Overheard: "The MODx team doesn't care." "There's no support." "They never got back to me!" "My site is failing because of X bug and the developer isn't responding. My client's going to kill me!" "MODx isn't stable." "This product is going to fail."
I hear these statements daily. Via forum posts, Twitter, personal messages, email, facebook, you name it. (Important Disclaimer: The number of positive responses vastly dwarfs negative ones.) What do I do about it?
Well, first, like any problem, it's important to diagnose why someone feels something, before addressing the problem itself. The scenario is this: You've just adopted MODx Revolution - a hot, brand-new product that the web community is buzzing about. You've downloaded it, installed it, and signed up a client to use it.
All's well in the world, right? Well, no - you've hit a snag with either your implementation, a bug somewhere, or you just aren't sure how to do X. And you're stumped. You've read the manuals (I may be being generous here in that assumption), but still don't get it. And you're not a coder, most likely, so looking at the code is out of the question.
Not knowing what to do, you start asking anyone and everyone for help. You post in the forums, but no one (sufficiently) responds. Or if they do, it doesn't fully solve your problem. So what do you do now? Well, here's where we go awry. You email or contact the developer (in this case, me) via email, IRC or PM and ask for help. And you expect them to answer, right? Or at least answer the email.
Okay, we've setup our scenario. Now let me go ahead and say it - this is completely understandable. Sometimes things don't work as expected, or aren't fully documented. Bugs happen. Any developer understands that, and they are trying their best to minimize problems. But to be fair, let's do a scenario from their perspective:
You just spent 2 days of unpaid time to contribute an Extra to MODx. You've poured over the code, tested it, got it running, and submitted it to modxcms.com. It's been approved, and then reality sets in. People are going to be using your product. You scramble to write out some documentation, and try to write it to the best of your ability - but you're no technical writer. You hope that someone else will come in and clean it up.
In fact, you're hopeful that all you read about this "Open Source" movement stuff that people write about in blogs will *actually happen*. You've read that people (called "givers") actually contribute back code when they find bugs. They write how-tos and tutorials. Some will even donate! Giddy and optimistic, you're thrilled that your Extra is up and ready for use, and you tell everyone about it. Giving free software is great!
But then reality hits. About 2% of your users actually give back (and you're eternally thankful, more than even they realize). The rest passively, silently use your product without any amount of thanks, support or contribution. They click and disappear. But you know, that isn't that bad. You can deal with people just being happy. They'll submit bugs if they hit them. Right?
Well, statistically speaking, no. To be honest though, that's okay. You can deal with that. But then come the "consumers". This is what you call them, because in your mind as a developer, that's what they do. They consume the product, the code, the documentation, you. They give nothing back but questions on why something doesn't work. Why the documentation is hard to read. Why there's bugs in the first place. How they're entitled to their say and you should be fixing their product. Then they start emailing you directly, asking for help. Swamped with this, it's easy to see why you're quickly losing motivation (and time) to code anything new. Why invite more criticism? After all, you're not getting paid for this.
Obviously, this is a bit anecdotal. This doesn't always happen to this extent, or even in this order. It's never this black and white. But I do see it every day - with myself, my colleagues, and those who contribute. How do we solve this problem?
I think the problem and the answer is the same: community. So much of how community behaves is defined by that community itself, and the action principal members of that community take.
Personally, I do not respond to individual support requests or personal messages (with a few rare exceptions). Why, you ask? Wouldn't that help develop community? Doesn't ignoring it hurt the product? Well, actually, the truth might be startling: no. Not at all. Let's look at a graph:
This graph shows a hypothetical (and somewhat realistic) scenario in which I decide to take in support requests. A low estimate of the number of emails/PMs I get a day is 2 new ones per day (it's more like 3-5). I also assume (again, a low estimate) that each response takes 30 minutes of work. This scenario assumes that I respond - and we also assume that persists the communication and support, since I'd have to respond to their response, and so forth. So the first day, I've got one request. 30 minutes gone from my development time that day. Not bad. But see what happens to my free time as I add more responses? The amount of time I get to actually fixing the product decreases exponentially. By Day 5 I'm barely even coding or documenting anymore.
