WordPress.org’s support forums are a vital resource and communication tool for users supporting their own sites and developers extending the software. Visiting the forums often means users have gotten stuck somehow and need to have a successful support experience in order to continue on their WordPress journeys. They are looking for help deciphering the meaning…
Providing support on the WordPress.org forums is one of the easiest ways to contribute to WordPress and those who do are some of the unsung heroes of the project. One of those heroes is James Huff known as MacManX on the forums. Huff has been supporting users for 13 years and recently celebrated an awesome…
Over the past few months the WordPress Support Team has been brainstorming ways to improve support across various aspects of the community. One new idea they are pursuing is hosting workshops where WordPress.org theme and plugin authors can present how they approach supporting their free, open source products that have been released to the community.…
If you noticed an update for Headway, it’s not your mind playing tricks. Late last week, Headway Themes released version 3.8.9 to patch a potential security vulnerability involving the license key field. The vulnerability was discovered and reported to Sucuri by Gary Bairéad, a former Headway Themes employee. At the time of writing, the company…
WordPress the open-source software project is licensed under the GPLv2. This license grants users and developers the following freedoms. The freedom to run the program, for any purpose. The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can…
It’s almost inevitable that as a WordPress plugin gains popularity, it will receive a bad review. How plugin authors handle and respond to bad reviews is crucial, especially in a public forum. Mika Epstein, who helps review plugins before they’re added to the directory and is a dedicated support forum volunteer, gives advice on how…
Earlier this year, the WordPress project made a huge move by adopting accessibility coding standards for new and updated code. If you’re struggling to meet WCAG 2.0 guidelines in your WordPress projects and need help, check out the new Accessibility section in the WordPress.org support forums. Amanda Rush, who helps WordPress developers make their themes…
Mika Epstein, who helps review plugins before they’re added to the directory and is a dedicated support forum volunteer, has a great post on the difficulties associated with plugins that require license keys for updates. She addresses topics like keeping users informed, ownership, and bundling plugins with themes. She also suggests the following solution to…
WooThemes announced this week that it will be retiring @WooSupport, its Twitter support account, in favor of other support channels. Social media manager Marina Pape reports that support at the company is otherwise healthy. “On the contrary, our support is cooking with Customer Happiness this week averaging 90%, all support teams coming in under 24…
Providing WordPress support is an important but often, thankless job. From support forums to IRC, there’s no shortage of people who need help with WordPress. However, participating in the various support channels is one of the easiest ways to contribute back to WordPress. In particular, if you’re interested in becoming a volunteer on the support…
A few days ago, Siobhan McKeown published a graphic on Twitter that shows sign ups to the WordPress.org support forums between 2005 and 2014. Notice the huge increase in registrations between 2009 and 2010. I asked McKeown what could account for the surge and she believes it’s the release of WordPress 3.0. WordPress 3.0 was…
Have you ever requested support for WordPress only to have someone request information related to your webhosting server configuration? Typically, you’d have to create a php.info file and send them a link to it. Depending on the person’s skill set, this can be a difficult task, let alone interpreting the information the file provides. The…
A few days ago, GoDaddy quietly removed the ability to submit a trouble ticket or an email to receive support. This was verified through the GoDaddy Help twitter account. @mistical We did discontinue our email support. However, we do offer live chat now. It can be accessed here: http://t.co/HFw77fAJTh ^KJ — GoDaddy Help (@GoDaddyHelp) May…
Support is one of the most difficult and expensive aspects of a business. At the same time, it’s often a determining factor on whether a company sticks around for one or several years. One thing I’ve noticed most of the established WordPress commercial theme businesses have in common is their reputation for providing good support.…
After the release of WordPress 3.9, I decided to help out in the support forums since they usually become busy soon after a release. Providing support in the WordPress.org forums gives you a clear indication on how well a release is being received and whether or not anything major broke. After spending five hours in…