Forum Software Support

[Jason]

Do you feel they are helpful? Do you feel the support from regular members is helpful? Do you feel some of the regular members are snooty?

I don't know. Sometimes those forums seem unwelcoming.

 

[Tracy]

From my experience when I was running IPS 4.3 I found that the official support forum did not actually provide that much support from other end users. Generally back then you could enter a question on how to do something and it would sit for days (I had some that sat much longer) before a response was obtained. And several times the response was from the developers advising to submit a ticket about the issue.
Generally I found the user support over on XF of a much higher quality, getting answers in the forum from both the license holders and the developers fairly quickly. That appears still to be pretty much true as far as license holder responses. The developers are not as active on the forum as they used to be years ago.
WoltLab was different. They had support channels that were in both English and German. The German channel appeared fairly active. The English side was less so, and generally your answers to questions came from the developers themselves or sometimes a dual language speaker that read in both areas (the ones that I remember were also add-on developers).
But my WoltLab experience was years ago now.

I don't know. Sometimes those forums seem unwelcoming.

Generally you will find that involves those that are members of the cliques that form based around almost all software packages.
You also find that after a period of time, the users on a support site have seen the same questions asked over and over and many have lost patience with folks not taking the time to try searching for a solution instead of generating a post as their first action. So they may tend to seem a little short if they take time to reply. Sometimes we forget where we came from.

 

[Heatman]

From my experience when I was running IPS 4.3 I found that the official support forum did not actually provide that much support from other end users. Generally back then you could enter a question on how to do something and it would sit for days (I had some that sat much longer) before a response was obtained. And several times the response was from the developers advising to submit a ticket about the issue.
Generally I found the user support over on XF of a much higher quality, getting answers in the forum from both the license holders and the developers fairly quickly. That appears still to be pretty much true as far as license holder responses. The developers are not as active on the forum as they used to be years ago.
WoltLab was different. They had support channels that were in both English and German. The German channel appeared fairly active. The English side was less so, and generally your answers to questions came from the developers themselves or sometimes a dual language speaker that read in both areas (the ones that I remember were also add-on developers).
But my WoltLab experience was years ago now.


Generally you will find that involves those that are members of the cliques that form based around almost all software packages.
You also find that after a period of time, the users on a support site have seen the same questions asked over and over and many have lost patience with folks not taking the time to try searching for a solution instead of generating a post as their first action. So they may tend to seem a little short if they take time to reply. Sometimes we forget where we came from.

Personally, I would admit to not being of the habit of checking out from the frequently asked questions to know if I will get the answers to what I'm looking for. I'm sure that there are so many people who are the same way too and it's definitely going to be overwhelming to keep answering the same question over and over again.

 

[Nomad]

I have used forum support for various open source forum softwares I am using and I think the support community is pretty good, but sometimes getting the kind of response you want can be little tough.

 

[Tracy]

I have used forum support for various open source forum softwares I am using and I think the support community is pretty good, but sometimes getting the kind of response you want can be little tough.

I still have unanswered questions over on the XenForo site that have been out there for months. Of course, since I no longer can participate there it's not a big deal, and I ultimately figured the questions answers out myself.

 

[Jason]

Well, people are only human, but some of them seem to be barking at newcomers without giving them much a chance. Its like "Oh it's another idiot coming on here.".

 

[Henrywrites]

I have used forum support for various open source forum softwares I am using and I think the support community is pretty good, but sometimes getting the kind of response you want can be little tough.

This is true. When it comes to getting help on some technical issues, you may find it a bit more difficult to do so unless you've got someone who is on your team who can handle that. So, those are the challenges.

 

[Heatman]

Well, people are only human, but some of them seem to be barking at newcomers without giving them much a chance. Its like "Oh it's another idiot coming on here.".

They are probably not paid enough for the trouble which is why they act that way to new guys who stress them over what they have been through over a thousand times 😂

 

[Tracy]

They are probably not paid enough for the trouble which is why they act that way to new guys who stress them over what they have been through over a thousand times 😂

If you work for a company in support, your exasperation is of no concern. You are getting paid to provide support and your personal aggravation/attitude has no place in the equation. Ultimately, since you are getting paid it should not matter if you have heard the question 1 time or 1 million times. Your response should remain professional.
The aspect is totally different when that support is provided by other users of the product.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I feel that official support forums from XenForo, Invision, and vBulletin has always been good but then again, you pay for the platforms and thus deserve some kind of professional support.

But free platforms is where I see the most negative responses. That's probably because the support is mainly from the community as a whole versus the official support staff. It's more diverse.

 

[joelr]

free platforms is where I see the most negative responses. That's probably because the support is mainly from the community as a whole versus the official support staff. It's more diverse.

I genuinely loved the community support when I was on SMF. There was always someone who was ready to jump in, and you got a variety of answers. You do need to sift through the answers more, and sometimes the answers will send you down the wrong rabbit hole, but even if didn't directly solve your issue it was always nice to learn. For someone who likes to "over-learn" information, I personally love crowd sourced information. Give it all to me and let me learn it all!

 

[Cory]

I've been helping people on forum software support forums for over a decade and I've never had too much of a problem with the ones giving support, but the ones getting support. Sometimes they can be demanding or become angry with you when you don't give them the exact response they are after. I've always supported free, non-self-hosted message board services. There always seemed to be people willing to help people on these services generally for recognition or promoting their site in their signature.

John on Jcink (the forum software I use) is one of the most responsive forum software owners I have known when it comes to giving support. He usually answers many people's questions within minutes to a few hours.

I had a bad experience giving support on ZetaBoards once. I was support-restricted for telling a user they could accomplish something in the future when it was better supported by web browsers.