Is it possible to close the support forum?

[Marcel]

Dear @moderator,

Some months ago it seems I committed a mistake here an now all my replies are filtered and blocked or edited by someone. Sometimes he takes more than 12 hours to approve that and the most users can’t wait for it. So they just leave without support. If I have lucky, the plugin won’t have a bad review.

I know you are trying to protect the users and that’s a beautiful thing, but at the same time it makes the support forum useless.

I would like to know if it’s possible to remove the forum for this plugin. Or alternatively remove the moderation.

I also used to ask for a 5-rating here, when a topic was closed, but the moderator says I’m being dishonest. So all of this has being very frustrating experience.

Thanks a lot.

[Samuel Wood (Otto)]

I would like to know if it’s possible to remove the forum for this plugin.

No. We can host your plugin, or we can not host your plugin. Hosting your plugin means that the support forum exists. If you want us to remove your plugin, then we can do that as well.

Or alternatively remove the moderation.

No. The moderation gets removed when you stop breaking the rules. Stop asking people for access to their sites, stop asking them to email you directly for such things, and learn to do support in public on the forums.

I also used to ask for a 5-rating here, when a topic was closed, but the moderator says I’m being dishonest. So all of this has being very frustrating experience.

You find it frustrating? We find it frustrating when somebody comes along and breaks the rules of the forums continually, and then doesn’t learn anything when the moderators tell them to not do those things.

Stop, listen, and learn from your mistakes. You may have good intentions, but sometimes that isn’t enough, and if you continue to be a pain in the forums, then it will no longer be worth our time to freely host your plugin on www.ads-software.com.

[Marcel]

“Stop asking people for access to their sites”
@otto42, it happened once, some months ago.

“stop asking them to email you directly for such things”
Sorry, @otto42, but the moderator reads all my messages and never said anything about that. It won’t happen again.

“and learn to do support in public on the forums.”
That’s the point, @otto42. The support here is not happening anymore.

“I also used to ask for a 5-rating…”
Can’t I do that, @otto42? Sorry, where it’s written, please? I would like to learn more, please.

“breaks the rules of the forums continually”
As I have said, that happened once, @otto42.

“doesn’t learn anything when the moderators tell them to not do those things”
As I have said, I never committed that mistake again, @otto42.

“and learn from your mistakes.”
As I have said, that happened once and I never committed that mistake again, @otto42.

“you continue to be a pain in the forums”
@otto42, I don’t want to be a pain. I just contacted you to try to understand what was happening here to provide better support. During those 3.5 years with this plugin I already saw many users saying that they had no support from other developers. And this is exactly what I’m trying to avoid here. Make sure that if I’m being a pain, that’s because I’m still interested in this support forum. Much more than the most developers.

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

@marceljm – Stop @-mentioning people like that. That’s like pressing someone’s doorbell a bunch of times while shouting their name and calling them on their phone. Stop. Take a DEEP BREATH, and calm down.

You have three options:

1) Keep your plugin and provide support in the forums.

2) Keep your plugin but make it clear in the readme (and with a sticky post here, which we can certainly help you with) that you do not provide free support, and direct people where to go instead.

3) Ask us to close your plugins permanently.

Those are your available choices. Please let us know which you want.

As for your removal from being moderated, as Otto said, when you top breaking the guidelines, it will be removed. Since you just @-mentioned Otto 8 times in one reply, that’s not about to happen any time soon. Let us be clear what you’ve done, and what you were warned about:

* Asking for Admin access to someone’s side
* Harassing users following a bad review
* Asking users to email you
* Abuse of the @-mention tag
* Creating ‘test’ posts in the forums

I can see that you were notified of all of these. If you’re not getting emails from WordPress, please make sure @www.ads-software.com is on your email WHITELIST and (if you use Gmail) set to NEVER GO TO SPAM.

If you would like your plugins closed, please read https://developer.www.ads-software.com/plugins/wordpress-org/plugin-developer-faq/#how-do-i-close-my-plugin

[Marcel]

Hi, @ipstenu.

I’m really sorry. I was just trying to be respectful with Samuel/Otto.

I’ll “Keep the plugin and provide support in the forums.”, of course.

Thank you so much.

* Asking for Admin access to someone’s side
— Happened months ago. And it didn’t happen again.

* Harassing users following a bad review
— Happened months ago. And it didn’t happen again.

* Asking users to email you
— Happened some times after the moderation issue, but I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Otto give me this information today and I said that it wouldn’t happen again;

* Abuse of the @-mention tag
— Happened today only. I didn’t know, sorry.

* Creating ‘test’ posts in the forums
— Many times I wanted to post a notice to users, saying that the version 2 was stable. Nothing else. And I didn’t have a feedback. So I was just testing. Sorry.

PLEASE send me a link where I can read about all the rules, Mika. I don’t want to commit new mistakes.

I also won’t use this forum again while I don’t have read all about that. I promise.

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

Just to be clear, it doesn’t matter if you did one bad thing and never that specific thing again. When you keep doing bad things over and over and over it creates a pattern of systematic abuse. Your behaviour has been poor, you’ve made poor choices repeatedly. It’s time for you to take a long, hard, look at yourself and the consequences of your choices. Because, yes, you are choosing these actions and the subsequent consequences.

Plugin guidelines: https://developer.www.ads-software.com/plugins/wordpress-org/detailed-plugin-guidelines/

Forum Welcome: https://www.ads-software.com/support/welcome/

Forum Guidelines: https://www.ads-software.com/support/guidelines/

[Marcel]

I completely understand, @ipstenu.

I’m really sorry and thank you very much. You are doing an amazing job here.