Half-Elf on Tech

Thoughts From a Professional Lesbian

Tag: behavior

  • 18 Months Without Contact Forms

    18 Months Without Contact Forms

    In February of 2016 I deleted my contact forms (except one).

    In the subsequent 18 months, I’ve actually enjoyed it, as the cruft email in my box has dropped significantly. But it led to a few peculiar situations. You see, people do still try to get a hold of me personally , and they’ve taken to interesting methods.

    Keep in mind. I’m talking about my personal contact. Not work. Work is work is work. This is basically you calling my house, not my office.

    Everything Is About Plugins

    Every. Single. Time.

    I’m only talking about unsolicited messages. Not “We’ve been talking about X in the #meta and let’s take it to a sidebar.” And it’s not “Last week you said X was okay in #forums and I have a followup.”

    I mean, literally, people I’ve never spoken to before who fall into one of two categories:

    1. People looking for help with a plugin I wrote
    2. People who got an email from the Plugins address

    For group 1, please use the WordPress support forums. For group 2, please press ‘reply’ on your email.

    But they don’t. Instead they use…

    Twitter

    It’s not a secret I leave DMs open on Twitter. This means, yes, anyone can DM me if they want. So far, I’ve received the following:

    • multiple offers to speak at an event
    • multiple requests to help with a plugin review
    • multiple complaints that blocking their ‘company’ account on twitter was unethical of me
    • requests for help from friends

    That last one I don’t mind. It’s pretty rare, and it’s from people who are, you know, friends. They’re also incredibly respectful of my time (as I try to be of theirs) and understand when I say no. Pro tip: If someone lashes out or acts up after you tell them ‘sorry, no’ they’re not actually your friend, they find you useful.

    Facebook

    This one cracks me up because I limit FB messages to friends only, so I get a lot of friend requests just so people can message me. I decline them. The only trend I’ve noticed there is people who met me at WordCamps (sorry, no), and people from AWP (again, no).

    I actually block a lot more people from FB for snide comments than anywhere else.

    Slack

    90% of the ‘unsolicited’ contacts on Slack I get are people who, for some reason, instead of pressing the reply button in their email, decide to DM me.

    The rest are people who have a question about plugins and even though they know about the email address, think it’ll be faster to DM me. At 8pm. On Saturday.

    Salem the cat from "Sabrina the Teenaged Witch" laughing maniacally while stirring a cauldron

    The contact form on my ebook site

    I actually went to look at those. The last few emails are:

    • Spam to pay someone to write copy for my site for ‘SEO’
    • Spam for a VPN
    • Someone asking ‘If I can’t use a contact form, how am I supposed to get help?’
    • Spam about SEO

    Dear person – That’s what the support forums are for.

    How Do You Contact Someone Without A Contact Form?

    Generally? You don’t.

    Look. There’s no form on my website because I’m not your free support. If you have a problem with a plugin I wrote, go to the plugin page on WordPress.org and ask for help. I get emailed when you do that. If you have a problem with a plugin review, press reply on your email. Shockingly? I get an email about that.

    What About Work?

    Oh that pesky professional thing.

    First of all – use the established contact methods. WordPress plugins all have support forums. Use those. Did you get an email? Press reply to the email and either propose a different method to converse or stick to whatcha got. Sometimes email will be the only way to go, as it’s the lowest common denominator (it’s 2017 – everyone has an email since you needed one to get on Twitter or Facebook or Slack in the first place).

    Next, if you know how to contact someone, unsolicited, about work things, then just do that. It’s not very complicated. You reach out, you apologize for the interruption, and you ask if I have time to talk about X. Here’s an example for you:

    Sorry to bother you. I’m planning a non-WordCamp event in Dallas for 2018 and I was wondering if you or your company would be interested in sponsoring? You can find the details at http://event-example.com and my email is me@event-example.com

    That works because you’re starting out being respectful of the other person’s time. You’re offering contact information, which demonstrates sincerity, and lets me know there’s a non-platform limited way to get in touch with you.

    Here’s another:

    Sorry about the DM, but I don’t know where to go for this. I’m having a problem with DreamPress and I can’t log in to my panel. What’s the right way to get my access back?

