The WordPress.com support forums monk, spills all again today … although less fireworks, seems I’m begrudgingly being accepted … whoopee ! … but darn it, less juicy bits to write about … never-mind, hey-ho, I’m sure I’ll make another mistake before long, and someone will tear strips off … almost inevitable I’d say 🙂

I decided to try my hand a volunteering a few days ago. I had a support question that needing answering anyway, so dropped in asked my question … and then had a go at answering a few of the struggling user’s questions …

As a recap from day #2 – I’m having fun and learning loads in the support forums. It feels really great to be helping people, and using my skills for positive – support monk in action. A little competitive in there, but doesn’t phase me. Although egos seem to bruise easily, so I’ll have to tread bit more carefully on those eggshells, if I am to retain my monk like composure 😉

DAY #3

Well it’s more like day 3 and 4 really, Easter and all that jazz, been trying to chillax as well !

Seems that I’m not the hostile nutcase I was originally perceived to be … but heck I knew that all along – I’m doing something to help others with good intentions, and that’s always a good thing.

AND YAY ! seems I’ve been begrudgingly accepted as an intern level volunteer … how high the higher ups seem at the moment, it’s like standing at the foot of a pyramid looking up at a Pharaoh … a mere surf amongst giants … who am I trying to kid ! … funny though all the same 🙂

Some shit I learnt :

Adding the tag “remove conversation between Volunteers please” will precipitate staff removing volunteers conversations when they’ve been “having a chat” … so handy one if you’ve been chatting away to Geoffrey about breasts or global warming …

NOT ALL WordPress users have that much brain power, in fact it suprises me they have enough brain power to move their limbs … they’d rather you look up whatever it is for them, than look it up themselves … I don’t mind because it’s helping me find my way around the help pages, but you can see why others volunteers might start to get a little fed up …

Spammers are a daily visitor/nuisance to the support forums … I had one who’s message was simply “beer, wine, sherry, congnac, brandy etc” … felt like saying – you’re a man after my own heart, however I reigned in my humorous impulses they do seem to get me in trouble, and furiously berated, OFTEN.

Spammers messages can easily get deleted by staff, just add “spammer” in the tags.

One guy offered to send me a bag of coffee a month if I’d do his website for him … I told him it was a tech support forum and that we aren’t allowed to accept bribes. Also as his offer only extended to USA, couldn’t take him up on it anyway. He now knows where the help and learning pages are, so I reckon he’s well prepared to become the world’s next great web designer … or not … meh, probably not !

I helped a poet who was thinking about signing up with WordPress and OBVIOUSLY sung all the praises of WordPress.com, whilst doing my best to hint that the upgrades are crap … whoops did I just say that out loud … aren’t I the rebellious one … well, really soundcloud and youtube are much better solutions than uploading MP3s and videopress, I say this through from my own hard experience ! … now maybe if WordPress want to give me 50% commission, I could be persuaded on all the advantages of the upgrades … pigs might fly, so I stick to honesty, honesty is always best.

I told some French, Spanish and Portuguese people to use their own forum in their own language … and then spotted a thread where a French guy had been referred back to the English forum … talk about passing the buck !

Does seem to steal time that place, thinking about changing my gravatar to stealerswheel or timebandito, but neither really suit … hmmm, I’ll ponder that one for a while, maybe I’ll think of something better … or not … we’ll see what happens …

What else ? … Helped an Indonesian lady with the Broadway theme, which is pretty sexy theme. It’s got horizontal scrolling photos of the posts on the front page. Not sure it would suit a photographer/photography blog though as all the images would need to be tall and narrow ! Wedding photographer, now there’s a thought, that might just work …

That’s about it for today, more juicy gossip tomorrow, maybe …

Summary

The aggressive hostile shit from yesterday seems to have reached a partial catharsis, for now. So I’m actually able to get on with my “job” without being harassed and stalked over trivial stuff … so happy days really.

Helping more WordPress users get over their inability to use Google and the help pages … and some genuine people with real problems too … alls cool, especially the coffee guy, who made me laugh, a personal connection amongst a lot of political shenanigans is always a breath of fresh air.

Signing off then, Don Charisma, part time WordPress support forum’s monk … bit more relaxed and rested for Easter …

Cheers

Don Charisma

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