[wp-hackers] Plugins directory contact point?

[Lloyd Budd]

On Jan 11, 2008 9:51 AM, Otto <otto at ottodestruct.com> wrote:
> On 1/11/08, Lloyd Budd <lloydomattic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > The plugins directory was straight-up
> > > broken for a very long time (is it still broken), and nobody had any
> > > idea who to talk to, how to fix it, etc... If we're going to have the
> > > thing, then it has to be maintained, and there needs to be an avenue
> > > to report problems; an avenue that actually works.
> >
> > I feel your are crying wolf here. As far as I know each issue has been
> > resolved in a timely manner. Feel free to log tickets under the
> > wordpress.org component if you want tracability.
>
> I don't really see it as crying wolf when it was actually broken and
> not working for 4 or 5 weeks or so. People uploaded plugins, it didn't
> make those plugins available to the public. People asked about it on
> the forums, people emailed me, people posted about the site not
> working on other forums (I even saw conversations about it on
> Facebook). I had no idea where to point them or what to tell them. It
> was unclear to me as to the correct place to report problems.

Sorry, if you want to do a post morten to estiblish what, if anything,
went wrong and how it can be improved, then timeline with references
(URLS) are appreciated.

My guess is that their were multiple issues in that time period that
appear to be one, the issue was being pursued, fixed one or more
times, but unfortunately people weren't kept in the loop.


> And if he's reporting a problem on Monday and Tuesday and not getting
> a response until Friday, then I don't see that as particularly
> "timely". I'm aware that there are only so many people and so much
> time, but simply notifying him that his request was received would
> probably be a good idea. Was this done? Does the thing automatically
> notify people that their request has been actually received and/or
> read by a human being?

I don't think it is useful to over-analyzing this one scenario. The
original report was overlooked because it appeared to suggest to an
isolated report of a minor problem. Thanks to your follow up it seems
worth pursuing.

Because of the diversity and quantity of issues even in just this one
area regarding extend/plugins sometimes there is no response  and
depending on the issue it can take longer than a week for a response.


> Also, if that http://wordpress.org/report-bugs/ is the official and
> only contact point (I'd prefer an email address, like
> plugins at wordpress.org, but whatever), then it needs to be more visible
> on the website somewhere. I'm aware that the "Report a Site Bug" link
> is at the bottom of every screen, but having it made a lot more clear
> that that page would be where to go for help with the plugins
> directory would be nice.

Based on the number of submissions to report-bugs related
extend/plugins and the resolutions of the issues, I think the problems
are getting submitted, identified and resolved OK right now. I agree
it can be improved, but it isn't high on my priorities right now.


Thank you,
-- 
Lloyd Budd | Digital Entomologist | | Skype:foolswisdom
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