    This is good because you’re not assuming I’m the contact, and you’re asking ‘what is right?’ If it’s me, I’ll happily tell you. Well. Not happily, because I’ll be bummed you can’t log in, but I’ll help you sort it out (BTW: The answer there is the DreamPress Support page where someone’s familiar mug can be seen).

    The point here is that reaching out to someone, in an unsolicited way, requires you to begin by respecting them as a human. If you can’t do that, you’re basically sending them hate-mail.

    Be sincere. Be respectful. Be polite.

    And if you DM me about plugin reviews, I’ll just block you and walk away.

  • This Post Was Written on Gutenberg

    This Post Was Written on Gutenberg

    I think … I like it and I don't like it. Yeah that was the worst review ever, so let me explain.

    Overall, I like the direction

    I'm a big text-editor person. I like the control, I'm comfortable in HTML, and I really only used the visual editor in the last 3 years because I felt to fully support people with WordPress, I needed to do so. Naturally this means I'm probably the least likely candidate to like Gutenberg. But I do.

    I don’t like the animations

    The transition animations feel 'off' to me. When I start typing, the icons for styles (bold and italic and so on) vanish, which is nice, but they reappear when I move my mouse. This is a problem if I want to go back and edit a previous block. Things are cut off.

    I like that everything is a block

    The simple idea "Everything is a block" is really nice. I can understand this easily, and it was no hard jump to think of my content as blocks. Moving blocks around is also nice. The idea of blocks and modular content suits me.

    I don’t like that ‘tab’ doesn’t work

    When I'm writing in sections, blocks, I can't use TAB to navigate back and forth. Yes, I want too. Since I can't use my arrow keys either, it's really annoying. Navigating by keyboard is a huge part of what I do daily, and I like to keep that. ## I like that I can use Markdown* The `*` is because I can kind of use markdown. And by kind of what I mean is in the above line, I used `##` to make the H2 block. On view, it works. In the editor though it looks like this:  An example of inline markdown I'm not super fond of that. I expected it to magically transform. ## I don't like the meta-box experience Okay. This is the advanced user stuff. But I use meta boxes. I spend a lot of time making my meta boxes fix the screen space. I added content to the publish box. And I'm not the only one out there who customizes the heck of the sidebar and the below the post area and … Yeah. I'm seriously concerned about that. Right now, all I see on the sidebar is a 'drop cap' toggle, which I probably won't use. I'm watching the Advanced Drawer discussion very closely with that in mind, since I have a post type with, literally, a dozen meta boxes. And no, not all will fit on the sidebar. ## As a whole… Gutenberg is really neat. It has some serious quirks, but that's why it's in beta testing at the moment. So please. Test it. As Chris Lema said, the people working on this plugin need our feedback. If you're a hardcore WordPress user, be that a developer or an advanced user, please download the latest plugin and leave your comments over here. To that end, comments here are closed.
  • Secure Your Shit

    Secure Your Shit

    Ignore the fact that Google’s going to downgrade your sites if they’re not HTTPS soon. That’s not what I’m talking about.

    I’m a strong proponent of Net Neutrality and Freedom of Speech. I certainly intend to speak up and write and protest in the coming weeks and months, just like I have my whole life. I look at the world and I see things that need changing. So while this blog is about technology and computers and the Internet and websites, it has an impact on my political actions.

    Or rather, it’s that my political actions impact this site.

    People try to hack me all the time. All the damn time. Within the last 24 hours, over 400 people have tried to break into my ‘root’ account. It’s not named root. Good luck there. But the point is that people do try to hack me. They attack my WordPress install, my server, my email, my social media accounts, and my home wifi. I suspect the last one is my neighbor being stupid.

    This means I know that speaking up will make me a target and, because of that, I need to secure the hell out of my stuff. And that means using Two Factor Authentication.

    Use Strong Passwords

    I use 1Password to both create strong passwords and securely store them. A popular alternative is LastPass, but having used both, I find 1Password easier to use. Regardless, use them. My passwords are things like 4seqKD)CsbG=iQnVoirwZ77+ which I hate typing in when I have to change them, but thankfully with browser extensions I not only don’t have to, but I don’t know my own passwords.