This is why I don't respond to personal requests. I leave it up to the community to support itself, with some help from me when I can. I believe this promotes a healthier community - one that learns, grows and helps each other, rather than leaning heavily on the core team or experts within the community. It discourages dependence and encourages communal growth and independence.
I recommend people post in the forums, where others besides myself can come in and help. (And for non-coders, that's actually a huge contribution that they can do.) Forums also have the side benefit of being searchable and archivable, meaning questions don't always have to be re-asked. I contribute much more effectively to support by:
- Writing more documentation
- Fixing said bugs
- Developing the product more
- Getting developers who want to contribute back docs/help on how to do so
These measures are far more effective at product and community development than me responding to everyone's problems. This is also how I'm sure many other developers look at it. We're not ignoring you. We're just helping more effectively. Please don't take it personally - we really do love you. That's why we spend all this time giving you this for free.
All that said, the mantra we must remember in Open Source is that "you get what you give". OSS lives and dies by that saying. So with that said, let's be a community of "givers" rather than "consumers".
PostScript: Obviously, I respond to people with security vulnerabilities found, or potential developers. I'm also far more likely to respond to bugs filed in the MODx bugtracker. Nothing's black and white, and I'm constantly evaluating the merit and value of any situation. But this is a general guide to how I decide on how to spend my time.
Comments (28)
mrhaw:
Oct 25, 2010 at 07:26 PM
Awesome blog post! People shouldn't sell websites
and features they haven't got working for themselves
in the first place...
Paul:
Oct 26, 2010 at 02:43 PM
It's funny but I would never dream of emailing a developer for help. I'd assume they'd be snowed under and not reply anyway.
Mark Hamstra:
Oct 26, 2010 at 06:36 PM
Awesome post.
You really made it clear what is happening and how it's being dealt with.
Now let's hope those people sending you (and other developers) PMs will actually read this. :D
One thing I would just like to point out from your post is that the forums become documentation in itself when questions are asked publicly. They can be searched, and in my experience they are pretty well indexed by Google.
(You mentioned this - but I believe that is very important for people requesting help to realize also.. by getting help on the forums, they are helping others.)
John:
Oct 26, 2010 at 09:44 PM
By the time I have come across a bug or something I can't fix myself, while I post off to the forum I already have to start thinking about Plan B. I sometimes email the developer but I don't really expect a response.
Carlos Zenteno:
Nov 07, 2010 at 11:18 AM
I think the way to communicate with the developers of MODx is via bug reports, enhancements and new feature ideas. That is their job, the community is there to help on almost everything else... when the community cannot do it, the developers come to the rescue... that is what happens in MODx and it works great. We rather have you guys working on the next generations of MODx than in support.
splittingred:
Nov 10, 2010 at 07:43 AM
I agree Carlos! The more Jason and I can work on new features and current bugs and less on forum posts, the more MODx develops.
I'd love to see more community involvement in support on the forums, enhancing the docs, and submitting patch requests. Once that starts to increase, we'll really see MODx development take off.
Tom:
Nov 10, 2010 at 07:37 AM
Suggestion: put this blog entry as a link on your sig in MODx and elsewhere, it is good food for thought, with the same blog title. Also, beautiful usage of hr lines, nicely done!! :) :)
splittingred:
Nov 10, 2010 at 07:42 AM
Thanks Tom! Good suggestion.
TheWebScientist:
Nov 10, 2010 at 07:52 AM
Keep up the good work Shaun.. I have alot of respect for you (and sottwell) for all the addons and work you putted into MODx!!
Anyone that thinks you also could play for support are nuts!!!!
And ofcourse MODx (Revo) FTW!!!
Daniel Miguel:
Nov 12, 2010 at 09:57 AM
People sometimes doesn't stand the way things works when talking about collaborative development, they just think that support shoud be given free of charge and the only one who can do it is the developer, but that is not true, It's people helping others!
MODX RULES!
David egerton:
Nov 14, 2010 at 03:09 PM
We have used MODx for years - when we have a issue we work through it. It's pretty rare we need to contact MODx, we know you guys are real busy.
I think a big problem in our industry is that we have loads of new so called web experts who have been in our industry 5 minutes. They promote themselves as web designers to clients, sell their services, often for too little, and then, when it's not quite right, scream at everyone else and blame the product because there client will be angry. I don't have an issue with competition but I do have an issue when unskilled people in our industry write negative rubbish about MODx. That is not fair and not helpful.
