Staff attn: Volunteer thread tagging issues
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. If volunteers are going to tag a thread, then please also answer the user.
Yes! That’s the point I was trying to make.
As Gary requested I also agree with at a minimum, asking users to confirm the URL of the site referred to.
Tagged threads are a community resource that speed up the time it takes to end up with resolution to issues. I do tag searches and Google searches every day and to be blunt threads that have no responses in them but have tags in the sidebar that were placed there by Volunteers and not the OP, make me want to pull out my hair.
(My hair is long, curly and heading for my waist and I’m very vain so anything that makes me want to pull on it is something I consider to be a very serious matter. )
We are here ie. to deliver accurate responses to issues that result in resolution in the least amount of time possible and that includes directing those threads where Staff follow-up to them with as much relevant detail in them as possible.
Simply tagging a thread with for example modlook without confirming the URL referred to and any relevant details such as the username account and/or domain involved, the status such as domain in redemption and advising the OP that a redemption fee must be agreed to before domain recovery takes place is, in my not humble opinion, lame (not very helpful) as it does not result in the best result delivered in the least amount of time.
Oh rats! I can hear the gravel trucks approaching form the main road and beginning to come down our long driveway (we live on acreage). The lumber trucks will follow and them the glass trucks. Forgive me but I’ve got to go now – to be continued.
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In the interest of harmony and hair preservation I have no intention of bucking the trend and persisting in occasionally adding a tag or two to a thread I come upon, yet decide to, for various reasons, not respond to at that time — though why the tag w/o response is perceived by some as problematic still eludes me. We are now asked to accept that adding a “header image” tag to a topic that clearly involves an issue wrt that feature is an unhelpful, misguided, and possibly disastrous thing to do.
If you are asked by an inquisitive child where Rome, Italy is, but don’t have time for a detailed geography lesson, then merely pointing toward Europe on a globe is more helpful than a shrug of the shoulders. And if a person stops you on the street and asks for directions from point A (where the two of you stand) to point B, and you’re at a loss at that moment to remember all the turns that would get him/her there most efficiently, and you don’t have the time to even provide detailed directions of lesser than ideal efficiency, then merely pointing in the approximate direction is better than nothing. This is not an argument that anything is better than nothing, because misdirection may be worse than nothing.
A few days ago I began to compile a list of tags which I thought it would be helpful to add to a topic you came upon even if you weren’t at that moment prepared to respond to the topic. After the list grew to fifty or so, I realized that thinking of the next fifty wouldn’t be much more difficult. So I ditched the list.
I can appreciate that some may expect each forum tag archives page to include only topics which have been responded to, but that has never been my expectation, and I can’t think of a single instance where I was disturbed to come upon a topic that had tags, but no response yet, except for those myriad cases where numerous irrelevant and/or unhelpful tags have been added. We’ve all come across topics with a set of tags such as “thumbnail,” “images,” “not,” “showing,” “why,” “what?,” “HELP!” “dear god.”
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Hey there. :) We usually work very well together and I’m surprised by what you posted above.
Did you lose track of what I referred to at the outset? My concern is and was focused on Volunteers typing tags like duplicate into the sidebar on such threads created my members who post more than one thread on any issue, and then not answering the member in any of those threads?
How many custom header or other blah, blah, blah tags you post is not my concern. It’s threads that fall through the cracks that concerned me.
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You’ve strongly advocated here a blanket rule of no tagging without responding. Have you not? Or have I misinterpreted the following:
@timethief said on page 1 of this topic:
They [new volunteers only or all volunteers?] ought to be instructed not to type any tags at all into any threads unless they have responded.
and
The bottom line is post no tags at all unless you actually deal with an issue.
The WordPress.com Volunteers support page says (I don’t know if this represents part of the recent update by staff-zinnia referred to on page 1 of the topic.):
Only tag threads that you will personally be posting in.
@justjennifer said near the bottom of page 2 of this thread:
If volunteers are going to tag a thread, then please also answer the user.
If you’re only concerned with specific cases such as the duplicates issue,
then why must a blanket rule be adopted? I don’t think it’s difficult to think of a few, or a hundred, situations in which adding a tag to a topic without necessarily responding at that moment might be helpful, beneficial, informative, timely, practical, considerate, convenient, etc. That’s all I’ve been saying here. -
As I mentioned above, I’ll follow along like a good soldier, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense to me, or that I’m warming to the idea.
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Just stopping by to say that I am not ignoring this thread :) I’ve been trying to catch up from some recent travel and plan to talk about this with the entire forums team in the upcoming week(s). The July 4th holiday in the USA might delay this depending on who has vacation planned. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts since many (if not all) of you have been using these forums longer than I have. I really value your thoughts on how to improve our community here.
We are dedicated to making this a positive community resource, and bringing these topics up for conversation is helpful. We all work in different ways and see things in a different perspective.
I no longer use the “topics with no tags” link but did when I was volunteering as a way to find unanswered threads. I am interested to learn which of the links on en.forums.wordpress.com are useful to y’all? Is there view or flow that you’d like to see added?
Besides the duplicate tags, is there another tag that you feel is being dropped through the cracks?
Thank you all for your civility in discussing this topic and your patience.
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staff-zinnia
Besides the duplicate tags, is there another tag that you feel is being dropped through the cracks?