    Example of the 1password generator

    I can just generate and go.

    Secure your Email

    I know a lot of people use Gmail. I pay them for email right now (long story, tl;dr no one does spam better). That doesn’t mean I fully trust them but, since I pay them, I know I have a different relationship than the free Gmail one. Still I use 2-step verification on gmail.

    If you need super secure and private email, ProtonMail is the way to go. Sadly it’d be $30 a month for my multiple domains. I wish they’d charge per email address, but that’s another issue.

    Secure Your Panels

    Everyone logs into web hosts the same way. We use a panel. It might be Plesk or cPanel or a home-grown system. It doesn’t matter which. Whichever one you use, make secure passwords, don’t share them with anyone, and if at all humanly possible, use Two Factor Authentication. If your webhost doesn’t offer it, leave. I know what I just said. If they don’t offer some method of verification, they’re not safe.

    When you secure your panel, make sure you also secure your billing stuff. For example, I use LiquidWeb. They use cPanel and I activated Two Factor Authentication for that. But they also have a proprietary manage site where I log in for billing and server allocations. That also needs security. Make sure you do it on both.

    Secure Your Blog

    If you use WordPress.com, Turn on Two Step Authentication.

    If you self host WordPress, use a plugin like Two Factor. That’s the feature project’s plugin that hopes to be added to WordPress core, so it’s a little rough around the edges. While I do have fundamental issues with 2FA being enabled by default for all users of a blog, it’s because I understand that most users are not technical.

    It’s a double-edged sword. If we don’t teach people to be a little more technical to be a little safer, they won’t become safer. On the other hand, with things like 2FA and WordPress, there’s no real way for them to contact a person for help. If you turn it on, then everyone who locks themselves out gets to either call their webhost (who isn’t responsible for that) or a young relative (who didn’t sign on for that) or post in the support forums (who did sign on for that, but still).

    Secure Social Media

    Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr have Two Factor authentication. Use it.

    Twitter’s sucks, by the way. It’s text based, which means you can only use it via text-messages. Facebook requires you to use texts, but allows it to be a backup to a code generator like Google Authenticator.

    Be Secure

    The moral of all this? Be secure.

  • Cold Calling Support

    Cold Calling Support

    Recently a coworker said I was mean to support, because I was firm and annoyed with someone on the phone. “Every time I’ve heard you take a support call in the office, you’ve been mean.”

    I corrected him “Those were cold calls. When I call support, with the exception of the idiot I got at NetSol, I usually walk away from my desk so we can have a long, friendly, chat.”

    Basically he only saw me talking to cold callers and thought I was mean. And I get why. Are not cold-calls a part of support? Given that cold-calling people who didn’t pay for (and who paid but never used) hosting, I can see where he might be taking it personally. I didn’t mention, since we both agreed that surveys calling you and offering to pay you was shady at best, but I don’t see what he does as a cold call. Debt collection maybe, but he’s not a cold call. He’s calling you because he has your information and you already started a relationship with us.

    So why do I hate cold calls? Well it’s the same reason I generally hate the emails “Can I ask you for a debugging favor?” You’re trying to get something off me without compensation, or generally thanks (no, Anne and Benny, you were fine). A cold call is even worse, though, because it really is just an out of nowhere call.

    Whats an example of the worst kind of cold call? Phone scams. I actually get a lot of those for services I don’t use, like Microsoft, and it’s actually made me tell people when there are legit calls “If you’re calling from X company, I’m going to call you back at the main contact number. What case number can I reference?” I did that with the cold-call for a debt collection which I argued. I didn’t recognize them, I didn’t know them, and I was not about to give them my credit card info over the phone.

    I got into an argument with a fake Microsoft call recently. “Sir, let me stop you. You’re calling someone who works in IT. I don’t have a Windows computer, you’re working for a scam company. I know many good companies in India–”

    And he shouted at me “I am not in India. Please listen, your computer has a virus.”

    So I raised my voice, “Sir, no it does not. You are working for a scam–”

    And he screamed, “YOU ARE A SCAM!” My wife could hear him. I tried to cut him off and explain, he shouted insults (I used to work with people from India, I know some insults) and I hung up.

