Q&A!

[zarhooie]

Hi y'all! I just wanted to go over a few things.

• Everyone who has submitted a request so far, and everyone who's looked at the support boards, is totally 100% made of Grade A certified awesome.


• Tact. I can not stress enough how important tact is for those who are answering support requests. The quickest way to upset a user is to be tactless. If you can't think of a good, tactful way to say something, ask on #dw_support, leave an IC (internal comment) or just don't answer. When in doubt, ask. I'd much rather err on the side of overly polite than asshattery.


• Tone. I can't stress this enough either. Kill them with kindness. Don't be snarky, rude, mean, crabby or any shade of unpleasant. This is one of the public faces of Dreamwidth, so act like it. Kill them with kindness.


• Aside from tact and politeness, the most important thing is starting out "dear $user" or "hi $user" and then ending with "best, yourname" or something similar. It's ok to change your sign off according to the nature of the request, but try to keep it professional. Thus, "Best," "Thanks!" and "Thanks for using Dreamwidth!" are ok, while "PEACE OUT" and "I will make like a banana in the presence of ice cream, and SPLIT" are not.


• If the user is being an asshat, let one of the admins know and we'll take care of it.


• If you submit answers and they aren't approved, you can come ask one of the admins. One of us is generally on #dw at any given time, so ping us with questions. Really, there are no stupid questions as far as this is concerned.


• On a related note, please ask one of us if you don't know why we approved another answer instead of yours. We'd be happy to explain it. :)


• If someone has answered a query, but you think you could write a better worded and more correct answer, by all means, please do so! We will approve the first answer which has the correct information, formatting and tone.


• If you can avoid referencing the wiki, that'd be spiffy. Instead, use the FAQs whenever possible. This is because information on the wiki can be edited by anyone (generally) and this could lead to misinformation. Also, the FAQ referencing is built in to the support system, which is handy.


• You may have noticed some requests getting their [xx]'s replaced with other headers, like [com], [icons] and [Mark]. Those are to help us keep track of certain types of problems to assist the devs. More on that in a minute. What they mean: Com = comments (not importing or not showing up), icons = icons (acting strangely) and Mark = anything that isn't comments or icons that needs attention. It's an admin thing, so don't worry about it. :)

This one is important so it gets its own thingy:
The support admins have a system for letting Mark and Rah (and Janine and Sarah) about problems identified on the support board. We send them a digest daily with the most recent problems, identified by us and by you. This system helps to ensure that PMs are not lost or forgotten and that all issues are addressed in a timely manner. To this end, if you feel that Rah or Mark need to look at a query, please let one of your Friendly Neighborhood Admins know so that we can add it to the list. Chances are we'll see it before you poke at us, but we'd rather hear about the same issue 10 times than hear about 10 issues once. We are currently using the central collection method for contacting site copy and FAQ personnel as well, though this may change in the future. We'll let you know if it does. :)

If you need to get in touch with one of your Friendly Neighborhood Admins, you can PM us on IRC (MissKat, domtheknight, chemicallace) or e-mail us or PM us on the site. There are several admins, but the ones who are writing this are zarhooie, domtheknight and chemicallace.

Thanks for reading, guys!

-Kat, Dom and Chemla