Marius L. J. 2:03 pm on August 25, 2023

Proposal for updated support guidelines

The support guidelines serve as the guidestones for support moderators (and pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party reviewers) in setting expectations around what is and what isn’t acceptable behavior.

The guidelines were last fully reviewed during WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. San Francisco in 2013, and a lot has happened in those 10 years. Some guidelines were added ad-hoc to account for timely situations, while others have just become dated, and may not necessarily reflect the current state of the WordPress user base, it’s surrounding ecosystem, or the outward facing opinion we wish to nurture.

The following is a collaborative effort in refining, simplifying, and clarifying the guidelines as they are today, into something that is both easier to understand for users, but also makes the job of those moderating much easier in the long term.

The proposal is available in a separate document, to make it easier to reading in an isolated (and easily comparable to the current iteration) manner.

Note that some changes would initially impact existing forum content. As these are new guidelines; once implemented, they will only relate to new content moving forward. The reasoning being that existing content were a product of the guidelines of their time, and moderating this existing content every time a guideline changes is just not something that can be done..

Read the new guideline proposal
(the doc is ready only, please leave your comments in this post)

As these are a result of work during WordCamp Us 2023, if you are at the venue and wish to discuss something, please feel free to reach out and a summary of it will be posted as a comment here. Otherwise, please use the comment section below for feedback, or questions, if there are uncertainties as to why some guidelines may have been removed, amended, or added to, this helps ensure everyone that wants to can have their opinion voiced, and that the same response does not have to be repeated in private channels.

The feedback period ended on 2023-10-01 00:00 UTC

Alan Fuller 2:53 pm on August 25, 2023
I can see a couple of changes
- Bump and NSFW are no longer mentioned – is that deliberate
- Advertising: this is good covers several things simply ( spam, offer work for money )
- PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party / Theme reviews: this is a big one and will make many developers happy, no longer a review like 1 star – I paid for pro and it didnt work and they didnt give my money back. Is that the intent?
- Felipe Santos 3:41 pm on August 25, 2023
  
  Bump and NSFW are no longer mentioned – is that deliberate
  
  Yep, it is deliberate. 🙂
  
  TL;DR: Bumping is no longer impactful — thanks to some code changes introduced by Marius — and we now have the checkbox for tagging a topic as NSFW.
  
  PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party / Theme reviews: this is a big one and will make many developers happy, no longer a review like 1 star – I paid for pro and it didnt work and they didnt give my money back. Is that the intent?
  
  The intent is to ensure that folks only review the software they are using.
  
  Also, considering that we don’t allow support for these commercial plugin forums, we felt that the same logic should apply to the reviews as well.
Felipe Santos 3:05 pm on August 25, 2023
Thank you for your excellent contribution, Marius! Really appreciate everyone who contributed to it. 🙂

I already shared some feedback on Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/., and I agree with adding the details on this new proposed guideline. Some small things:

As a volunteer-powered forum, […]

I feel that this “volunteer-powered” thing is a bit repetitive at the beginning of the text as we already say, “The forums is a volunteer-powered resource” above. Maybe we could remove the one under the “User Expectations” section.

The link is to a reputable image-sharing service for screenshots.

Maybe we can give some examples of good/reliable services (both free/paid)?

Some examples:
Individuals are limited to a single personal account. A company may register a brand account with a verifiable company email. We do not allow individual users to make multiple accounts, and consider this a bannable offense.

I think this is really a great way forward. As I mentioned during the Contributor Day, I believe that we should make this even more flexible and just allow folks to have as many accounts as they want, as long as they don’t have bad intent — I think this would keep things simple and more practical.
- Alvaro Gómez 8:45 am on September 4, 2023
  
  A company may register a brand account with a verifiable company email.
  
  I would maybe add a line clarifying that company accounts can be used to submit plugins but should never be used to interact in the forums.
Alan Fuller 5:00 pm on August 25, 2023

As a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party developer I am very comfortable with the idea that plugin developers can rated through reviews if the developer is using the free platform as a form of advertising in their readme.txt or their free code. It seems a fair exchange for the privilege.

By closing that off, you will get less reviews reported by plugin dev son slackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. saying ‘it isn’t fair’ but you will get just as many users that come and complain their review was removed because it mentions the pro that they were up-sold from the repo.
- Marius L. J. 12:07 pm on August 26, 2023
  
  Valid concern, how would you approach a solution to this?
  
