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Under Review By Staff is annoying

  1. starrygirl1
    Member

    Wow - did I miss the announcement of this change? I admit I have been away, but I don't recall an email or twitter announcement. I've been on WP for less than a year. I have fussed and fussed with my blog and have asked questions without once being made to feel silly for asking.

    Whilst I have no idea what a support ticket is, I do know precisely how much the volunteers have helped me. I have posted questions and have had 99% answered within 15 minutes - max, most times I've had answers in mere minutes. Had I had to wait with a "its being reviewed" sort of comment, would have made me feel like I asked something wrong.

    For me, the volunteers are more than just experienced bloggers who have the ready answer. I have learned so much going to their blogs/sites. Timethief has been especially helpful to me both here in the forum and for what she posts on her site. The same can be said for The Sacred Path and a few others. I've learned so much from them.

    I'm concerned that volunteers who have given so much of their time and expertise may decide that they no longer wish to assist those of us who might stumble on occasion. How could TPTB not include volunteers in a discussion as important as this?

    JMHO.

  2. raincoaster
    Member

    maidiebike, as you can see from slikbonez and others, some volunteers are offered the opportunity to become moderators with additional powers and responsibilities (though apparently not the power to answer Under Review threads). It was offered to me, and I declined it because with the situation as it is, I can contribute just as much as I want and no more. For me to contribute more than that, I'd have to be compensated for my time.

    I think I am speaking for all of us when I say that we do this just because we enjoy doing it. Some accuse us of "feeding our egos" by being helpful, and I only wish that more people fed their egos by making themselves useful. We aren't looking to pad our resumes, get physical rewards, or earn virtual gold stars.

    I've been offered the opportunity to speak at numerous WordCamps and international conferences in part because of the reputation I've built up here over four years, but that's not why I went into it.

    The total swag I've gotten from WordPress (yes, I KNOW Matt wants it spelled WordPress, but I"m lazy) is: one navy blue hoodie for contributing at Northern Voice blogging conference WordPress talk, one domain mapping upgrade (the very first at WordPress.com), one ad-free upgrade that's been on raincoaster.com for months that they didn't even tell me about!

    That's it.

    There isn't any channel of communication between the volunteers and staff. The staff had an IRC room that they used, but it sort of fell off my radar. I don't know if the other volunteers go there or not. We dont get emails announcing big changes; we used to joke that staff would launch the changes on Friday and then take the weekend off so WE would have to handle everything. We did it anyway. We just like doing it.

    There are advantages to being a volunteer, including the right to look at yet another "CAN I PUT MY POSTS ON DIFFERENT PAGES" thread and go, "Fuckit, let someone else take this one." Those are not options available to paid staff, and they are sweet.

  3. shoreacres
    Member

    I will stipulate at the beginning that I am Not A Good WordPress blogger. I don't pay a lick of attention to site changes until I bump into one, I don't really care about the various upgrades and I think <i>Happiness Engineer</i> is one of the most terrifying phrases I've ever heard. I'll spare you the philosophical discussion.

    But I will say this. When I came to WordPress as a new blogger two years ago, I knew almost nothing. I struggled along as best I could but, when I really hit the wall, I'd come to the forums. And I would get help. Even better, I would get respectful, good-humored, supportive help. And I learned a lot, quickly.

    The fact is that a dozen volunteers set me on the path to being a good blogger because they not only answered my questions, they helped me learn HOW to ask questions. They taught me the vocabulary I needed, in order to ask. And they eliminated my fear of sounding stupid.

    I've had to submit a support ticket or two, and although my issues were resolved, the experience never was educational, enjoyable or fun. Working with the forum volunteers always was, and I'm glad I had that experience before WP runs them all off.

  4. maidiebike
    Member

    Hope there will be better communication and brainstorming between support volunteers and full-time WP staff.

    Maybe WP needs to have an internal, virtual town hall with volunteer support folks.

    I'm trying to envision if Microsoft would have ever sustained user group support forums for so long, for any of their Microsoft Office software and support forums made up of volunteer support folks with full-time staff for advanced support.

  5. hewsut
    Staff

    An update: We have implemented an adjustment similar to the suggestion by raincoaster. The "Under Review" posts are now simply hidden for 30 minutes before becoming open to all user response.

    There have been some great observations and suggestions throughout this thread. We do highly value the contributions of the veterans of the WordPress.com community. Among other things, I think this thread (with all its difference in opinion) is an example of that.

    To all our helpful users--thank you so much for what you do!

  6. sl1k
    Member

    @Staff
    Thank you for the update... But this may make the OP confused when they don't see their thread on the home page could cause them to create redundant threads about the same topic... So I suggest implementing a message that the OP, is redirected to when the OP. clicks the submit button this way the OP is alerted why their thread can't be seen on the front page of the forum...

    -sk

  7. markel
    Staff

    It's configured so that the OP is able to see their topic even before the staff review period is over.

  8. sl1k
    Member

    Oh okay thanks, = )

  9. raincoaster
    Member

    Glad to hear it. That should reduce tensions and problems as well. I've noticed that I hadn't been coming across locked threads.

  10. maidiebike
    Member

    Then please inform users who post a question but no one has responded for over the last 16 hrs. or so.

    I bumped my question up twice:

    http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/several-slideshows-in-1-blog-affect-other-features

    There has to be a clear agreement between volunteers & full time staff how such situations are handled.

  11. panaghiotisadam
    Member

    So now you hide threads for 30 minutes, and if you don't reply you throw the bone to the volunteers. Thanks, no.

    The whole thing is a joke. If questions are answered by staff, then it's not a forum anymore, it's a public version of the support ticket system. If questions aren't answered by staff, then the 30-minute block or hide or whatever is pointless. Make up your mind people.

  12. thesacredpath
    Member

    @maidiebike, knowledgable forum volunteers are quite scarce in the forums right now. They might start filtering back in a few days or a few weeks or a month. Who knows?

    If you ask a question and get no response within 8 hours or so, my suggestion is to contact support directly via http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/ .

  13. raincoaster
    Member

    Side note: Bumping threads has never been considered good form here. The volunteers know how to find the threads if they want to answer them.

  14. zodiac1978
    Member

    @hewsut and @markel:
    In the german support forum I stil see "Under Review by stuff" :-(

  15. zodiac1978
    Member

    Ooops. stuff=staff

  16. hewsut
    Staff

    @zodiac

    Thanks for the heads up. We're investigating.

    UPDATE: Fixed. Thanks!

  17. zodiac1978
    Member

    :-)

  18. raincoaster
    Member

    It Does lead to some amusing situations when there's a site-wide problem. Twenty threads on the same subject.

  19. ludusnaturae
    Member

    I had the same problem. A search in the forum didn't gave me any result. I thought it was a local issue, for half an hour.
    (Before I send my support ticket, the thing was resolved)

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