If you need support, go to the forums. If you want to help make Support awesome, stay here.
If your comment is for support, it will be deleted. If it looks like spam, it will be deleted. Sorry, but there’s no other way to keep up with things.
My internship period is now over and I just wanted to take this chance to say a big thank you to everyone who supported me throughout. Special thanks go to my mentors @hanni and @ipstenu for their help and guidance, and to @jenmylo for organising WordPress’ involvement with GNOME’s OPW.
I was looking forward to meeting a few more of you in person at WordCamp Europe, however, unfortunately, due to personal circumstances, I will no longer be attending this weekend.
Getting more involved in the WordPress community has been wonderful, and I hope to continue contributing back to the community far beyond this internship. If you are, or if you know of a, woman interested in becoming more involved in open-source communities, please do consider the GNOME Outreach Program for Women: http://gnome.org/opw/. They are now accepting applicants for their next round, starting December 10th. Feel free to contact me if you want any more information on the application process.
Thank you again.
Hey all. Not long left of my internship now. 
Just a really, really quick update this week. I’ll mainly be spending my last two weeks helping @sabreuse with Troubleshooting documents. The outline for these can be found here: http://make.wordpress.org/community/troubleshooting-workshop-outline/. More to follow next week.
Hey everyone. This is the last week of the OPW internship period, however, as I took two weeks out for my backpacking trip, I’ll be hanging around a little longer than expected. In my two week make-up time (next week and the week after) I’ve been asked to create some tutorials/documentation on troubleshooting problems in order to help newcomers to the forums.
Last week, I submitted my first two patches to core. These were towards the 3.7 effort to add Inline-Docs to all the hooks in core (make.wordpress.org/core/2013/09/05/add-inline-docs-for-hooks/.) Special thanks go to @kpdesign for encouraging and helping me to submit my first patch, and also to @DrewAPicture and @tierra for their help via the #wordpress-sfd IRC channel. Everyone was really quick to offer their time and help, it really made me happy to be a part of the WP community, so thanks everyone.
I’m hoping to submit some more Inline-Doc patches this week, in addition to helping out as much as possible on the forums.
Congrats on your first commit, have fun on your backpacking trip. We’ve enjoyed having you on the team.
Thanks! Sorry, miscommunication. I’ve already been backpacking. My internship should have came to an end this week, however, I’ve been asked to make up the two weeks I took off. The last date of my internship will be now be October 7th.
You are most welcome. Will be good to see your name on the 3.7 contributors list when it’s released. Seriously, I hope you plan on sticking around after your internship is officially over. Support and docs can always use more people. 
I definitely hope to stick around.
” I’ve been asked to create some tutorials/documentation on troubleshooting problems in order to help newcomers to the forums.”
Now if you could figure out how to make people read them.
Haha. Fair point…
I would like to help you if you need help
There are various ways, I think short videos are the trend right now I wonder if there are some 3D story teller (Volunteer) would contribute to a video section
I dont know anything about design, but I can assist in server side hardning, planning, and other kind of slave work
For the sake of following this comment, i now subscribe sorry for spamming arround, just arrived here
Hey. Thanks so much for your offer of help. I have to create a short screencast as part of my internship, but I don’t think it’ll be anything grand enough to warrant your help. WordPress have a site where videos can be uploaded: wordpress.tv. I’m not sure if it’ll appeal to your skill-set specifically, but if you’re interested in video and want to help out, I believe they’re looking for moderators: http://wordpress.tv/get-involved/.
Hi, I am using and learning wordpress.
I am creating a movie site. Whenever I post with photo, photo dees not appear on my homepage screen. Only one post appears with photo ( the post is ” This is the End “. That’s why I can’t use movie theme or relating to it because the photo does not appear on the homepage with photo. Please help what I should I do. My site name is playmovie.biz
Hey. Do you mind posting your issues to the forums? They’re a better place for finding help: http://wordpress.org/support/.