  One of the big considerations here is that the current guidelines allows you to review the experience of the premium pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party when it is upsold via the plugin, and although this was fine when it was written, today you have major ecosystems around individual plugins as well (think WooCommerce, Gravity Forms, ACF), where a mention of a plugin solution may be a completely different plugin that isn’t directly related to the one where it was “upsold” (or mentioned, for that matter).
  
  The workgroup looking at this figured it would be easier to say that only the code as hosted on WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ (and if there is an upsell, the purchase flow, so you can still say “bought this, didn’t work but they didn’t refund me like they promised when I clicked the purchase button” (because that particular area is directly tied to the upsell in the WordPress.org code), but can’t say “Bought the premium plugin and it’s garbage” (I’m putting it a bit on edge for emphasis 😅). This might perhaps need some additional verbiage to clarify (?), but overall should still be a much better experience for plugin and theme authors we hope.
  
  Another consideration was trying to simplify the guidelines so that users are actually inclined to read them, so we are very open to ways to convey this better, but also wish to be mindful of the size of the document.
  - Alvaro Gómez 8:49 am on September 4, 2023
    
    Another consideration was trying to simplify the guidelines so that users are actually inclined to read them, so we are very open to ways to convey this better, but also wish to be mindful of the size of the document.
    
    Maybe each section could have a “more details” link to an in-depth article? That way the guidelines could stay “consumable” in size but also provide more information if/when needed.
    - Marius L. J. 10:37 am on September 29, 2023
      
      I think that’s a clever way to keep things consumable, but offer a way to a more living document, sort of a “For more details on the Support Teams handling of the guidelines, and more in-depth examples, see the extended article” type of deal!
t-p 8:17 pm on August 25, 2023

Thank you, Marius!
Richard van Denderen 9:54 am on August 29, 2023

When creating links to other resources
The link is posted by the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party or theme author themselves (or registered support users) to an external resource related to the topic.

I think it should also be allowed to link by other users to high quality related resources, if relevant and no wp.org or theme/plugin author resource is available.

For example specific code snippets on stackoverflow but also longer tutorials and source reference.
- Marius L. J. 10:39 am on September 29, 2023
  
  This is intentionally limited, it makes it easier for moderators to approach spam/unrelated links. Ideally we want as many responses to be fully included on WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ (you may notice Stack Overflow for example doesn’t let you just link to third parties, since those can go away without warning, and then they have dead content that doesn’t help anyone).
  
  So by maintaining this same approach, but at the same time giving theme and pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party authors flexibility, I personally think is the best approach at this time.
Angela Jin 8:48 am on August 30, 2023

Thank you so much for this, Marius! I’m excited to see these guidelines being reviewed, and have a few recommendations.

First, I recommend reminding everyone that the Community Code of Conduct applies, as part of user expectations.

Next, alongside where a moderator may intervene, I recommend sharing some examples of where a user may be blocked immediately without any recourse to become unblocked. And, if a temporary ban is issued, what would be a path to redemption. I know we have some excellent long time contributors in this space already, but if you’d like some extra support in thinking this through, I know some of the Incident Response Team members would be happy to be thought partners here!
- Marius L. J. 9:15 am on September 1, 2023
  
  Adding the Code of Conduct is absolutely something we should be doing, great reminder!
  
  Adding in a little “This is a bannable offense” to a few of the existing example (such as harassment and threats, those have no home here) does also make sense.
  
  I’ve added both of the above to the document for now as part of the proposal, if anyone has opinions on wording and the likes 🙂
  
  As for bans, I’ve never heard of us issuing temporary bans, if a user is banned, it’s because whatever was done was so grievous that there’s no recourse. As we have no precedence for temporary bans within the support-scenario, I’m not quite sure what (if at all) this should cover, so would love insights there.
Timi Wahalahti 1:41 pm on September 5, 2023

users are therefore expected to abide by the Community Code of Conduct.

Using “abide” might be difficult for non-native English speakers and for those with limited vocabulary. I’d change the word or rewrite this part of the sentence to make it easier.

