That's the fastest way to be ignored.
> > It's how do we help things.
> >
> > P.
> >
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> >
> >
>
>
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