Separating it isn't the fix. The fix is simply adding more support members. Yaldaram for example. There's plenty of users who constantly help but for some reason aren't applying.
I do think perhaps a "Trial Support" group could be quite useful. Don't give them moderation powers of any section but support and see how they do. If they pass they're in, if they don't then yeah.
All team members go through a 3 month probation period; during this time, they don't have moderation powers.
(2012-05-23, 08:49 PM)Anxiety Wrote: [ -> ]Separating it isn't the fix. The fix is simply adding more support members. Yaldaram for example. There's plenty of users who constantly help but for some reason aren't applying.
Not everyone has time and/or required skills. I wouldn't say there is a 'fix' as there isn't a problem. The current system works fine if people read the guidelines. Some people recieve replies literally within seconds.
(2012-05-23, 08:49 PM)Anxiety Wrote: [ -> ]I do think perhaps a "Trial Support" group could be quite useful. Don't give them moderation powers of any section but support and see how they do. If they pass they're in, if they don't then yeah.
Users can support other users without having the status. What you just described is in place anyway, at first support team members don't have moderation powers outside of General Support.
Edit - Ninga'd.
(2012-05-23, 08:54 PM)Nathan Malcolm Wrote: [ -> ]Not everyone has time and/or required skills. I wouldn't say there is a 'fix' as there isn't a problem. The current system works fine if people read the guidelines. Some people recieve replies literally within seconds.
I didn't say they did. But there's plenty of users who do have the time
and skill and aren't in the group. Whether that's because they don't want to apply or don't know how to is unknown. The fact is it does look very bad when there is pages and pages with no replies from "support" members who are online at the time. I understand however that it is a volunteered position. This isn't an attack at all, the support team are incredible here.
To counter your point though, there's plenty of threads who don't get replies for days.
Nathan Malcolm Wrote:Users can support other users without having the status. What you just described is in place anyway, at first support team members don't have moderation powers outside of General Support.
I know, but it's common knowledge that a users position on a forum is quite important to them. But yeah, Tomm already cleared that up, that's a good system. I still feel more encouragement is needed. I see plenty of regular helpers who aren't in the team, but that goes back to the first point I made.
(2012-05-23, 08:58 PM)Anxiety Wrote: [ -> ]I didn't say they did. But there's plenty of users who do have the time and skill and aren't in the group. Whether that's because they don't want to apply or don't know how to is unknown. The fact is it does look very bad when there is pages and pages with no replies from "support" members who are online at the time. I understand however that it is a volunteered position. This isn't an attack at all, the support team are incredible here.
To counter your point though, there's plenty of threads who don't get replies for days.
This is mainly what I'm trying to say here. The support is definitely incredible, but at the same time, 3 threads out of like 20 on the first two pages of the support section have responses from Support (Though since I first posted this, I've seen a lot more responses popping up now, which is good). xD Nathan answers a lot, and I don't guess he can be support and SQA, so that definitely makes sense, but Yaldaram should be support imo. If he just isn't applying maybe he doesn't want to be held up idk, but I just feel that users might feel insecure getting responses from someone without the Support label on them.
If people only want answers from staff they should go for a commercial software. That's part of what you buy (even though most them heavily rely on the community as well...).
(2012-05-23, 08:54 PM)Nathan Malcolm Wrote: [ -> ]I wouldn't say there is a 'fix' as there isn't a problem. The current system works fine if people read the guidelines.
That's a problem in itself. People don't read guidelines which causes problems. Would this thread fix that? I doubt it but what you could potentially do by adding more staff is give more people the ability to work to fixing the outcome of the issue.
If your thread stood out for being the one not marked as solved on the first page you'd probably be more likely to go and mark it as solved. Having more staff
could contribute in this way but it wouldn't encourage people to read the guidelines IMO.
One way to fix this is perhaps having some sort of notification like the PM notification bar saying 'Was your problem solved? Click here to mark it as solved.' or something similar. This wouldn't need more support staff.
Personally I think that there isn't need for more support staff but because the sight of the general support section just shows a huge number of 'unsolved' problems it appears that there is a need.
I agree Clarkie and it's as I said earlier the issues isn't questions getting answered because most of time it's just people not marking them as answered.
Like I said, I've only had 6 support threads in my whole time at MyBB and only one of them has been answered (Correctly).
(2012-05-25, 04:31 PM)Eric J. Wrote: [ -> ]Like I said, I've only had 6 support threads in my whole time at MyBB and only one of them has been answered (Correctly).
The guidelines state you can bump your threads after 24 hours if the issue hasn't been resolved. There's still many factors to take in to account:
-Time
-Details
-Knowledge
-Obscurity
-Availability
More people on the team doesn't necessarily mean more threads will be answered. MyBB has always been supported by the community. Unless all support staff are getting paid, support will always be given when it can be not when it's requested.
(2012-05-24, 11:43 PM)Clarkie Wrote: [ -> ]One way to fix this is perhaps having some sort of notification like the PM notification bar saying 'Was your problem solved? Click here to mark it as solved.' or something similar. This wouldn't need more support staff.
Personally I think that there isn't need for more support staff but because the sight of the general support section just shows a huge number of 'unsolved' problems it appears that there is a need.
Talk to Matt. He's the developer for MySupport. If you have improvements or suggestions he's the guy to talk to.