Job Title: Support Engineer

Years at WebDevStudios: 8

My move into working for WebDevStudios (WDS) was a very swift transition in September 2012. If memory serves me right, on a Saturday or maybe Sunday, I was tipped off that WDS was hiring by a then-employee and he encouraged me to apply.

The next day, I sent in my resume. I believe Monday I had an interview with our CEO, Brad Williams, over Skype, and by Tuesday I had the job offer. It was something close to that, for sure, and I was happy to leave freelancing in favor of steadier work. I’ve been here ever since.

As I sit here reflecting about the past eight years, I’m realizing that I’ve had a finger firmly on the pulse of support for WebDevStudios, almost from the start. By “support,” I mean a different type than what a typical agency provides a client. That support is most definitely important, especially for maintaining long-working relationships. The support I’ve been involved in, though, has been a mix of long-term relationships along with one-offs or momentary needs.

Plugin Support

WebDevStudios had developed some plugins during the early years. Most notable is Custom Post Type UI (CPTUI), with Brad having good foresight that user-registered custom post types and custom taxonomies were going to be BIG for the WordPress community. He jumped on that pretty early on, and CPTUI emerged as a forerunner in opening up those possibilities.

WDS also developed various other plugins that were also published on WordPress.org over time. However, there’s only so much time in the day, and running a business takes up a lot of that time. This limited Brad, and whomever else may have been asked, to handle incoming support requests for those published plugins.

I was actually fairly active in the official WordPress Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel, which is an available avenue for general WordPress support even in 2020. It was in there that I believe Brad saw a natural knack I had for helping others. He also knew that public perception was incredibly important, and on the plugin front we weren’t doing so hot. By the spring of 2013, I was dubbed the “plugin czar.” Not only did I take on the responsibility of handling all of the incoming support requests for ALL of our free plugins, but I also took on the continued development of them.

While I haven’t called myself the plugin czar much since, the role is still very much a part of my workday. I primarily make sure that the support threads are responded to and helped in as timely of a manner as I can. If serious bugs or security issues arise, I address and release fixes as quick as possible. As time and schedule permit, I also try to work on new features, but that is usually not as actively handled daily. Sometimes, a solid, stable plugin that does its job well is better than a constantly moving plugin.

Regardless, every day I’m checking both RSS feeds and email notification for the support forums that I’m tasked with monitoring. These two methods help me make sure I am keeping an eye on new activity for each plugin. On top of that, I also manage and monitor any communication provided through GitHub, where we publicly host all of the source code for our free plugins. A majority of the open issues are probably created by me to help track ideas from both myself, as well as users suggestions, but users are able to contribute their own, and I respond there, as well.

Maintainn

WebDevStudios realized that they wanted to take an active role in not only helping clients release awesome websites but also maintain longer-term relationships with them well after project completion. The idea of, “Hello, get the work done, goodbye!” was not enough. Why not move a client internally to a different part of WDS to keep that relationship going?

Enter Maintainn, a WordPress support company that was started by Shayne Sanderson to provide ongoing and routine support for various sized clients, who wanted help keeping their sites updated, backed up, secured, and have custom development managed. WDS acquired Maintainn to not only continue helping those smaller website owners, but also provide a branch of the company that the agency-level clients could also rely on, after the initial project build is finished.

Once again, Brad approached me with the idea of moving me away from the agency side of WebDevStudios and put me on the Maintainn team. I agreed to the move. At the start, I was also helping out with AppPresser support when WebDevStudios still had a hand in that product, and I began splitting my time essentially three ways: plugins support, AppPresser support, and now Maintainn support.

Did I mention I can do support?

With Maintainn, I’ve done practically everything at one point or another. Whether it be the small quick-ish requests from clients, to larger feature requests for major functionality, to the grunt work of applying available updates each week, checking on security scans or reported vulnerabilities, and making sure backups are running like expected.

Today, though, my primary focus is less on the routine maintenance tasks, and more on the support requests. On a given day, I will be reviewing new requests to evaluate what is being asked for, what needs to be done to achieve that, and how much time I think it’s going to take. Some tasks are going to be pretty quick and require less than 30 minutes. Sometimes, the requests are considerably large and could range in the 20-30 hour range. It really depends on what is being requested.

I would easily say that a good portion of my Maintainn day is communication, both internally and with the clients. I’m checking my email for notifications from our various tools used by Maintainn, communicating internally with our project managers and my fellow developers, and communicating with the clients about their requests. Once estimates have received official approval, I then go heads-down on the task to begin fulfilling the request and hopefully making a happy client. I wrote a behind-the-scenes look at my role at Maintainn on our blog. Take a peek.

