Free support isn’t being abandoned. etc.
Leslie, my feeling is that you’re now in the part of the conversation that is most important:
- the feelings people have about Ellis after the shifts, those of the past year especially
- the unrecognized monetary as well as advancement value of ‘Support’, that it is a resource in considerable proportion to the amount it may appear a ‘cost center’ to the EE enterprise
- that you are likely not to be able to make support work at the level needed for a complex product like EE by abandoning community in favor of a shopkeeper accounting. Even, I would think, for the ‘enterprise’ customer.
- that comments about ‘forums outdated’ are mainly diversionary, besides unsound.
As you may know, I’ve involved myself, particularly on tough problems of either the technical or ‘unplugged refrigerator’ sort, on the forums in the last year. I’ve done it for a number of reasons, not all to be exposed, but particularly to understand better how this community works. Because it is unusual, you know.
I think people like Nevsie have been very articulate in this thread how the ‘inner support’ actually works. Quite capable people come around because they would like a little conversation with peers where they’re stuck. Then they stick and answer a handful of others who learn from them. It’s a story so simple and effective (and powerful) that its place to exist is very easily overlooked and lost.
That’s what happens when labels are changed, when the experienced are disinvited, etc.. Pretty soon things look very organised, by labels which, as pointed out, newer persons in trouble especially can’t figure out, and the full burden of support then actually falls on Ellis itself.
This is of course only half the story, and I think you know the other half, and why my fingers insist on over-typing before really getting into it. Ellis is trying very hard to remedy the effects of the last year, and I support that—let’s let this say enough.
It’s possible to get at the Support side of the issue, though, just by looking at what those ‘unplugged refrigerator’ or ‘mean-minded title’ support stories are really most often about. People have to have confidence to work at the surface of a complex system, as EE encourages them to do. When they don’t get a clear-spoken and active conversation, they flounder, and it takes a lot of work to get them back on track.
You get that quick, accurate conversation by having people like Nevsie, Cheif, _rsan, bluedreamer, to name a very few who first come to mind, present.
And by the way, this is the moment to suggest reversing another canard. So many of the problem conversations are _not_ from 2004-licensed personal bloggers. They are from newish licensees who are building something for a client, and not for USD 50K either, at the moment they get lost. This is before and after considering upgrades paid for, that the market is split now so that considerable innovation is in add-ons that are required, etc.. I have seen what Rick once wrote openly to Pixel&Tonic; about getting people ‘to pay’, and think it misses a mark.
Well, I am skipping again - because I don’t want to write about the way shop-keeping economics probably don’t work; and as clearly as the same thing is a problem for the big boys also, as much as they focus any attention on home markets.
We are then back to why the community around ExpressionEngine feels unusual, and as core.
It’s the community which can deal with the complexity, and the personal. It’s the community which brings persons to learn. It’s the community which builds futures and, so often, their contributors, whether they become website builder/communications businesses; or become composer and/or supplier of new EE abilities. Who indeed are the Masugas?
I want to say at this moment that I am anything but a jockeying positioner of the ‘New Social’. It is actual culture I am talking about; real relationships that persons can participate in. If I have to admit to being old enough that finally it does penetrate that so much of the action in newer venues is actually in search of this.
What is there to suggest, to close what I feel is a necessarily pretty imperfect contribution here? Actually, again I think the seeds are present in what others talk about.
1. Bring approachability back to the forums. Yes, in titling, ordering, etc.. Tell people with problems right where they can go, official and community. Observe how they choose, in fact, which might be interesting. But don’t actually split those reservations. Have EE people go into community; invite community mentors to contribute in official. Find out ways and means to have people move appropriately wherever their question began.
2. Have more than just ‘Support’ persons in support. Support is an absolute treasure chest for anyone doing design, as design is most deeply to be understood. Having development people each spend a few hours a week, perhaps via posted lists of ‘help here’, ‘please comment here’ to focus it, would really close a lot of issues fast.
3. What issues? Places where support persons run out of answers; and also places where solutions are really needed, but are being officially ignored (I will promote as an example, not killing JavaScript/JSON when business developers set debug to 0 for the ever-present reason, to avoid embarrassment on an imperfect deliver where customers need to use CP posting/editing).
[Ah, notice I am getting clipped by the forum for being longwinded here. Finish in a short second posting, then.]