Update #19 - The day late update

Kallak
Kallak

Hey Opers. So, it's going to be kind of a light update today (this post is the proverbial day late and a dollar short - to which I apologize). Between Gen Con, traveling around, getting sick and having to push back the weekly content team call, I'm still catching up on what the dev side did. That said there are a couple of things I can share for the moment.

Alright, let's hear it:

[1] How To / Knowledge Base stuff

Work on the HT/KB overhaul continues, and we grow ever-closer to it finally being released. I didn't get much in the way of feedback from the preview image that I posted last time around, so hopefully people liked the new format (or at least can tolerate it). This sort of segues into:

[2] Impending Support/Help page changes

If you check out the top navigation bar as it sits right now, you will see that the "Support" and "Help" both go to the same place. This was done a while back because the old help area was being phased out. Now that we're moving closer to releasing a revised help area, this will be changing "back" to its original setup.

The Support page will remain pretty much the way it is, just with some alterations featuring links to FAQs and How To material on the upcoming Help area.

~~

Next week will be a more normal, robust update, and I'll be sure to get it out on Monday as it should be.

All the best,
- Kallak

Comments

  • weasel0
    weasel0
    Posts: 435

    Do does this mean that the support tickets will remain private or does a return to the old way mean a return to the public ticketing system that quite frankly got shut down due to fiat?

  • Kallak
    Kallak
    Posts: 1,090

    The plan so far as I know is that the ticketing system will remain as it sits for now - with tickets being sent to the helpdesk via the [email protected] email. I know there's that portion of the crowd that wants the older-school, more transparency-oriented public ticketing system - and believe me, I get it with everything this community has gone through - but the drawback to that system (and a large part of the reason for the changeover in the first place) was that tickets coming from multiple sources tended to mean that some got lost in the shuffle.

    As part of the troupe holding the line on the support side, I can say that the tickets I get generally fall into one of the following categories (listed here with my general thoughts on them - feel free to discuss):


    1. Site-Wide Problems: This is stuff like when we had the 500 errors going crazy. On the one hand, I think this is a ticket type that's workable for a public ticketing system, as they are the sorts of issues that affect everyone. On the other hand, it's not like there's that much to discuss when you get right down to it. People can verify that yes, they too have been affected (just like everyone else), and then it invariably devolves into complaints, which don't really help anything. The only thing we can do on the support side is make a public acknowledgement that we are aware of the issue and are moving to address it - which is something we try to do with these site-wide problems anyway.

    2. No Knowledge Base Problems: These are the ones I think exist purely because the KB/HT area isn't completed. They tend to be newer users who are trying to do something and don't know how, or don't know where to go to do what they are trying to do: stuff like changing their password, or setting their campaign's game system so they can use DSTs. Like before, on the one hand, I think these are workable public system type questions, and it lets the new user dip their toe into the community and ask. On the other hand, ideally the KB/HT area will kill a lot of these, and thus there won't be too much to discuss.

    3. Specific to the Person Problems: These are the ones where some element of personal information for the user ends up being involved. Stuff surrounding the account, or the user's subscription. Almost always it's nothing more personal than an email address, but it's still that user's personal information, and as such doesn't belong in public view. It's also pretty much always a problem that no other user can help with since they need access to the admin dashboard to look at or resolve it.

    4. Feedback and/or Feature Related: These ones aren't problems so much as they are someone just speaking their mind (to the man!). Maybe the person is mad and wants us to feel their wrath; or maybe they love the site and want us to gush with them; sometimes they have an idea for a new feature, or a plan on how they think something could be made better. Most of these would be okay for a public area, assuming they could be kept constructive and on point. The bad ones would just be inviting moderation on a public forum though. Support-wise, we take notes on the good ones, and try to get more details on the angry ones so we can find out how to remedy the situation (if possible) and avoid going down that road again with others.

    5. One-Off and/or Mystery Problems: These are the tickets where something strange is going on and it's going to take a bit of investigating to get to the bottom of it. Stuff disappearing, something not working as expected - on a specific page or character only. Some of these I think would be okay to have on a public area. Sometimes the problem is something as minor as a special character, and other users might be able to help figure this out. Other times it involves going through logs to see what happened, and thus others users aren't able to help at all.

    Obviously these aren't the only types of tickets that come in, but they constitute the vast majority from my experience thus far. That said, it's certainly a topic that worthwhile discussion can be had for, and I'd be interested in hearing more.

    All the best,
    - Kallak
  • weasel0
    weasel0
    Posts: 435 edited August 2018

    Either way is cool, just looking for clarification. :-)

     

    (Especially since we know who's feet to hold to the fire.)
    >:-D

    Post edited by weasel0 on
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