Yep, I finally pulled the plug. From now on, I won’t be accepting PM support.
Before, unlike most other people, I would accept people randomly PMing me for help. However, over time, I started to think that the reason some other staff members still got support was because some people (i.e. me) still allowed it, so they weren’t sure what to do. So, there we go, I’m stopping it too. That doesn’t mean I won’t help anyone over PM at all, if some private data needs to transferred or I agree to help them and the conversation should be kept private, obviously I’ll be OK with that, but not with someone PMing me out-of-the-blue.
Recently I noticed some people, not all, were starting to take advantage of it, not even bothering to post a thread. I’m then over a barrel; if I don’t reply they’ll moan at me for not replying, but because they haven’t made a thread, nobody else can help them. I also started to really hate the fact that people were being quite rude and abrupt with it. Sending me a PM with a title of ‘help me’ or ‘read this plz’ and then a message saying ‘read this *URL to thread*’, or just giving me a URL, is a bit out-of-order really. Kinda like saying ‘here you go, do this now’. No ‘hello’, no ‘thanks’ no nothing. Just a link. Sometimes even when the thread is only a few minutes old. Some people were more polite, said hello, said what the issue was, gave the link, and said there’s no rush and that it’s OK if I can’t help. That was nice to see. Shame not everybody could do that, that’s one of the main reasons I’ve stopped accepting them.
When I started being invisible the number of random PMs dropped, but didn’t stop. Worst case scenario is when they sent me a PM asking for help, and then when I didn’t reply to it after a few hours, they sent another one. This is both annoying and frustrating, especially if this was done whilst I was asleep. Of course I couldn’t reply to the first message, I was unconscious. There’s a reason why there’s a ‘Local Time’ section in my profile.
Another Support Team member started giving warnings when people sent them PMs for support. And I’ll start doing that too. 20% that lasts 2 weeks. That, or make a thread and be patient for an answer, your choice. If you make a thread, everyone can see it and learn from it.
So… I don’t want to be PM’d for support. I don’t want to be PM’d a URL. I don’t want to be PM’d to be asked to reply to your thread. I don’t want to be asked to give support over IM. If you want to ask something about MyBB itself, report something, or ask something about me, that’s fine, but support should be on the forums.
That is all.