Hey everyone. So, it’s the second to last week of my internship. Time flies.
As always, I’ll be about on the forums this week and I am going to try to do some more theme reviews.
I’m currently getting my head around SVN, PHPDoc standards, and the how to’s of submitting patches. I’m hoping to submit my first patch in the next few days for the Inline-Doc effort (http://make.wordpress.org/core/2013/09/05/add-inline-docs-for-hooks/). If anyone’s got any tips or feedback on any (inevitable) mistakes I make with my first patch, they’d be much appreciated.
Hey everyone. So I’ve been backpacking around Europe for the past two weeks! Thank you to my mentors, @ipstenu and @hanni, for allowing me to take this time out of my internship. I really had the best experience. The plan for this week is to catch up and get back on track with everything. I’ll be back on the forums as well as trying to see where I can contribute towards 3.7 and 3.8. As always, any tips, advice, or suggestions are welcome.
When @jdembowski gets back from his Griswald European Vacation, I’ll catch him up and hand over.
The ‘official’ stance is this: It’s best to go to where the theme/plugin is officially supported when trying to get support.
This means, if someone chooses to help you with a CSS question, that’s on them, unless the product is violating the GPL. Then it’s messy and ugly, and we really should not mess with it. But we, as members of the community in general, no matter our role, need to remember not to assume the worst of people, and be helpful, even when saying no.
If you want some boilerplate reply, the .wetry reply on IRC comes up with this:
We try our best to help everyone with any WordPress problem. However, due to the great variety of existing themes and plugins it is nearly impossible to know everything. Your best chance is to contact the developer for support.
There was a little confusion about the IRC Rockstar thing last week, so I wanted to go over it for (hopefully) clarification. The people who were nominated are not automatically becoming OPs on #wordpress. What they are, are identified people who are willing to help keep make/support updated with #wordpress issues and concerns. OPs has been split out to a separate concern cause everyone gets a little twitchy when we talk about giving people that much power. My personal critera would be someone who is active in IRC, but also other WordPress areas (like comes to some of the other meetups, contributes in trac with comments and/or code, etc).
There’s no real limit to the list of rockstars, though
@peterbooker and @fris – If you’re interested in this, the ‘job’ currently comes with author role on this blog, so you can post issues/concerns, and if possible attend our IRC chats. Reply to this post and let me know. A ‘no’ answer is totally okay too!
Please read @siobhan‘s post at make/docs concerning the Docs and Support Teams
The tl;dr is this:
Therefore we propose the following:
- Docs and Support remain separate teams each with their own P2 and rep
- we expect that there will be some crossover
- until it becomes impracticable, we’ll keep our chat at the same time, Thursday 16:00 UTC . This will allow any crossover to take place.
I expect there will remain a LOT of crossover.
What do you see as the main crossover areas? Since the two teams will remain separate, what do you suggest for an optimal way of handling the crossover to minimize duplication of effort?
Main crossover will be like when supporters find docs that are wrong, either in the course of researching an answer, or when someone says “Hey, the codex says…” In general, it’s safe to just update the codex, but do those things need to be up-streamed to the docs team?
Brought to the discussion … a lot of things!
Representation
Representation is a weird issue. Being a rep does not mean you’re the most active person in all aspects of Support. It means you’re taking notes in meetings (hi), keeping track of other groups, reporting back here with things we need to know, and reporting out there what they need to know. That said, IRC is a lost child.
Unlike the forums, we can’t (easily) add people as OP (Operators, it’s equivalent to forum admins) in IRC as @photomatt holds the keys, and having him add random people would be bad. But we do need a way to appoint people to help bring issues in IRC that the rep needs to know about back to the masses. As a mid-way point, the current proposal is as follows!
