You’ve got a problem and need help finding an answer. Or you want to make changes to your theme. Or you’re a coder looking for a fresh viewpoint on a template that you’re developing.
Who are you going to turn to?
But your chances of getting an answer will be significantly improved if you follow a few simple points:
- Search the WordPress Codex first. There is plenty of documentation available and it is being constantly updated. Use it!
- Search the WordPress forums. Don’t just post a question without checking to see if it’s been answered before. The forums are extremely busy and no-one is being paid to help, or answer, you. Do some of your own research first.
- Don’t post questions or complaints relating to free wordpress.com blogs. The WordPress Support forums are primarily for self-hosted blogs, so you won’t find much in the way of help there.
- If you can’t find an answer yourself, read the Forum Rules before posting.
- Post your query in the most appropriate forum. Don’t post the same question in multiple forums. That’s just one way to cause severe aggravation and reduce the chances of receiving any responses.
- Give your post an accurate Topic Title. A title of “Help!” isn’t much use.
- If your problems relate to a specific theme or plugin, tag your post with the theme, or plugin, name.
- Remember to indicate what version of WordPress you are using.
- Post a brief summary of your problem — including any troubleshooting steps you’ve already tried. Include the address of your site, if possible — not a link to a theme. There are currently more than 850 themes in the WordPress Themes directory. Funnily enough, most people aren’t intimately familiar with every one of them…
- Don’t include huge chunks of code in your post. For larger blocks of code, use the WordPress pastebin. It makes life easier for everyone.
- Don’t bump topics. Those with a single post are prioritised, so bumping is a one way of ensuring that your topic will be pushed down the queue and your question may not be answered at all.
- Don’t ask people to completely re-design your theme for you. Many of those who help out on the forums are professional web developers. Asking them to work for free simply isn’t on.
- Don’t complain if the answers you receive are technical. Sometimes the only possible solution involves coding of one sort or another.
If you are running a self-hosted WordPress blog, you will probably need to undertake some coding at one point or another. So you can either roll up your sleeves and dive in. Or you can pay someone else to do it instead.