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I don't think that staff quite understand how frustrating it is for volunteers to see things like this:
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/want-to-delete-a-rogue-page?replies=2
and be completely unable to do anything about it for a half hour when there are no staff around anyway. To call it a deterrent to contribution to the forums is to understate the case to a near-criminal extent.
These threads are sitting for a half a hour with no replies from staff most of the time ? I wonder if this new feature is more of a way for automattic to give the appearance they're on the front lines of the forum support when in actuality the volunteers are still answering most of the questions that could've been answered faster than they are if we weren't blocked for 30 minutes...
We sure would. Our average response time was well under fifteen minutes. At a guess, I'd say average five.
This is really annoying.
It makes me feel quite unappreciated when I go to help someone and I'm not even able to.
For everyone here:
- Would having a shorter "block" time (say 10-15 minutes) or color-coding blocked topics be better for you?
- What about limiting the blocked threads to just the Support topic?
No and no. Ditch the concept altogether. Stopping us from assisting is a very bad idea IMO.
I'm new around here, but I probably won't stick around long if I can't even respond to questions when they pop up.
*stick = sticking
I know I'm harping on this, but I cannot see any benefit to the users whatsoever here, particularly if not even moderators can get into those threads.
Way to go staff! -
a spammer carpet bombed the Forum this morning - all 5 Posts were properly tagged - as of this writing 2 of the Posts have came out of the 30 minute "being reviewed by staff" with no action done - did anyone bother to really read and approve the spam?
This review process is working quite well
That gave me an idea:
What if the posts DID NOT APPEAR ON THE FORUM for a half-hour after they were posted? I know the technology to restrict the number of posts a person can make in a given time period exists here, so have it say YOU MAY ASK ONE QUESTION PER HALF HOUR and then:
1) make the thread invisible to all but staff during that half hour
2) lock the person out of posting new threads only for that half hour.
@raincoaster : brilliant idea. I think that way we'd have "best of both". The poster could see something like "your question is awaiting moderation" type of message while the message is reviewed by staff....
It's a conspiracy!
Big brother is watching. Perhaps the WP government doesn't want any unfriendly verbiage in the forums before they have a chance to review and or delete.
Seriously, maybe they are concerned that someone could manage to send some sort of virus or other malicious code to harm WP.
Or not.....
@rain @sunnisme
We are monitoring how this feature works and we are actively considering an adjustment similar to what you describe.
In the meantime, posts with zero responses and under 30 min would be the criteria to look out for.
hope this all works out for volunteer support folks and paid WordPress staff.
As a user, unless I have frozen up my screen or corrupted my data, I would not expect an answer right away online. Nice, but it's not how the real world works.
As most folks know, when one phones info. technology dept., one expects/hopes an immediate person to assist . But if it's electronic queries for support, even in brick 'n mortar organizations with IT staff, it might be a bit delayed for a few min. or more for a support response.
And I have worked in organizations with excellent IT staff/depts.
It's frustrating, as stated for volunteers, since we know the answer, and we watch the thread sit there for 30 minutes without even a peep from staff.
I for one, don't think I'm going to play that game.
We are monitoring how this feature works and we are actively considering an adjustment similar to what you describe.
I'm outta here then. I'm not interested in helping if I keep being blocked from assisting when I want to.
You can help, you just have to wait 30 minutes to give staff a head start. :-)
Perhaps they type slower than we do, and of course I don't mean that, just injecting some humor into a humorless situation.
Too bad the staff can't provide the correct answers:
There was a problem with a Domain renewal by a person that had moved to DreamHost and goofed the renewal - the domain was back pointing to WordPress.COM and they had did a renew late - the Staff told them that since their Domain was pointing to Dreamhost they should re-point them back to WordPress.COM - wrong answer - correct: "your Domain is pointing to DreamHost, it will take a few hours for the renewal to take effect"
Another person - had problems with changing the directories, i.e. a self hosted site - Staff let that one go completely by with no answer - took 45 or more minutes before a slave gave the correct answer "you are in wrong forum"
@maidiebike - I have spent almost my whole life in jobs that provided support, repair services etc. we never graded ourselves by the worst response or the average - we always aimed to be the best - if the defect rate was an average of 4/10,000 and the top was 1.5/10,000 we aimed to be better than the 1.5/10,000 company. same with response time - quicker is better - not - well another company has to call in a repair person from off site and it takes 3 hours so our on site people have 3 hours to play with - way wrong - we aimed for as fast as possible - not measuring ourselves by the slow -
The slow down and wrong answers is not doing anyone any good.
You know, I just looked at one of the "under review" threads, from the standpoint of a new .COM user looking for help, and the first thing that came to mind when I saw this,
Under Review by Staff
Please check back soon!
was WTF!?! What did I do wrong? Why has my forum post been singled out for "review by staff?"
I've never seen another forum do this sort of thing (there may well be some but I've never seen any).
It SOOOOOOO smacks of Big Brother.
@TSP
OOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
@TT
:-)
I'm going to sit back and see how this one plays out... Hopefully in a way that benefits the staff, members and the loyal volunteers... =|
I think it would be better if the staffs answer the posts which does not have replies, or has no positive replies, or is not solved, for which the users had to email support. It's good to see wp staff are actively handling the forum, but the point to be noted that the volunteers also did a good job. If colour coding has to be applied, then its better to rank the members on the basis of their quality of reply and the numbers of total reply and with other parameters. Let's see what is the result.
It's good to see wp staff are actively handling the forum...
That I would say remains to be seen. Of course, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt since they are just getting started with this, but if they are going to do this, then they need to DO it. Continuing on with only haphazard staff attention to these "Under Staff Review" threads isn't going to win them any points with forum posters that have a major problem - or think they do.
I met this new for first time yesterday. I felt frustrated.
After read this thread just now, in my mind it seems a way of censoring the words of volunteers.
Many questions were resolved by volunteers in less then a half hour. What is the sense of forbid them to participate during this time?
This was the question I couldn't resolve:
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/images-unviewable?replies=4
Easy to resolve even for me. What did the staff in their reserved time? Why must the OP wait if there is a volunteer ready to response?
(The answer from "rain" is best than mine could be, of course. Best writing, at least.)
Thanks, but my hair trigger some days is probably one of the reasons the threads are now on half-hour lockdown: to prevent me from being snarky to rude people.
This "thirty minutes" thing is silly, it should be first come, first server... someone pops up in the forum with a problem I'm not sure why it should matter if it's a HapEng or a Volunteer, as long as there's an answer the OP can live with. Adding additional drama to their problem -- sit there and wait, and we'll get back to you while everyone else gets their answer -- seems cruel.
Do you think this could have been the last thing hatched up after a night of tequila shooters?
I figured out a workaround.
Observe the tags:
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/javascript-cant-fit-on-one-line-when-it-needs-to-be?replies=1
I like that raincoaster.
I'm going to start sniping (and yes, I did mean snipe-ing) at staff and telling the poster, 'sorry for the delay in answering you, but staff have implemented this 30 minute penalty on the forum volunteers, so that they can get a head start, only they seldom show up apparently.
[MOD EDIT: Not unless you want a ban. We are experimenting with new ideas. Let's keep things civil, please.]
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