Regular contributors who are active and helpful in #wordpress will be recognized as ‘Moderators’ or ‘IRC Rockstars’ and expected to :
1) try and attend #wordpress-sfd meetups and report on the goings on
2) follow this blog (and make/docs)
3) post to make/support as needed for issues (such as hacks, wp bugs, issues with other irc groups as they come up to ‘pass information up the chain’)
The proposed Rockstars are: @zogot @clorith @pixolin @tw2113 @kenshino @john-c and @angela
If you were nominated, please leave a comment saying if you accept or not so I can add you here as an editor I need the reply so I can get your email and add you here. It’s totally okay to say ‘no thanks’ and saying yes does NOT mean you get OP access to #wordpress, just that you get a fancy invisible title You will not be expected to do weekly reports to make/updates, just be active and report upstream.
It’s important to note: The is exactly the same responsibilities that support forum admins and mods are expected to have. Not being listed doesn’t mean you’re not awesome. Remember, there are some expectations with the ‘job’. If you’re interested and think you’d do a good job and can fulfill those expectations, leave a comment
Based on how this works out, I’ll try and buttonhole @photomatt about how to handle OPs, since IRC doesn’t have ‘mods’ or titles, which really would work well too. (Part of why we need some more OPs is to handle stuff like bot attacks, flooding, etc).
Doc Bot
When it needs updates or changes and stuff, it’s hard to track. Per @pixolin’s suggestions, and considering workflows, we’ve made : http://make.wordpress.org/support/irc-doc-bot/
You can follow that page via IRC, and @sivel can mark off things as done. The P2 powers means starting a line with ‘o’ makes it a checkbox.
IRC Support Docs
Going forward, the Support Handbook will get more pages added to it specifically about IRC and how to handle things and so on. I’ll start reaching out to folks about that, but volunteers welcome! I’m not super IRC skilled, so I will need help!
The IRC Rockstars will be listed on those pages, for ‘official’ reckoning.
Everyone seems okay with @JDembowski (who didn’t say ‘no’ 
) so we’ll be doing that. I will still be around as a Forum Rockstar and still in IRC, so this isn’t like I’m LEAVING, it’s just stepping back from one responsibility: reporting. I’ll be Jan’s backup/sidekick/mentor after all
Remember you represent WordPress when you step up to answer anyone’s question. Don’t be mean, don’t accuse people, and remember you don’t have to answer every question. If someone’s behaving badly in the forums, use the ‘modlook’ tag and walk away. If you need help, use the wp-forums email list and just ask someone to take a look. (IRC folks, you can use this too!)
Initially, @siobhan and I were all gung-ho about merging teams. We were wrong. Right now we’re working on a proposal that will be posted either here or on make/updates about how the teams will work. But we’re going to keep our separate reps and p2s. Do expect that there will remain a lot of crossover between the teams. We’re like virtual co-teams.
Chat times will not be changing at this point, so Support and Docs will remain Thursdays at 1600 UTC. If it remains this busy (and really this week was BUSY), we may split times when @JDembowski takes over based on his availability.
Whew. Can I nap now?
I accept
+Signed
Accepted
I too, accept.
Thank you very much, Mika, for handling this topic.
I will be glad to assist.
Both Nacin and I deal with getting people ops privileges on official channels when needed (usually by asking our awesome contributor @sivel to make it so).
@ipstenu: If you want to give one of us a couple of names of long-term trusted contributors who are interested in taking on the IRC ops responsibility, we can make that happen. Take a week or two to figure out who the right people are and let us know.
@ipstenu
I have the strong feeling, we have missed out two true support-rockstars, who already have helped so many users and certainly have a deeper knowledge of WordPress than I do : fris (from Canada) and peterbooker (from the UK).
I know this doesn’t shorten the list. if you have the feeling, it gets too long, scratching my name certainly won’t hurt my feelings nor change my attitude towards the chatroom.
I have the strong feeling, we have missed out two true support-rockstars, who have helped so many users and certainly have a deeper knowledge of WordPress than I do : fris (from Canada) and peterbooker (from the UK).