Pluginize

Pluginize definitely scratches the itch I have for being part of a product team. I love the idea of being able to develop the tools that help the web developers help their clients. Pluginize is also an extension of the plugin support role that I’ve had for years, but on the premium product level. As you may have guessed by now, I am also tapped to be the primary support person there. My day-to-day dealings with Pluginize include handling support tickets that come in through our ticketing system, whether it be a pre-sale question about one of the products, technical support for an issue someone is having, or if they just aren’t happy with the product and want a refund.

I also get to help continue evolving the premium products, develop new features, handle any bugs or security issues in the code, and manage new releases. Between the free plugins support and Pluginize, if you’ve ever reached out to WDSs for questions about our plugins or products, chances are you’ve had at least some feedback come from me, which I think is pretty awesome.

Constant Contact

The last proverbial hoodie I wear at WebDevStudios is the role I play with our ongoing relationship with Constant Contact. You can read more about at Success Story: Constant Contact Forms Plugin for WordPress.

This product/project has evolved and changed over time, but one thing that has managed to stay pretty consistent is my involvement with it. With that, I have a lot of contextual knowledge about how things were and are now with these plugins. This is also a different type of scratched itch, as it’s also a product, but not one that is owned by WDS.

Much like our other products and plugins, this is also one that I do a lot of forum and troubleshooting support for, as well as gather user feedback for what we’re doing well, what we’re doing not so well, and ideas to pass along to Constant Contact for how we could make the product better.

This helps Constant Contact with a more robust and solid product which helps them with their customers. I think I also benefit because at least temporarily, I get to put myself into a different pair of shoes where I need to think like a marketer and try to determine things that would be important for someone in that type of role. Because I’m on the frontlines, I am often also participating in the annual meetings with the client to help outline future roadmaps and plan for new releases.

After the work day is over…

2020 is a year that will go down in various levels of infamy, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have my habits and hobbies away from my work computer, although those were definitely slowed by our pandemic. When I’m not at my work computer, chances are you will see me in one of a few various places.

First up is some local gyms. I recall it vividly, the moments when I decided that enough was enough, and it was time for a change. September 2015, right after WDS Camp 2015 in Wisconsin, I started seeing some event photos, including ones that had myself in them, and I realized what physical state I was in.

Mentally, I thought I was doing alright, even when I looked at myself in the mirror. Somehow, the event photos told me a different, more realistic story. In short, I decided it was high time to start going to the gym, and be serious about it too.

Since that September, I’ve regularly worked with a trainer multiple times a week and eventually participated in group classes, as well. All this time and effort has turned around many aspects of my life. They say it’s not a diet or a brief habit; it’s a significant life change in how you live. I have to agree. Five years later, I’m not quite to where I’d like to be (hi, abs, wherever you are), but I know I’m continually doing much better than I was before.

The second, and slightly more random place you’ll find me when away from my work computer, is one of various coffee shops around town, often with a book in hand. At the tail end of 2017, and the first part of January 2018, I noted that I didn’t do much book reading. Not only that, I wanted to actively change this, as well. It was at that point that my personal weekend reading challenge began.

The challenge is simple. Every weekend, regardless of where I am, I would read at least ONE page from an actual book. I am proud to say that the weekend streak continues to this day, and I have not missed a single weekend, as of the time of this writing. I’m not sure at the moment exactly what my grand total book and/or page count is, but I do recall the book that I started off with—The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Beyond that, I also fill my time with movies, TV, and podcasts. It’s easy to say that time is filled pretty well. And that, my friends and readers, is a pretty good idea about a day in my life with WebDevStudios and Maintainn, as a Support Engineer.

The post WebDevStudios Day in the Life of a Support Engineer appeared first on WebDevStudios.

Meet Christina Workman, who has joined WDS as a Support Technician for Maintainn. She is responsible for keeping client websites online, up-to-date, and secure.

“The onboarding process has been great! There’s a bit of a learning curve, but everyone at WDS is welcoming, friendly, supportive and encouraging,” reports Christina, “I truly feel like I’m being set up to succeed.” Before joining WDS, Christina developed WordPress websites for small and micro businesses and provided maintenance, general support, and training.

“I love working with WordPress and being a part of the WordPress community,” she explains. “I’ve been freelancing for about 10 years now and decided it was time to become part of something bigger.” Christina was familiar with WDS and when she noticed the job posting, it really resonated with her. “I get to work within my skillset, continue to expand those skills AND work with a great bunch of people who also give back to the WordPress community. Who could say no to that?!”