I know we need to try harder to make a bigger contribution, but at least we treat the MODx developers with the utmost respect and will always be considerate and grateful for what they do.
If you need help with response times, MODx do offer paid support.
rav3n:
Nov 17, 2010 at 01:37 PM
this post inspired me to write a tutorial as some kind of giving back to modx community:
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,57373.msg328398.html
W. Shawn Wilkerson:
Nov 19, 2010 at 09:26 AM
To often people want to take ideas (or products) not their own and attempt to make money.
For years, I provided reseller services to "webmasters" to eventually have to transfer them to being "self-sufficient" and not constantly on the phone or e-mailing me to give them the steps to make 4 digits, because they felt they earned the right because they paid me 3 digits. Some of them were getting deals which over a years time equaled 5 or 6 digits.
My biggest issue came with people who simply cut corners and did not care how they implemented items such as credit card collection: sending them via e-mail and storing them in a text file accessible to browsers.
I finally told them: hire me or don't take the job -- you'll get sued or be in jail if you are caught.
I no longer offer reseller services directly. It ate to much time and did not provide income or completed projects.
Rakel:
Nov 22, 2010 at 01:47 PM
Great post. I completely agree. I am a designer/UI programmer, so my actual PHP skills are rather weak... which means that I rely pretty heavily on what I can find on the forums. If I have exhausted all of my research options and still can't find the answer to my question, then I post my own thread and hope that someone with more knowledge and expertise can help me figure out what is wrong. So far, I have been about 97% successful in finding solutions for my problems, oftentimes I solve my own issue, and establish some steps for those who might experience the same problem. I can't say I've ever really thought about emailing the developers privately. I always felt you were more likely to get a response by posting in the forums, because you have more eyes on it.
Rakel:
Nov 22, 2010 at 01:51 PM
I also wanted to add that ExpressionEngine is very good with their support, I typically get responses to my support threads in a couple hours from when I post. So if support is an issue, then shell out the bucks for EE. I've always been a huge ModX fan, but after working with EE, I have to say I like it better. But, I know not every project can afford the licensing costs so ModX is still a very capable tool in my arsenal.
Adam Wintle:
Dec 03, 2010 at 02:36 AM
I admit I am guilty of taking up waay too much of Shaun's time over IM, Twitter and Skype! But I've realised this, and submitting bug reports and contributing on the forums benefits the community as a whole - I found this blog post an insight into these problems and actually quite inspiring! The community needs more helpers and "givers", so count me in, I'll help wherever I can!
Mark S:
Dec 08, 2010 at 09:38 AM
Having read the post, and used many of your guides, products and what not, I thought I'd publicly apologise, for contacting you personally (over twitter, using @, not using DM) without really considering how much time requests like these must take for someone who spends their time working on open source projects.
While not expecting a reply, I first wondered why I didn't get one.
My issue was not a bug (as far as I knew/know - so no need to submit a bug report), and I had read the documentation (may have missed the solution, may not have), had searched the internet (including the modX forums) and finally posted up on the forum asking about it. But on deciding that twitter (in all it's amazingness) would be a quicker method, I asked publicly and personally (to you) on there, assuming that a response may solve my issue. While I didn't get one, maybe my asking uncovered a bug (I don't know) or a lack of functionality but sometimes the person asking (especially non-developers) will not know whether it's a bug, a lack of features, a missing piece of documentation or just something that's not intended to happen without asking. And who better to ask that the person who made it?
So again, apologies, but (while you never made out that you didn't understand) I thought I'd explain why some people (like me) contact the developers
splittingred:
Dec 08, 2010 at 09:48 AM
Mark, I definitely understand the reason why people contact me. It makes total sense. I'm definitely not irritated with them. It's pretty easy to ignore.
However, I simply just don't have the time to respond to everyone. Usually, my rule is, if it's a security vulnerability, I respond. Otherwise, I ask people to post to the forums, because the forums are searchable and can get someone other than me to respond. It's just not beneficial to the project for me to handle the 10-20 requests I get daily.
You definitely don't need to apologize. This post was more of a notifying people "Hey, I'm not gonna respond!" post rather than a seeking for apologies.
