Items discussed at the #wordpress-sfd meetup:
Status of the handbooks (not just the Troubleshooting one)
@samuelsidler (sams) asked about the difference between the handbooks and the organization of them. He was at WCKC and there was some confusion when trying to locate items in the handbooks.
The Support Handbook really is for moderators and people providing support in that role. For example many of the pre-defined replies in that handbook deal with managing topics. That’s for solving forum problems. It’s written for moderators.
The Troubleshooting Handbook in development is for people who want to assist others with WordPress problems. It’s a different audience and is definitely needed.
This item neatly segued into the next topic of
The Troubleshooting Handbook status
It’s looking good and parts of the new handbook are fleshed out. It still needs content but as @Ipstenu reminded me release and iterate also applies to documentation too. Contributions don’t have to be perfect but they have to be started or things will never get done.
That last sentence was more of a note to myself but all contributions to the handbook are welcomed. 😉 If you want to contribute but don’t have access then contact me via the comments and we’ll figure something out.
There was discussion of how and what belongs on the new handbook and the consensus was to keep it basic and inviting to new users.
Portions of the new Troubleshooting Handbook that do a deep dive into setting up things like WAMP, LAMP, MAMP, VVV, etc. will be directed to other more technical resources. Their will be technical details there (see the break/fix examples) but the goal is to get users started and invite them to provide support.
We all want to get more people helping and keeping it basic may get that started.
Section topic titles
The sections and examples were obtained from @Ipstenu‘s Break/Fix site. The titles work with the content of the article but some of them may be unclear when people are looking around. Those titles are fun though and when you get into the examples you’ll understand Mika’s gift for titles. 😉
If you have a suggestion for modifying a title in the handbook please ping the gang here.
BETA!
I couldn’t figure out a good way to type that title with a Kirk “KHHAANNN!!!” effect.
The WordPress 4.0 beta1 is out and please test and beat up. There are some nice enchantments (the media library made me yell “Oh that’s cool!”) and feed back is needed and bugs should be reported to the Alpha/Beta sub-forum. For a good status or progress on the beta consider subscribing to make/core.
When you see topics in the Alpha/Beta sub-forum that have a ticket assigned and posted in that topic please mark that topic resolved. Don’t close the topic unless it becomes a run-away train or off topic in a bad way. Then the usual applies and that topic can be closed.
The transcript for this meetup can be read at this link.