Welcome to the Minsite Support Forum! This introduction is designed to help you find your way around the forums and to hopefully get you started as quickly as possible.
These forums are for Minsite only. We do not offer support for general WordPress issues or for third party themes and/or plugins. If you have a question about WordPress in general, please refer to WordPress Documentation or WordPress Support. For help with another WordPress theme or plugin, please go to their official support channel.
Search First
Your questions might of been posted and answered before. Before starting a new thread, please try searching the forums for an answer. It also might be answered in the documentation. If you do find a solution to your problem, by all means start a new topic.
Where To Post
The forum is split into sections, with each forum having a short description on the support page. Please try to choose the most suitable section for your new topic, and please post your topic in only one section. Duplicate postings might be closed and/or deleted.
Choose A Good Topic Title
When you start a new topic, try to use a descriptive title. “Unable to Install Minsite” is a good title. “URGENT HELP PLS!!!” is not a good title. A good title can be the difference between getting help and not.
Include as much information as possible
Put down all the detail you can about your hosting environment, your WordPress install (plugins, themes, etc.) and the problem you are having. If you are seeing errors, copy them word for word into your post. It’s best to include the full error than to summarize – sometimes wording is important. If you did something before you came across a problem, write down exactly what you did.
You can post links to screenshots to illustrate your issues, but don’t use screenshots in place of a website link. We need a link to the webpage with the issue, to see a working (or broken) example of it.
Link to Your Site
If your question relates to a specific site or page, please provide a link to it. It may help others when they are trying to help you. Remember, though, the forum is not designed to be a link portal, so excessive linkage will be moderated, as might signatures or links with no associated question. Be also aware, that links will not get removed any time later, unless in extreme circumstances.
Signatures
Signatures in threads will be removed as they cause clutter and distract from the information and help provided.
Warn About Adult Content
Some sites contain content that is not suitable for a general audience or for viewing whilst at work. To avoid creating problems for anyone who is trying to help you, please add NSFW to either the topic title or the content of your post, as well as tag your post NSFW, as a warning if you think your site falls into this category. (Otherwise your post / links may be removed.)
NSFW stands for Not Safe For Work.
Posting Code
When you need help with code, it helps us if you can post that in the forums. With that said, we really need you to remember to keep your code enclosed in backticks (`) to stop it being parsed by the forum’s software (which may also make it unreadable). Select your code in the editor and click on the “code” button to enclose your code in backticks. You don’t have to mark each line, just the section (like you would for blockquotes).
If you don’t do this, the odds are high that your post will be caught as spam by the automated tool, and we’ll have to fix your post for you.
Posting Large Excerpt of Code
When you post a large excerpt of code, it often makes the thread difficult to read. Instead, we ask you please paste your code in a pastebin or Gist and submit it as a link in your post.
As for what constitutes a large excerpt, it’s difficult to say. Certainly if you’re quoting an entire php/css/js file, put it on pastebin. For anything under 100 lines, we ask you use your best judgement. Do consider that you’re asking people for free support, and it’s a darn sight easier to read pastebin/gist than a styled block of 150 lines of multi-indented code. Scrolling back and forth, as well as up and down, trying to unpick code via a fiddly little code box is a time-consuming activity that distracts from answering the actual questions.
Note: Anything you put in a forum topic or a pastebin is public. Anybody can see it. Don’t post any passwords or private info there.
Receiving Responses
When you post a new topic, there is a checkbox “Notify me of follow-up replies via email”. Check this box if you would like receive an email notification when someone replies to your post.
Where Did My Post Go?
If you know you posted but you can’t find your post, it may have gotten caught by our spam filter. If that happens, don’t panic. Please let us know and we will fix it. You can get caught as spam if you post too many times in succession, or if your posts are all the same (yep, it can check that).
Reporting Threads
To report a bad (spam etc.) post, add a tag called ‘modlook’ to the thread. That feed is checked very regularly by the moderating team.