Yes, I beliwve there is another issue that I noted in my original post.
I keep running into threads that have “not a wp.com site” typed into the sidebar tags and no response at all in the thread.
If one has noted that the site is not hosted by WordPress.COM then telling the person who posted it who their web host is and where to get WordPress.ORG support makes sense to me. Just posting the not a wp.com site tag and not responding to the person who posted the thread does not make sense to me. I think it’s at the least, unhelpful and at most, rude.
We would never be so impolite and unhelpful face to face by just walking away form a person who needed help so I don’t think that tag and run behavior should be encouraged in such support threads.
My practice is I to secure as much detailed information from those who post as possible when tagging a thread with modlook.
Details such as asking for the URL, username account, domain, etc. telling members how to access the dashboard, how to locate hidden sites, what to do if one is not logged in under the correct username account, or that they need to contact the actual owner of the site, etc. is helpful because doing this will speed the time up for getting the issue in the thread resolved. That’s also why I provide information such as companies, groups and organizations do not own blogs.
I also notice that sometime we Volunteers and members assume too much when it comes to which URL and account are involved in any issue. The assumption is that the person posting has their username linked to a site registered under that specific WordPress.COM account and about 30% of the time that’s just not so. Why? They are either not logged in under the WordPress.COM username account that registered the site, or they are lost and posting here rather than to WordPress.ORG support, Jetpack support or contacting their web host.
I admit that my greatest fault is that I am too wordy, however, I keep track of what I do and follow up my threads. In most cases what I provide resolves the issue in a single response. If this were not the case then I would simply stop answering threads here at all.
I am interested to learn which of the links on en.forums.wordpress.com are useful to y’all? Is there view or flow that you’d like to see added?
As I stated above on another page I rely on tag search. I also use Google search and use words like and and or (Boolean operators) to limit, widen, or define my search.
Aside from those I have been here for so long that I predate the support docs. I believe only one member of support staff predates me and I have a collection of pre-written responses I keep in a file on my computers.
I did not create this thread to chastise anyone or to cause anyone to feel unhappy about their practices as Volunteers. I was aimed at sharing what I thought would improve the user experience when getting support here on the forums.
If nothing that I offer is adopted so be it. I will simply do what I have been doing since 2006. :)
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I’ve just clicked on “topics with no tags” on the left of the screen and wondered why THIS thread is included there??
WordPress.com Forums → Topics with no tags
Topics with no tags
Staff attn: Volunteer thread tagging issues 68 timethief 44 minutes
Image location change 99 thesacredpath 53 minutes
Install iFrame Plugin 1 chstigerlibrary 1 hour
Comments stuck in moderation queue even though “Akismet cleared this comment” 24 supernovia 1 hourThe thread has a number of tags presumably put there by @timethief. Are there only a limited number of “approved” tags that we should be using and odd phrases don’t count? In fact quite a few threads in “topics with no tags” do have tags. I’ve never really paid much attention to this area of WordPress.com before. Has it always been like this or is WordPress.com broken again?
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staff-zinnia I mainly use Topics with no replies and page through to see what I feel confident answering.
I barely have the confidence to reply there so I haven’t ventured anywhere else. :)
Thanks for keeping up with this insightful (for me) thread.
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Hello!
Coming up on my one week anniversary as a volunteer on these forums, (do I get cake?), perhaps I can offer some insight from a newbie’s perspective.
First thought. “Tags? What tags?” I understand the concept of tagging, and have learned a few obvious ones, but personally don’t see the benefit of tags other than duplicate and modlook? Am I missing something? eg: say a ‘delete account’ tag.. there must be thousands of these by now?
I feel sorry for older posts with no replies. Often they’re vague or confusing, but by simply trying to coax more information out of them, or even acknowledging that you’ve contacted the mods to have a closer look makes them happier. And that’s the goal, right?
Just to add, thanks to everyone for the tips.. keep them coming.
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Have you read: WordPress.com Volunteers? https://en.support.wordpress.com/wordpress-com-volunteers/
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@themagicrobot
I tagged this thread with all sidebar tags except these two:
tag thread please and wpcom volunteersAre there only a limited number of “approved” tags that we should be using and odd phrases don’t count?
No. The only tagging guidance for Volunteers is found in https://en.support.wordpress.com/wordpress-com-volunteers/#tips-tricks-and-best-practices
In fact quite a few threads in “topics with no tags” do have tags.
That’s interesting. I’ll let lizkarkoski respond to that. :)
P.S. Your answers are good ones. You excel at brevity and it’s clear to me that you are an experienced wp.com and wp.org user. I ghost your threads so I can improve my own responses. :)
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As some unseen hand has decided to belatedly remove this thread from “topics with no tags” I’ve decided I’m tagged out. Staff don’t seem to bother with tags. Surely it’s the replies at the time that matter.
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You are doing very well. :) High five.
I mainly use Topics with no replies and page through to see what I feel confident answering.
I do the same thing.
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You do not need to use forum tag search to answer any threads here. That is because you are experienced and know the answers already.
Most new Volunteers do need to use support docs searches, tag searches and google search to determine what the best answers are prior to posting.
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Have you read: WordPress.com Volunteers? https://en.support.wordpress.com/wordpress-com-volunteers/
Yes. A few times!
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