If you have the feeling, the list gets too long, please feel free to scratch my name (which certainly won’t hurt my feelings nor change my attitude towards the chatroom).
I’m guilty of missing the names. There are likely more.
Perhaps this makes the selection difficult. But I have the same sentiments as pixolin, they should be named. Also, if needed, my name can be scratched off too.
Cheers!
Just keep in mind, the only ‘power’ you get right now is the fun power to post here. Which is more of a responsibility than a power Ditto coming to the IRC chats. I’ll be talking to @jenmylo after this week’s chat to sort out who we should possibly add as IRC mods.
While I would be happy to take on the responsibility, if it comes down to a choice I don’t think I can stand level with the contributions and range of experience provided by pixolin, Clorith and Zogot in my timezone. fris is a big presence in #wordpress though and should be seriously considered.
I also wanted to say thank you to Ipstenu and the others for being so welcoming in the #wordpress-sfd meeting, it was very informative and helped me to understand the process much better. I think it also helped to alleviate the worries the IRC side of support had.
Of course. How can I say no? Everyone’s here already!
The following is from http://codex.wordpress.org/Talk:IRC/wp-doc-bot, and was part of an IRC discussion. We can talk about this some more in this week’s SFD chat (1600 UTC at #wordpress-sfd, please come if you’re an IRC person!) and get a more updated summary. This one appears to be a couple years old and haphazzardly tacked on.
.first
New text after release of WordPress 3.6:
Please disable or delete all plugins and switch to the default theme (Twenty Thirteen since 3.6). After making these changes does the problem still occur? If no, re-enable everything one by one to see which component causes the problem.
.firebug
After many browsers added their own developer tools this doc-bot command seems somewhat deprecated.
May I suggest to add a new command .inspect instead:
.inspect – Tells the user to inspect code using developer tools of his browser
Text to show up after bot command: Please use the built-in Developer Tools of your browser to fix problems with your website. Right click your page and pick “Inspect Element” (Cr, FF, Op) or press F12-button (IE) to track down CSS problems. Use the console to see JavaScript bugs.
.proprietary
This doc-bot command covers third party plugins and themes, especially with code not being publicly accessible, hence making it impossible to help.
As an inversion of that argument, some users seem to expect answers to their themes or plugins as granted, when the plugin or theme was downloaded from wordpress.org (“But it isn’t proprietary, so you *must* support me.”). For such cases, I would suggest following new doc-bot command:
.wetry
Tells the user not to expect support for each and every plugin or theme available at WordPress.org
Text to show up after bot command: We try our best, yet from a great variety of existing themes and plugins it is nearly impossible to know all. Your best chance is to contact the developer for support.
As a non-native speaker I would appreciate any improvement on the wording.
Pixolin, May 17th 2013
Feature Proposals
- [nick] and [command] shortcodes that display the nick or command, e.g. “[user], please do foo”
- Aliasing through a bot command (btw. could this be as simple as learn foo:[alias=bar]?)
- str_replace of text, something like “replace #evil#inherently insecure#”
- Alternate versions of info texts, like “Congratulations [user]! You have won (the US Presidency|a 300 baud modem)!
- Snippet for this http://wordpress.pastebin.com/fHE4eEpZ
- Bot actions, so that the bot runs /me slaps [user] around a bit with a large trout
Nkuttler 10:51, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
In /query, allow !list or !help (or something to that effect) to respond with a list of the existing one-word commands. (Saves referencing the Codex or other source when adding a new command.)
Please leave comments with suggestions as to new commands you’re interested in, or improvements to the ones we have.
A few suggestions:
.make/[make-blog] to post a link to a specific make blog
We’ve been asked to propose new reps. I’m going to recommend Jan D. (aka @jdembowski ) because he’s very active in the forums and has a finger on the pulse of what’s going on there. That said, in light of his work being a dink and not letting him IRC, I’m willing to act as his ‘mentor’ and fill in at IRC time.