Glen:
Dec 09, 2010 at 11:35 PM
Hi Shaun, I really understand where you are coming from. I have posted a few questions in the forum that you have actually answered (non security related questions) and I can't thank you enough for taking the time to reply. I understand the that it's basically impossible to reply to all of these questions. My purpose for asking most of my questions is to facilitate further talk within the community about potential issues / bugs / how-to's, which, in the end, build up the community and ultimately assist MODx in its growth.
Again I really appreciate what you have done thus far, and I look forward to being able to increasingly assist users on the MODx forum. Tks man!
Goonerforlife:
Dec 15, 2010 at 10:04 AM
As a newbie to modx I have been amazed at the community response and support.
I am more of a developer myself so I understand completly the pressure and frustration that comes from being contacted about something that 'doesnt work' (or doesnt make, bake and ice a cake).
I think you (the community and modx team) do a fantastic job and i would like to say a big thanks.
Dave:
Dec 30, 2010 at 10:33 AM
Great points, Shawn! You've been phenomenally generous in your contributions. Once in awhile, I'll come up with something that does some particular task in MODx. And quite honestly, I've considered writing it up in the forum, but I've decided not to, because then I would get loads of requests for help which I don't have time for. And I don't want to listen to legions of whiners who expect you to drop everything and help them when they do nothing in return. And what I come up with tends to be combinations of existing components, not actual snippets are plugins.
Instead, my approach has been to answer people's questions on the forum. This way I can contribute something in a way that I find more enjoyable.
You're a hero for our system!
Thanks, Dave
Dave:
Jan 31, 2011 at 10:54 AM
I am new to modx and am definitely not a coder by trade (consider myself to be a novice but willing to learn). Support on the forums is mostly very helpful so far. I wouldn't have really thought to pester you personally with a problem.
I have to admit I have been stumped on wayfinder and other issues but eventually figured out that revo is not evo. I'm still in the front end of the learning curve but have been truly impressed with the flexibilityof modx so far. I think people may give up in frustration if they don't find information quickly.
Looking forward to more revo documentation/development.
Best
-David
Justin:
Feb 10, 2011 at 03:24 AM
Like the graph, its very true.
now on another note....can you help me out with the following piece of code?
echo ":)";
Paul:
Apr 07, 2011 at 01:16 AM
Ok! I'm guilty of sending you (1) emails...
How can I pay for my guilt? Will a beer be enough? :o)
I really appreciate your hard work and I totally understand your point, but what do you do when you really can't find answer for your problem? You dig into the code and guess what...There is Shain's email address right on the top of the page...:o)
All the best!
Mr. Swillis:
May 04, 2011 at 11:57 PM
Great post and great points. I'm currently in a position that combines developing custom solutions with support. It's a terrible combination. Your hypothetical graph is right on. I could get custom hacks turned around WAY faster if I wasn't also handling "urgent" support requests. *Sigh* there's a darn good reason these roles are typically seperated into different departments.
Swill
Paul:
May 12, 2011 at 12:29 AM
Ok, then how can I solve a problem for which nobody seems to have an answer. Posted on forums, searched all the documentation, other MODx users' blogs, ask for help like crazy but still no solution...One of my threads led to issuing a bug by another user who's facing the same problem.
I'm talking abut Quip...
Just tell me please where can I ask this kind of questions?
Crssp:
Jun 24, 2011 at 08:32 AM
Glanced at your post yesterday, had to re-read this one, for a minute I thought you were promoting... "Not helping in the forums". I was going to have to ask why you would promote disengaging from the very community the gives MODX life, but I see this is not the case at all.
Thanks!
[Quote from above:]
"I recommend people post in the forums, where others besides myself can come in and help. (And for non-coders, that's actually a huge contribution that they can do.) Forums also have the side benefit of being searchable and archivable, meaning questions don't always have to be re-asked."
A well asked and documented question in the forums and a correct offer -Priceless!
Mark Hamstra:
Aug 08, 2011 at 05:23 PM
Just saying that I'm also very guilty of this. I bet I didn't realize that yet when I made my previous post! :P
I personally advise people (and whenever I run into something, try to do the same) to post a topic on the forums, and link to it (with a descriptive description) on Twitter using the #MODX hash tag. That really drives traffic to the post and lots of talented MODX folks are on there to help as well.
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