Lack of Support and other reasons…

Deleting a post asking why no support, just because you claim it is bumping also is very wrong.

Did you ever review https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Forum_Welcome#No_Bumping ? Even a week is not long to wait. Many plugins are supported by a single developer and, believe it or not, developers take holidays and get sick too.

If you are looking for more instant support, then, I agree that you might be better off with paid-for solutions only as opposed to a free CMS with all of its free plugins & themes.

That does not mean to let people go looking at their support topics with no replies after a month or two.

Actually, when your “bump” posts were deleted, most were after only a week – not a month or two.

I am requesting that my account here be deleted

I am sorry but we cannot delete accounts. Just let it lapse – as I see you’ve already amended your displayed username.

Good luck with your future projects. If you ever change your mind, you know where we are. ??

Did you ever review https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Forum_Welcome#No_Bumping ? Even a week is not long to wait. Many plugins are supported by a single developer and, believe it or not, developers take holidays and get sick too.

Go look at my favorites.
I had basically ignored them myself, due to them not having answers.

The ones I did bump early, were due to them being issues on sites for Churches and they needed their sites fixed. They don’t have the kind of money to pay for support for a free software, and neither do I. I am disabled with no income, and even I know that if I make something for a program, to at least try to help those in need of support.

The last post dates in my topics are not only pathetic, but seriously show a lack of interest in the product that the customizers made.

I really do feel that things need to improve here, and I feel better in my knowledge that I wont be here to see that not happening, because I doubt that it will.

Good bye, and good luck.

The ones I did bump early, were due to them being issues on sites for Churches and they needed their sites fixed.

Your/their problems were no more urgent than anyone else’s and did not mean you could have a free pass on the “no bumping” rule. The rule is there for good reasons.

You’d find any excuse to justify the actions of people here, wouldn’t you?

Well, that is okay, because it may be right in a sense. However, the issue is not those posts, but the lack of posts in all the topics in my favorites.

That is the reason for my decision. Not the ones from then. So, if you don’t want to lose and make WP look more against their users, may as well ban this account, because I will stand by my complaints.

You’d find any excuse to justify the actions of people here, wouldn’t you?

No. Just stating facts. Pretty much every other topic posted on these forums is “urgent”. There is no “urgent-er”. As you’ve surmised, the only alternative to waiting is to look for paid support.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that there are over 27,000 plugins hosted here. In the vast majority of cases, the only people who can really help you are the plugin developers themselves. The rest of us simply do not have that level of intimate knowledge to really assist.

That said, you seem to have had support problems with 1 theme and 1 (or perhaps 2) plugins in the past 4 years. That’s not bad going for free products with free support. As mentioned in one of your support topics, WordPress is not a company, and it cannot force developers to support their plugin or theme.

You also posted a topic accusing unpaid forum support volunteers of “rudeness” & “ignoring you” a month ago and people went to great lengths to try and explain the issues to you then.

To be honest, I’m not sure what else you expect us to do.

And, no, we won’t be “banning” your account. Why on earth would you even suggest that?

Yes, over 4 years, 3 3/4 of which I was off-line, and not using anything. I was on an unexpected hiatus, so to speak.

Fair enough. I’m just struggling to see what we could have done better, so to speak – bearing mind that these are community forums staffed by unpaid volunteers supporting free products.

So am I.
I and the others that I work with are all volunteers, including the dev team members. Yet, somehow we manage, with even more mods and themes that you said, though I will say you are most likely off by a bit, and WP more than likely has more than you stated.

The point remains though. If you can’t answer a question, that is one thing, but if a person has been waiting for so long, at least stating you don’t have an answer is better than the member thinking he’s being ignored.

As I said earlier, we cannot force plugin or theme developers to respond to support requests. Nor would it be helpful to respond saying “Sorry – I can’t help you”. In fact (and as explained in an earlier topic) we feel that doing so makes matters worse as it looks like someone may have replied positively.

As with all software (free or commercial), it is always wise to investigate the support history of a product before using it.

A sorry we can’t help would at least tell the person his/her issue was looked into. There is nothing negative about that. That will tell the person that they may not be getting help, so they can move on.

would at least tell the person his/her issue was looked into

No – it wouldn’t.

a) Only the plugin developer(s) have the expert knowledge to look into such a problem properly. A reply from anyone else saying “I can’t help” is useless.

b) Replying takes that topic out of the No Replies queue – which is constantly monitored throughout the day.

So such an answer would greatly reduce the possibility of an effective answer.

All other forums I’ve been at, and that is many, many of which I’m staff of, the most recent reply puts the topic at the top. As the last post date gets older, it goes down in the list. Even in Unread Replies.

Also, yes, it would be better, because maybe the person would move on to a different plugin/theme that does not have the issue, instead of having to wait 2-3 months.

I know I would have rather have been told that there was no help for a certain issue. It may have resulted in this topic not existing.

the most recent reply puts the topic at the top

And that is how these forums work too.

it would be better

And who should determine at what point they should move to another plugin? Me? No thank you. Despite working here for 5 years and using WordPress for 10 years, I cannot predict when a plugin developer might post a response or update their plugin.

The point you seem to be missing is that we cannot determine if there is going to be any help or not on a given topic. Unsolved topics posted months ago have been known to suddenly have a solution.

Your suggestion implies that we should automatically close all topics after a couple of weeks. Have you any idea of the uproar this would cause? As it stands, topics are closed automatically after 12 months and some people object to that!

And FWIW, I’ve been contributing & managing support for more than 15 years on forums, via email and even on Usenet (remember that?). If I could come up with a brilliant idea that would solve this, I would have done by now. Ditto many of the other forum mods and regulars. Given the sheer size of the WordPress community in terms of 3rd party add-ons, the current system is the best we have been able to come up with. And we are constantly trying to improve things (she says – noting that she’s just missed an IRC support meeting).

If you have idea that could help, we’d dearly love to hear it but I can tell you now that a suggestion that all x week old topics are effectively closed with a “We can’t help you” response is not going to fly.

Usenet…..LOL
Have not thought of that for years. That and the old Bulletin Boards I used to be a part of…

You do realize, we are showing our ages now…LOL

My suggestion is not to close it, but if a topic has been left with no reply for about 30 days, a quick, “Have you solved this, or do you still need help” would even work.

If the member solved it on their own, they’d at least think to hit the solved box, or even post their fix.

You do realize, we are showing our ages now

Yep. On the other hand, I could just have been a child IT prodigy. ??

a quick, “Have you solved this, or do you still need help” would even work.

If the topic still has no response, we assume the issue still exists.

they’d at least think to hit the solved box, or even post their fix.

Oh – if only! More than half of the posters that we do help successfully don’t mark their topics as resolved. In about 70% of topics where we respond with a question or a suggestion, we never get a reply. As a result, the the vast majority of topics, we never know what the final outcome was because the posters never bother to tell us.

And don’t even get me started on topics where other people start posting their own questions…grrr…

Seriously, though, if asked to provide a recommendation between 2 themes or plugins that I don’t know, I’ll usually suggest that the potential user checks out the relevant support forums before deciding which one to use. You can learn a lot about the likely future upgrades and support that way – which (IMO)is a huge factor when making these decisions. And in that respect, the current system here works really well. The well-supported themes & plugins really stand out.