Since 2002, the MyBB Group has developed the forum software the rocked the world of forums. They developed secure and modern forum software and they continue to do so today. I’m writing today with concerns on how the MyBB Community Support Forums are being run, and with concerns about MyBB’s Support Eligibility Policy.
Denied Support a public badge of shame?
The MyBB Group has a system in place that will publically show everyone who is denied support. This should only be viewable by staff and not by the public.
Denied Support members immediately have their threads closed,
The Support Eligibility is made to determine if the MyBB Group Support Team is going to help you or not. It doesn’t deny you the privilege to ask the community for support. Nevertheless looking at things historically, whenever a member who is Denied Supportposts a thread asking for support it’s closed.
Denied Support members are the members who support us the most,
Members such as labrocca are the ones supporting the MyBB Community the most, and in return they are Denied Support just because of the types of communities they run. This isn’t the way your top contributors should be treated, it’s an unfair system of treatment towards them, they support you, so you should support them in return.
These are my concerns with the MyBB Community Support Forums and the MyBB Support Eligibility Policy. I ask that people provide their feedback on the policy and how the MyBB Group is being run. I also ask that the MyBB Group considers the communities’ feedback and works to make the needed changes for a more inclusive community.
(2017-03-10, 01:17 PM)Lunorian Wrote: [ -> ]Denied Support a public badge of shame?
The MyBB Group has a system in place that will publically show everyone who is denied support. This should only be viewable by staff and not by the public.
The team is just a selected group of community members. The support eligibility policy applies to the community forums, it's not an internal document.
https://mybb.com/support/eligibility-policy/
(2017-03-10, 01:17 PM)Lunorian Wrote: [ -> ]Denied Support members immediately have their threads closed,
The Support Eligibility is made to determine if the MyBB Group Support Team is going to help you or not. It doesn’t deny you the privilege to ask the community for support. Nevertheless looking at things historically, whenever a member who is Denied Supportposts a thread asking for support it’s closed.
No, it's to determine whether or not you're allowed support on the community forums. There's nothing stopping members of the team, or community, supporting you one-to-one, if they so choose to.
(2017-03-10, 01:17 PM)Lunorian Wrote: [ -> ]Denied Support members are the members who support us the most,
Members such as labrocca are the ones supporting the MyBB Community the most, and in return they are Denied Support just because of the types of communities they run. This isn’t the way your top contributors should be treated, it’s an unfair system of treatment towards them, they support you, so you should support them in return.
He's donated thousands of dollars to the project and has been a huge asset to the community. Does that mean he should be given special treatment? Hell no. People would think they could prevent being denied support by giving money to the project -- that's bribery. It would be unfair and go against everything the policy stands for. It's the equivalent of saying Trump is the President so he's above the law.
(2017-03-10, 01:17 PM)Lunorian Wrote: [ -> ]Denied Support a public badge of shame?
The MyBB Group has a system in place that will publically show everyone who is denied support. This should only be viewable by staff and not by the public.
Regarding making the denial of support visible to the public, the purpose of support denial is to distance the MyBB group from activities that are illegal or immoral, as that is not what we want to support. You don't get denied support just because we don't like you, its something that is done when there is evidence you fail to meet the SEP. Having it displayed publicly allows other members to know what kind of person they are supporting, without having to go through their entire post history to find out what boards they operate.
Quote:Denied Support members immediately have their threads closed,
The Support Eligibility is made to determine if the MyBB Group Support Team is going to help you or not. It doesn’t deny you the privilege to ask the community for support. Nevertheless looking at things historically, whenever a member who is Denied Supportposts a thread asking for support it’s closed.
Regarding the locking of threads that fail to meet the SEP, they should not be locked.
Quote:Denied Support members are the members who support us the most,
Members such as labrocca are the ones supporting the MyBB Community the most, and in return they are Denied Support just because of the types of communities they run. This isn’t the way your top contributors should be treated, it’s an unfair system of treatment towards them, they support you, so you should support them in return.
Labrocca has been denied support for a very long time now, yet he still contributed so much to the project. The amount of support someone gives, even if they are former staff, doesn't mean we make an SEP exception. That would dilute our message, and the purpose of the SEP.
My thoughts are similar to the above, but let me pad out some reasoning for why things work as they do as it stands.
The support eligibility marker is displayed publicly as a means to show other users why a member may not be receiving answers to their support threads from staff. If there was no public marker and users simply never received staff replies, people may wonder whether the support team were being lazy or just ignoring that users' problems - obviously this isn't the kind of image we wish to convey.