    Hand holding a phone

    I’m sure I could have been nicer. Equally I could be nicer to the salespeople from DirecTV who call. “We’d like to upgrade your service.” and I say no thank you. “But it’s free for 3 months.” And I know that, but I know in 3 months I have to remember to cancel the service. No thank you. Again, no thank you. It’s around the second ‘no thank you’ that I start to lose my patience. Certainly I try to be firm, so they don’t think I’m easy to convince, but I’m not trying to be mean.

    It’s possibly a side effect of ‘Bitchy Resting Face.’ Whenever I’m firm and direct and say “No, I don’t want that service.” I get push back that I’ve been mean to the person on the phone. But if I say the same thing in a sweet and kind voice, I’m told I’m being too soft and that encourages the hard sell. From my end, it’s a no win.

    This is probably why I’m a bad salesman. If I say “You may be interested in product ABC, it can do these things.” and the person says “No, thank you.” I stop. I may say “Okay, if you change your mind or have later questions, please just ask.” and I move on. Because I, personally, hate the hard sell. I don’t want someone convincing me I want something I don’t need. Sales calls are not something I appreciate.

    On the other hand, of the few times I’ve been called by companies for support (not the other way around), I’m cautious and then pleasent. When I moved to California, my bank and credit cards called me. “Hi, we’re seeing a lot of charges from your card in a new location.” I laughed and asked if it was my new city and if it was the Target. They said it was, I assured them that was me. “Well, we’re going to hold those transactions until you update your account with your new address.”

    Boom. That was awesome. Security and support in one. I had to update it, of course, but in doing to, I confirmed for them it was me, and I helped them out. This was good because the next week someone in Kentucky tried to use my card numbers and they knew it wasn’t me. Of course, the amount of travel I do makes this hard, but they keep checking with me when appropriate.

    And that support? I always smile for.

  • General Behavioral Guidelines

    General Behavioral Guidelines

    The following are cribbed from TWoP’s Dos and Don’ts. They should not be considered the be all and end all of how to behave on a site, but I find that abiding by these gets you going on pretty much every forum and comment site in the history of ever. Since a lot of people never saw TWoP (or the similar post I made on make/support in WordPress land), it’s useful here.

    Good Manners and Respect Dos and Don’ts

    • DON’T use “um,” be snotty to another user, or make the argument personal
    • DO know the difference between differences of opinion and personal attacks
    • DON’T present your opinions as facts
    • DON’T post the same opinion over and over in the hopes of wearing other people down or “winning” a discussion; just move on

    A swan attacking another swanStarting New Threads Dos and Don’ts

    • DO search for existing topics before starting new threads
    • DON’T use all-caps or excessive punctuation in thread titles

    Posting Messages Dos and Don’ts

    • DON’T post in a thread until you’ve read the whole thread
    • DON’T post “Me Too!” messages; add something of substance to the conversation
    • DON’T sign your posts
    • DO use proper spelling, capitalization, punctuation, et cetera
    • DON’T pimp your site or product, et cetera;
    • DON’T post copyrighted articles; link to them
    • DON’T post the same thing in multiple areas; pick a spot and go with it

    Warnings, Bans and Trolls Dos and Don’ts

    • DO take any mod warnings you get seriously
    • DON’T bug the mods to remove moderation on your posts

    One thing I left out is something that drives me up the wall. Don’t reply to things in the wrong place. If you’re reading someone’s blog post about how to tie shoes and you post a comment of “Will Prince Harry get married?” because the blogger remarked about that in a separate post, you’re being really annoying. I personally delete off topic posts, and serial-off topic posters get blocked.

    When you get off topic, you make it harder for a conversation to be followed. When you make it hard to follow, you get bad help (at least in support forums). Hate it.

    Of course, when I suggested these to WordPress’s Support folks, I got some interesting replies which tell me that folks aren’t quite as receptive to things being spelled out, fairly friendly, that should be common sense. Allow me to quote Voltaire:

    On dit quelquefois: “Le sens commun est fort rare.”

    For those of you who do not speak French: People sometimes say: “Common sense is quite rare.”