The modlook tag is only for reporting issues with the forum itself – abusing this tag in the hopes of attracting the attention of a moderator to your support question will not be viewed kindly. Don’t put the modlook tag on your support question, put it on things like spam, or people using signatures in their posts, or duplicate threads. Things that a forum moderator should see and correct.
Closing Posts
Posts may closed after 12 months, if there are no new replies. We also reserve the right to close posts that are deemed non-productive to the community.
While many times non-productive posts are deleted, sometimes they had some relevance and instead are closed so the information remains, but discussion can no longer be furthered. This includes, but is not restricted to, posts on the following topics: Hosting recommendations (for or against), off topic conversations (i.e. non-Minsite), old/outdated topics, clearly resolved topics, excessive rudeness or antagonistic, and requests for paid support.
Sometimes you might notice that your posts are closed as soon as you post them. This means that they have been caught in the spam queue, which is an automated process and sometimes catches posts by mistake. If this happens, a moderator then has to (manually) unspam your posts, so it may take a little while to be rectified. Your patience is appreciated!
Being ‘Mod Watched’ or Banned
Sometimes, when someone’s having a bad day, their posts will be flagged so all posts must be approved by a moderator. This is considered a cool-down tactic, and isn’t intended to be a bad thing. It just means your behavior caught our attention in a slightly negative way, and we want to keep an eye on you. If this happens, just be patient. We will review and approve your posts probably pretty quickly, or edit them and reply, pointing out what’s wrong.
If, however, your actions escalate, you’ll get banned. There’s no one behavior to point at for this, but basically if you start lashing out, calling people names, making accusations, emailing people nasty messages, or challenging the authority of the moderators, you may end up banned. The basic rule of thumb is don’t act like a bad person. You’re an adult, you know how to behave. We expect you to do it, and if you don’t, or can’t, you will be banned.
Harassing anyone is not permitted, and you will be banned if you do this.
Deleting / Editing Posts
We reserve the right to delete topics or posts that are off-topic or detrimental to the community, however it is not the general policy to edit or delete forum posts unless they are spam, harassing, illegal, or outright abuse. We will not delete your post or remove your link just because an Internet search for a term brings up the forums before your actual URLs.
Users can edit a post for up to 60 minutes from the time of submission. After that, the post can only be edited by a moderator.
When a post is made and people contribute answers to an issue, that then becomes part of the community resource for others to benefit from and deleting posts removes this added value. In extreme circumstances, members of the moderation team might be persuaded to remove sensitive information that has been included in posts accidentally – but your best course of action is not to publish anything that you wouldn’t want to be public. (Remember too that other sites take archive copies of the forums, and we can do nothing to control that.)
Deleting Accounts
Accounts are not deleted, not even for obvious spammers, due to technical limitations of the system. If you don’t want to use the forums anymore, log off and don’t return. We’ll miss you!
Usernames cannot be changed either. If you want to use a different username, then create the new username and stop using the old one.
Contacting the Moderators
Following moderators ‘home’ and sending them email can be harassment, so please, before you hit send or fill in their contact form, remember that these are real human beings, and calling them names because they won’t delete your post (or did delete one), is not cool.
The Bad Stuff
We need to keep the forums friendly, so, occasionally, topic content will be moderated. This might mean anything from the light editing of some posts to complete removal of topics and deactivation of accounts. It should really go without saying, but the following are likely candidates for moderation –
- Harassment. This should be simple, but please don’t harass or abuse people. Don’t send them emails calling them names. Don’t twitter stalk them.
- Spam and affiliate links, duplicate posts, offensive posts, posts without content, flames, and references to adult content that have not been highlighted as NSFW.
- Posting in all caps. This is considered shouting and is rude. Please note that this list is not exhaustive. Every post is judged on its own merits.
- Ask for help regarding third party themes/plugins. We do NOT support third party plugins or themes and it is not our place to keep vendors in business. If someone wants to help, that is fine.
Please enjoy your stay at the forums! When you’re done, please mark your topic as “Resolved”.