On “Do Not Create Multiple Accounts” section I’d add instructions on how to check if you have an account and how to recover a one, in case someone comes back after years of inactivity.
- Alvaro Gómez 7:48 am on September 20, 2023
  
  I’d add instructions on how to check if you have an account and how to recover a one
  
  That’s a good idea. We could include a link to the “recover your account” section and explicitly ask users to, if unsure, try and recover their account before they create a new one.
- Marius L. J. 10:46 am on September 29, 2023
  
  Good point about the language, I’ve reworded it to use plainer language, and also replaced “expected” with “required”, as the Code of Conduct is not something those interacting on WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ can opt out of at will 🙂
Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 5:55 pm on September 21, 2023

Not being able to comment on the doc makes this a little clunky so I’m going to break this out.

Intro
The forums is a volunteer-powered resource, available to all users of WordPress to help improve the quality of WordPress CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., plugins and themes and to help you solve problems with WordPress.

Change “help you solve” to “help solve”

Recommend adding :
Use of the forums is a privilege extended to all members of the community, no matter their background, provided they can abide by these guidelines.
>
> Keep in mind, it is not necessary to have an account on WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ in order to download themes or plugins, nor is it required you use the forums if you have an account.

Shouldn’t be needed, but people think they need an account for that, and maybe they’ll notice this one :/
- Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 5:55 pm on September 21, 2023
  
  User Expectations
  
  We don’t want to bury this, so this section should be moved from the END of the whole doc up to “User Expectations”
  Be mindful to follow any and all instructions given by a forum moderator at all times, they are long time contributors with experience to know when action needs to be taken, or warnings need to be issued.
  
  Also I would change it to “all REASONABLE instructions” because Mods can be wrong too 🙂
  
  Speaking of those expectations:
  and users are therefore expected to abide by the Community Code of Conduct.
  
  Not expected, Users are REQUIRED to follow the code of conduct.
  This also means that there is no obligation for support to be provided, including by the developers of themes and plugins hosted on WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/.
  
  Change “This also means that” to “Be aware that”
- Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 5:56 pm on September 21, 2023
  
  Do not advertise on the support forums
  Please do not use the forums as a venue to promote your own (or others’) plugins, themes, websites or services.
  
  Remove PLEASE. This is flat “do not advertise” – please will make it sound like a suggestion.
  
  Also should include:
  In addition, do not offer to fix people’s sites for payment. If you are looking for work, please see (Jobs board link).
  
  Again, should be obvious, but people goober that a lot 🙂
- Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 5:56 pm on September 21, 2023
  
  Contacting the Moderators
  If immediate action is needed, or the situation is not in a specific post
  
  Change to:
  If immediate action is needed, or the situation is not limited to a specific post
- Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 5:57 pm on September 21, 2023
  
  Do Not Create Multiple Accounts
  Individuals are limited to a single personal account.
  
  Should include “No matter how many websites you have, you only need one account on WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/.” to clarify a very common gaff.
  A company may register a brand account with a verifiable company email.
  
  This should be clarified as to why and where and when a company actually needs an account.
  A company may register a brand account with a verifiable company email, if they have the intent of creating and supporting their own themes and/or plugins.
  
  We don’t want people thinking they need (or should need) a generic company account AND a personal one for no reason. If you’re not making code/themes/plugins, you really don’t.
- Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 5:57 pm on September 21, 2023
  
  When creating links to other resources
  
  Rename to “Be mindful when creating links to external resources”
- Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 5:58 pm on September 21, 2023
  Scenarios where moderators may intervene
  
  Perhaps this should be “We reserve the right to manage the forums to the best of our ability”
  
  That means the tone and tense of the next section needs a little cleanup….
  We endeavour to keep the forums friendly and safe for all users and developers. In order to do so, topic content may be moderated and users may have their access restricted, should the moderation team feel it is appropriate.
  
  We aim to use this power lightly and as sparingly as possible, however in severe cases, users may be suspended and posts removed entirely.
  
  Common reasons for edits or suspensions include but are not limited to:
  
  Violations of the WordPress Community Code of Conduct [LINK] or the WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Code of Conduct [LINK].
  
  Posting personal information information of other people (including but not limited to email, name, job, gender, living situation, location, etc).
  
  Posting private communication in the public forums or SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.. This includes DMs, emails, or other off-WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ communication.
  
  Posting offers or requests for login information to a site. While pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party and theme authors may ask for this on their own support systems, they may not do so on</emWordPress.org for liability reasons.
  
