WordPress Help
Official documentation, learning resources, and contributor guides collected from WordPress.org.
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Online tools (DNS checkers, validators, etc.)
DNS What’s My DNS? DNS Lookup Utility intoDNS DNSstuff Validators W3C Markup Validation Service W3C CSS Validation Service W3C Feed Validation Service W3C Web Accessibility initiative Misc. Browser Shots – Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different operating systems and browsers. Sucuri Security Scanner – This scanner will alert you if it finds…
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Understanding users: Reading beyond the question and probing
Not everything can be answered with a predefined reply. It’s easy to leave a bad reply, and it’s often difficult to find the right language to explain a technical problem in non-technical terms, which applies both to those asking questions on the forum and those offering solutions. Take a moment to understand the real issues,…
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Pre-defined replies
Last Updated: January 11th, 2021 Having a complete reply ready to copy can be very useful. You need to take care though that your reply is the correct reply, that you have read and understood the question and amended the reply as needed for their circumstances. Scanning a post, thinking that a pre-reply will work…
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Getting help: It’s okay to not know
No-one knows everything. Do not feel that just because you cannot help someone, or that while helping you have run out of ideas that you are wasting your time or should do better. The more you read in the forums and the more help you give the better you will become. If you’re unsure of…
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Examples of Good vs. Bad Support
As covered in Approach to providing good support and Understanding users: Reading beyond the question and probing, always be patient with the users, understand that this seemingly small problem is probably affecting them in a big way, be as detailed in your responses as possible (don’t overdo it though), and anticipate follow-up questions and concerns…
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Volunteering in the forums
The Support Forum Volunteers are the members of the WordPress Support Forum community providing answers to your WordPress problems and issues. If you are interested in volunteering and helping out in the WordPress Forums, there is no criteria. Just pitch in where you see fit. It is recommended that you have the following: Familiarity with…
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Defending the community: What’s not appropriate
Negativity happens, combat it with positivity. It goes without saying that we all respond better to positive reinforcement than negative, so keep your responses upbeat and helpful, even when you disagree with another forum volunteer. Instead of saying something like “that’s a bad, buggy plugin,” it is more helpful to say something like “you might…
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Using your profile to see replies
Your profile lists threads you have started as well as those to which you have replied, and whether there has been activity since. If you do not use the “Notify me of follow-up posts via email” feature then your profile is the best way to stay informed about what has happened.
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Giving good support
Users coming to the Support Forums for help may be in wildly varying emotional states – from mildly frustrated, to desperate, to quite angry. At all times, keep in mind that you’re there to provide help. This attitude will predispose you to deal with Forum users in a professional and courteous manner, regardless. If a user…
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The ‘No replies’ view
You can filter the forum posts by different criteria. A filter often used is “No replies” – posts which got no answer. This is the link that selects the posts with no replies: https://wordpress.org/support/view/no-replies