[wp-hackers] Advice on providing plugin support

[Paul]

Chip,

Yes yes, I'm aware of the wp.org support forums. All my public plugins are hosted at wordpress.org. But all that does is give the user a listing of topics related to that plugin. There is still no way to allow the user to run a secondary search for a topic within that plugin listing. Only the title/subject is display. 

For example one of my plugin, Media-Tags, have the forum listing http://wordpress.org/tags/media-tags?forum_id=10 I know of at least 3 different topics related to using my plugin with the eShop plugin. But how can a user looking for support of the plugin related specifically to eShop filter the listing? The global search in the top right of the page is for all of wordpress.org. 

P-




On Jul 15, 2011, at 10:24 AM, Chip Bennett wrote:

> The WPORG support forums are a great solution, especially if the Plugin is
> hosted by WPORG. Each hosted Plugin (and Theme, for that matter) has its own
> dedicated forum, with its own RSS feed, which makes monitoring quite
> simple.
> 
> Also, if you can direct users to submit their support queries directly to
> the Plugin's dedicated forum, the topic will be auto-tagged, and the subject
> auto-appended, with the Plugin slug and name, respectively, which makes
> searching considerably easier.
> 
> FYI: to find your Plugin's dedicated forum, go to the Plugin's Extend
> listing page, and look in the lower right-hand corner for the "Write a new
> topic" link. If the forum already has topics posted, you will see them
> listed under "See what others are saying".
> 
> Chip
> 
> On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 9:07 AM, Paul <paul at codehooligans.com> wrote:
> 
>> Callum,
>> 
>> Yeah, I'm in the same situation with my plugins. I host respective pages
>> for each plugin where people can post questions. And I monitor the
>> wordpress.org forums for items posted related to the plugin. For each
>> release I update the page content with notes on new features and new
>> functionality. But you know what? I found people/users really don't like to
>> read. When a user comes to my site it is generally because they are stuck
>> and possibly under a deadline. So they are scanning for answers.
>> 
>> I thought about doing away with the comments and force users to post to
>> wordpress.org forums. At least that way the information is housed within a
>> single system. But as you mentioned it is harder to search. Another thought
>> for my own site was to hack the comment form so that I can provide a
>> dropdown where the user can select the version of the plugin. Then users
>> would be able to filter the comments for things related to a specific
>> version of the plugin. But my worry with this approach is the user
>> submitting the comment will not bother to properly set the version. If you
>> are like me you may get plenty of comments from users like 'I installed you
>> plugin and not my site is broken. Help!!!' no other information is provided
>> about which WP version, theme, other plugins, etc.
>> 
>> I know there are some paid services out there how will help manage comments
>> and provide some hand-holding. I've not investigated this because I don't
>> make any real money off my plugins. So can't see adding out of pocket
>> expenses to provide support. When I have time I triage the comments. When I
>> have tons or client work I let then sit. Sometimes other users provide
>> how-to replies that seem to solve the original commenters questions.
>> 
>> I'd be interested in seeing other's comments.
>> 
>> P-
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Jul 15, 2011, at 9:44 AM, Callum Macdonald wrote:
>> 
>>> Holamigos,
>>> 
>>> I provide support for a plugin I wrote. Currently I funnel the support
>>> requests into a WordPress post on my blog, and ask people to post
>>> comments with their requests.
>>> 
>>> I'm now up to about 1000 comments between a few posts. It works ok, but
>>> there's no way to search the archive. So, I get the same questions over
>>> and over. I'm working on expanding the FAQ, but people seem to miss it.
>>> 
>>> I also follow posts on the WordPress.org forum which are tagged with the
>>> plugin. However, this suffers from the same problem, there's no way to
>>> search the history.
>>> 
>>> Ideally, I'd like to force users to search before posting a new
>>> question. When they type their question, I'd like that to be used to
>>> auto search the history, and hopefully, present useful answers before
>>> they submit. A little like GetSatisfaction for example.
>>> 
>>> Are you a plugin author? How do you provide support? Do you have any
>>> recommendations? Does GetSatisfaction or another tool work for you?
>>> 
>>> Thank you in advance for any advice offered.
>>> 
>>> Love & joy - Callum.
>>> 
>>> ==
>>> Callum Macdonald
>>> 
>>> UK mobile: +44 7968 378 810
>>> Desk: +44 845 126 0875
>>> www.callum-macdonald.com
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
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