  Harassment, threats, or abuse via any of WordPress.org's systems or events (such as meetups or WordCamps). This includes actions such as following people to social media to continue a disagreement or complaint.
  
  Posting broad questions about opinions, such as "who is the best web host?" or other similar discussion topics that are not directly related to WordPress, its themes, or plugins.
  
  Posting only to solicit feedback for a site, theme, or plugin.
  
  Posting in ALL CAPS or abusing formatting (such as bolding the entire topic).
  
  Seeking legal advice or threatening legal action, including lawsuits.
  
  Please note that neither the list of examples above, or bannable offenses are exhaustive. Each and every post and interaction is judged on its own merits.
  I know it repeats the comment about the CoC but it should be made clear that you really have to abide by that. Also if someone gets punted from WordCamps for abuse, we probably don’t want them in the forums either.
- Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 5:59 pm on September 21, 2023
  
  In Closing…
  
  Having this just hanging out below the ‘reasons we may punt you’ is confusing. We need to have some sort of headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. BEFORE this:
  
  And that’s all. Enjoy your stay at the forums!
  
  Oh.. And, when you’re done, please mark your topic as “Resolved”. Thanks!
- Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 6:04 pm on September 21, 2023
  
  Do Not Post About Commercial Products
  Commercial plugins and themes are not sold on WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/, therefore please use their respective websites for support and reviews.
  
  Remove “please” again. In fact…
  No commercial plugins or themes are sold on WordPress.org and cannot be supported here. Support of commercial products must happen on the official support channel.
  - Marius L. J. 7:12 pm on September 29, 2023
    
    This one is slightly tricky, and stems from discussions on SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/..
    
    It boils down to the fact that users have a hard enough time navigating plugins and resource locations as is, and if they post in the wrong place, we won’t hold that against them; We should put enough trust in authors that they can point users in the right direction if it’s a complex issue, or just give a quick answer if they know it and want to do so.
Bethany Chobanian Lang 5:29 pm on September 28, 2023

Glad to see this being updated! A few little things…
Is there a reason why some of the section headers are in title case (“Do Not Create Multiple Accounts”) and others are in sentence case (“Do not advertise on the support forums”)? I don’t have a preference for one or the other, but would be great to standardize them to one or the other.

Bump and NSFW are no longer mentioned – is that deliberate

Bump and NSFW are no longer mentioned – is that deliberate

I always thought that the rule about bumping was not just for the mods, but also because it’s a kind of “bad behavior” by users? For example, it’s not uncommon for a user to post a topic, not get a reply as quickly as they’d like, and comment “bump” a few times to try to get someone’s attention. In the past, the mods have often come in and given a warning to users who did this. Will this not be the case any longer?
- Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 6:51 pm on September 28, 2023
  
  It is always discouraged (it’s annoying) but it’s no longer necessary to have a guideline.
  
  The original reason was actually NOT ‘bad net behavior’! Self-replies/bumps would cause a post to be removed from the ‘no replies’ view, so people would assume you’d been helped and … not help you.
  
  Currently, self-replies to your own thread do not remove you from the ‘no replies’ list, so you will still get the benefit of the ‘no replies’ patrol 🙂 (IIRC — @clorith is that right?)
  
  It won’t get ‘more’ attention but it also no longer actively causes ‘less’ attention. It’s still annoying, but we need to stop trying to parent people on the web. There isn’t enough time in the day.
  - Bethany Chobanian Lang 7:01 pm on September 28, 2023
    
    Haha I totally feel that @ipstenu, and thanks for clarifying why it impacted the mod management. Removing it from the guidelines makes sense to me in that context, thanks!
  - Marius L. J. 7:15 pm on September 29, 2023
    
    You’re spot on here Mika 👍
    
    And of course, if someone is being abusive with 5 “bumps” in a row, we can still tell them to stop doing that, it just doesn’t cause “system” issues any more 🙂
- Marius L. J. 7:21 pm on September 29, 2023
  
  The mixed title heading is probably my fault when making edits 🙂
  
  As this was written while in the US, where the use of title case is more prominent (at least in my experience, and as obvious here, hehe), that’s what the initial draft had. But since I am European, I use sentence case, and that naturally snuck in during editing.
  
  We’ll be using sentence case in the final released copy of the text, in following with the documentation style guide though!