[guardian-dev] Fixing our User Support Site

[Abel Luck]

So today I deleted over 30 or so spam questions from our Q&A site

https://guardianproject.info/questions/

This oft forgotten section of our site is a stackoverflow-style
wordpress plugin that lets users ask questions and us to respond.

And unfortunately it sucks. The concept is super, but this specific
implementation is no bueno.

Elucidation of alleged suckage:

1. Fighting spam that gets posted is a full time job, one that doesn't pay
2. Guardian devs always forget to look at it and questions can go
unnoticed for weeks!

Investigation of potential amelioration for alleged suckage:

1. Looking into the plugin, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to
prevent spam and retain the ease-of use. One reason this feature is so
useful (or could be useful) is it's drive-by nature. A user can visit
the site, and ask a question without having to register, sub to a
mailing list, or navigate an issue tracker.

2. Lack of any sort of notifications is the main reason we tend to
forget it. There doesn't seem to be any way to get email notifications
of new questions. There is an RSS feed, so perhaps we could plug the
feed into a RSS -> email service and pump notifications to a mailing
list so we all see them and can act on them.

If we can keep updates to the QA site in front of our noses, then
collectively managing the spam won't be that big of a deal.

We could create a new mailing list to post such notifications. Blog
comments could also be added to such a notification list.

Or we could investigate other user support options ala UserVoice,
GetSatisfaction, a support ticketing system, or a traditional forum
(phpBB anyone? *shudders*)

Thoughts?

~abel