This kind of rolls into the second point you brought up - support threads shouldn't be locked if a user is denied support. The support denial procedure prevents a user from receiving support from
team members. Other users can feel free to help, at their discretion, and team members may choose to help in private as Nathan stated. Other users may decide that they wish not to provide support for the same reasons that the MyBB team do not provide support to sites denied support.
It's also probably worth noting why we deny support at all. Many people confuse MyBB as being a forum
host rather than simply being a provider of software. We frequently get contacted by people asking us to disable sites running MyBB because it offends them in some way (such as by hosting copyrighted content without permission, or sharing personal details of people without their consent, or through countless other ways). In fact, this kind of thing has gotten so out of hand in the past that legal authorities have had to become involved in the matter due to nature of the claims and the lengths some people were going to. We as a team need to distance ourselves from activities such as those listed in the support eligibility policy to save ourselves a lot of headaches and problems. MyBB may be a fairly large software, but we don't have much brand recognition outside of forum administrators.
That said, I do think that we could streamline the whole support eligibility process and there are a couple of takeaways that we need to keep in mind:
- Support threads should not be locked simply because the forum doesn't meet support eligibility policies. Perhaps an automated notice could be shown to guests explaining why a thread may not be receiving responses from staff members if the OP is denied support?
- The "denied support" marker could perhaps be simplified into a simple icon rather than the rather ominous "This user has been denied support".
(2017-03-10, 10:34 PM)Euan T Wrote: [ -> ]snip
You could always just do the following:
- hide the denied support warning from regular members, so that there is no discrimination on our part
- display a large red banner only to denied support users notifying them of the fact that they're denied support
IMO this is the best of both worlds. Denied users don't think they're being ignored for no reason and regular members can also help with support queries without feeling wary of the user they are trying to assist. Also some of your team members need to be notified of the fact that denied support does not mean they should instantly lock the thread.
(2017-03-10, 10:54 PM)kawaii Wrote: [ -> ]You could always just do the following:
- hide the denied support warning from regular members, so that there is no discrimination on our part
- display a large red banner only to denied support users notifying them of the fact that they're denied support
IMO this is the best of both worlds. Denied users don't think they're being ignored for no reason and regular members can also help with support queries without feeling wary of the user they are trying to assist. Also some of your team members need to be notified of the fact that denied support does not mean they should instantly lock the thread.
That would be a wonderful replacement.
This thread is hysterical. Must be the lack of sleep.
I have the following to offer:
1) The Support Eligibility Policy is based on the fact this is free software and they expect a link back. That's fair, IMHO; don't want to have the link back? Learn to program
2) The Support Eligibility Policy ensures that sites that are being supported are Safe For Work; this means that if I can't view it on Campus, I don't want to help you out.
Seeing one is denied support is incredibly helpful this way; as I don't need to waste my time or yours.
Also helps when R/S/J threads are posted. Same principle.
I vote keep it public.
(2017-03-10, 10:54 PM)kawaii Wrote: [ -> ] (2017-03-10, 10:34 PM)Euan T Wrote: [ -> ]snip
You could always just do the following:
- hide the denied support warning from regular members, so that there is no discrimination on our part
- display a large red banner only to denied support users notifying them of the fact that they're denied support
IMO this is the best of both worlds. Denied users don't think they're being ignored for no reason and regular members can also help with support queries without feeling wary of the user they are trying to assist. Also some of your team members need to be notified of the fact that denied support does not mean they should instantly lock the thread.
You are missing the point that Euan T. is making.
If the notice is not visible to everyone, then users browsing the forums won't understand why no staff members (and in some cases, very few members) are helping the user. It might lead the newcomer to go elsewhere because the level of support seems to be sub par.
The notice must remain public, just like the SEP
The issue with making the icon or notification banner hidden from public, is that it means people can't see that it's gone against the support eligibility policy and thusly decide whether they want to support the site anyway.
I mean suppose someone has a warez forum and they ask for help, they haven't mentioned what the url is. Staff, who may have seen the site in the past, know what it is going on but no one else does. So people could end up helping a forum they otherwise wouldn't have because that info isn't available to them.
Though I am curious, is there any kind of appeals process or anything? Like for someone who ran a site that maybe got them denied support but they no longer run/are affiliated with that site? Or is it a case of once banned there's no going back?
(2017-03-11, 12:27 AM)VirusZero Wrote: [ -> ]Though I am curious, is there any kind of appeals process or anything?
Members can use the Private Inquiries forum to contest their support denial.