[wp-forums] Plugin posts (again)

[Les Bessant]

I've mumbled about this before, but I thought I'd have another try...

The interface that sends people from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ to
the forums really needs more explanation, or a little automation to make it
actually useful. People having issues or questions with a plugin may well
not be familiar with the workings of the forums, and it seems that many of
them assume that they're submitting to a forum or site that is specific to
the plugin. This leads to questions that are devoid of context, leading to
them being unanswered[1]. I know at least one mod changes the subject lines
when he spots these, but unless we have genetically enhanced mods who never
need to sleep, eat, work or do anything else, odd plugin posts will often
linger for quite some time.

Suggestions:

1. Have a separate posting form linked from the Plugins Directory. This
could have some explanatory text about the forums, and could automagically
prefix the subject line with the *name* of the plugin[2]
2. Use whatever coding magic is appropriate to insert a link to the plugin
in the post. 

Yet another example here:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/136787?replies=1. Read the subject line
and the post content, and your reaction is likely to be "Err, it's been out
over a week, where have you been?". Spotting the tag gives you the clue that
the poster is talking about a plugin...

Making some changes to this would help people who have questions, and those
trying to answer them. 


[1] Or worse, answered with a "what the photon are you on about?", which
confuses the OP who assumed that the question was clear enough, which it
would have been if it had appeared with a clear label indicating it was
about the plugin in question, which is a potential source of the
communication problems that lead to complaints about people being "rude"
[2] Adding a tag is quite nice, but it requires people to look up, and
mentally translate a tag into a plugin name, then locate the plugin to have
a clue. 

-- 
Les Bessant les at lcb.me.uk
Losing it[1] - http://lcb.me.uk
My flickr pictures - http://flickr.com/photos/lesbessant/