Responsibilities.
In all cases, delegation to someone else when those cannot be met for whatever reason.
This needs to be sorted by Tuesday (sorry for the short notice, we’re WordPress), so please +1/-1 as needed. If you want to nominate yourself, or someone else, go for it
+1 to Jan D. as the support team rep. (I’m a volunteer moderator, so I get to vote here, right?)
+1 for Jan after he’s had his coffee. Or even before He would make a great team rep!
+1 for Jan
+1 for myself on condition of coffee. (It’s an important condition, really is…)
+1 for Jan.
+1Million for Jan. He’s the most patient reasonable person I haven’t had the pleasure to meet.
+1 again for Jan
Pardon me if I’m posting this in the wrong place.
Hello, I’m not usually on the forums but there are a few of us quite active on IRC doing support. People like Zogot, Clorith, pixolin, angela, john-c, popvuluh, tw2113 and definitely much more I am missing out as I’m on GMT+8, support developers on a nearly daily basis.
I wonder if there should be an IRC Team or someone looking after the IRC peeps?
You should come to the Support meetings in #wordpress-sfd
We actually spent a couple months ASKING everyone there to come, and not many did, though some of the names you mention are our regulars. You’re all welcome, and we would love to have you meetup is 1600 UTC on Thursday.
Thank you. I’ll try to be present as much as I can. I’ll find some mobile app to help me get on for this Thursday. Cheers!
hello
Is there any particular reason that probably the single most useful resource for WordPress anything is completely ignored? I mean I spend every day learning about Word Press in real time on #wordpress IRC and it’s as though the channel doesn’t even exist. The information we receive is coming from people who work with WordPress every day and who are experienced with everything from theme development to core changes.
It’s not ignored, I lurk there pretty much all day, as do many others (with so many things to juggle its hard to be ACTIVE in all things at once though). IRC is and has always been included in Support, now they may not like it or appreciate it, but we do try to get them more involved…
In May of this year we talked in #wordpress about additional commands und updates for the channel bot. A proposal was made and Sivel, the channel founder who runs doc-bot on his private server, was informed.
Unfortunately, Sivel hasn’t had any time to take care of the changes so far, nor had any other user access to his server to change the doc-bot commands accordingly. Which is why the question came up, wether it would be possible to e.g. host the doc-bot code on Github and collect proposals there. The channel bot should be hosted on a server belonging to WordPress foundation (and not a single user) and a number of selected members (including some people being online during European/Asian business hours) should be in charge to commit code. (Hence the upcoming question for representatives for IRC chat, too.)
I believe this would be a great service for us users on #wordpress … and hopefully a relief for Sivel, who has spend many hours to build up and support the channel.
Hey @sivel do you know what this one is about? I can’t find the proposal. If you can link to it, that would be great. Pretty much all official communications end up on the P2s for posterity.
you can find the proposals at http://codex.wordpress.org/Talk:IRC/wp-doc-bot
Well that would be why no one saw ‘em *sigh* There are just too many places where we try to have these discussions, which is why we made the P2s to consolidate. I will pull that in as it’s own post for everyone to discuss here You can leave comments on that and we’ll see where it goes!
Sorry for using an “unofficial” communication channel, but nevertheless I spoke to sivel personally to address our ideas. He told me, he was too busy, which I of course respect. Later I talked to ViperBond, but he told me he couldn’t do anything about it either. I then tried to reach you, Mika, in IRC, but you told me, you were too busy, too. Since that day I have given up.
It’s not that it’s unofficial, it’s that if no one knows to look, we don’t see it.
Doesn’t matter. I’m glad we finally caught up with it. Next time, please come to the scheduled IRC chat (does that time work for you? 1600 UTC?)
A bit late, but +1 for Jan from me as well.
You are most welcome.
I’m glad you are planning to stay involved. And 
to not being able to go to WordCamp Europe this weekend. Maybe you can make WordCamp London in November?