slides.com/mattcromwell/wclax18

Best Practices on Providing Free Support
for your Plugin or Theme

WordCamp Los Angeles 2018

Presented by: Matt Cromwell

@learnwithmattc

What are we here for?

The Outline

  • Getting to Know the Forums

  • Rules of the Forums

  • Monitoring Your Threads

  • User Roles

  • Tips and Tricks

  • C.R.E.W. -- the Tone Guide

Getting to know the

WP Support Forums

Getting to know the

WP Support Forums

  • A Forum for every aspect of WP

  • Also Plugins

  • Also Themes

Navigating the Forums

Getting to know the

WP Support Forums

Getting to know the

Forum Rules

Getting to Know the

Forum Rules

  • Do not post sensitive information

  • Do not post test credentials to a live site

  • Never offer to login to a users site...ever.

  • Don't provide support for your Pro version

  • Don't drop affiliate links

  • Don't at-mention moderators, instead, use the "modlook" tag

https://wordpress.org/support/guidelines/

All the Ways to

Monitor Your Threads

All the Ways to

Monitor Your Threads

  • Authors, Contributors are auto-subscribed

  • Otherwise, click that button

  • RSS Feed:

What the Forum Provides

wordpress.org/support/plugin/{plugin-slug}/feed

How to

Leverage User Roles

How to

Leverage User Roles

Types of User Roles

How to

Leverage User Roles

How to Add Plugin Support Roles

Going Beyond What the Forum Supplies

With Tips & Tricks

Going Beyond What the Forum Supplies

With Tips & Tricks

Gmail Filter

Going Beyond What the Forum Supplies

With Tips & Tricks

RSS --> Slack

Going Beyond What the Forum Supplies

With Tips & Tricks

Prevent Duplicate Replies (link)

Going Beyond What the Forum Supplies

With Tips & Tricks

Rich Content in your Replies

  • Slideshare (Slides)
  • Vimeo & Youtube (Video)
  • Soundcloud (Audio)
  • Cloudup (Images)

Going Beyond What the Forum Supplies

With Tips & Tricks

WP Slack Notifications

Add a list of key terms that you want to get notified about in WordPress Slack. This is great for when someone mentions your plugin in a different forum.

Your Tone Guide:

C.R.E.W.

  • Confident, not Apologetic

  • Results Oriented, not Argumentative

  • Educational, not Haughty or Overly Technical

  • Welcoming, not Thankful

Matt Cromwell

Head of Support at GiveWP.com​

Community Consultant for Media Temple

@learnwithmattc