Christina is very active in the WordPress community, organizing WordPress Meetups, WordCamps and KidsCamp. In her spare time, she enjoys hanging out with her family, taking her two dogs to the dog park, trying different kinds of tea, and watching BritTV. She is excited about her journey at WDS and Maintainn, saying, “There’s so much to look forward to! I think to sum it up in a word: opportunities. The opportunities to help clients, to contribute to WDS, to learn from my colleagues, to be involved in the community.”

Would you like to be like Christina and join our team? We’re hiring! Take a look at our Careers page and find an opportunity that’s a fit for you.

The post Team WDS Just Keeps Growing! appeared first on WebDevStudios.

Even though we work remotely, our WDS family is close-knit. We even stay in touch after hours and on the weekends, sharing food pics and tidbits about life events. So when we add new faces to our team, we get super excited. And we’re especially excited about introducing you to our new teammates. Get to know them now!

Haris Zulfiqar

Haris’ interest in web development was sparked by an interest in learning how online games were created, which then led him to a programming forum. His pursuit of knowledge led him to the creation of several websites just for the fun of it, which eventually led him to earning his first income online. After several years of experience as a freelancer working on WordPress, he created several commercial WordPress themes including Avada, the most popular WordPress theme on ThemeForest, before eventually landing a career as a full-time web developer.

Dave Bonds

Dave discovered WordPress in 2008 and fell in love with web development and open-source software. Prior to that, he created his first website all the way back in 1994 and ended up starting his own computer repair business in 2003. But it was after his discovery of WordPress that he went on to become the first employee at Agent Evolution–a leader in the WordPress real estate space–then became Director of Web Design, and finally CTO and minority owner in the company. It was there that he met and worked with WDS Director of Engineering, Greg Rickaby. Dave has been a fan of the work WebDevStudios has done for years.

Allen McNichols

At eight years old, Allen took apart his first computer and put it back together. It was an IBM Clone 286. In 1997, a call came in from a relative in Washington who had managed to delete her entire hard drive and could not get her computer to boot from the CD-ROM. Over the course of about two hours over the phone, Allen was able to walk her step by step through getting it back up and running with Windows 95 reinstalled. He was only 13. Suffice to say, Allen is destined for a great future by combining his skills for technology and helping others. Prior to joining WDS, Allen worked as phone support with IDX Broker and later filled the role of support technician for Agent Evolution.

Chrispian Burks

Chrispian has done a little bit of everything in IT including running PC support, running an ISP, co-founding the blog network 451 Press as well as communities for writers Lit.Org and WritingForums.com. He started using WordPress back when it was b2/Cafelog, and for all the sites on the 451 Press network (just over 500 of them) and wrote tools to help integrate with phpBB, DirectAdmin and custom provisioning code as well as some small plugins related to advertising and running the network. WordPress has been his go-to content management system ever since. He especially loves how easy it makes building new projects for fun and for clients.

Do you want to join our team?

Working at WDS is a rewarding experience that includes remaining actively involved with the WordPress community, interacting with great clients, and establishing nurturing friendships and lifelong memories. If this is a company culture you would like to be a part of, check out our Careers page and submit an application today.

The post New Faces at WebDevStudios appeared first on WebDevStudios.

Please note: no one solution is perfect for every type of client. It’s why we have a few hosts in particular that we choose to work with depending on the project. But as a customer, you should know that you have options, too, whether your concerns are financial, performance, or purely based on up-time monitoring and support.

Support

One of the most critical things to consider is support for your website. The purpose of your website and its goals, whether it’s just for informational purposes or fuels your business, will affect how much support you need. For example, available support hours and type of support offered will vary from host to host and could even vary plan to plan. So, if your business is purely digital and your team is distributed across the nation or even the globe, then ensuring you have access to human support 24/7 is probably critical. You don’t want to be left out in the cold when trying to get a hold of someone at 3 a.m. should your site go down.

Alternatively, maybe hours of support isn’t your concern, but rather how you communicate. Some hosts offer chat support, while others offer a ticket-based service, which operates a little bit slower, like emailing back and forth. There may even be options for phone support, but that varies from host to host. If those are things that are important to you, you should find a host that will support you in the way that you need it the most.

SLA

In the same vein as support, a service level agreement (SLA), is going to indicate what type of guarantee you receive from your host to stay online. Often times, it fluctuates from host to host; so you need to ensure that your SLA covers what is most important to you. Be mindful of whether or not the SLA covers network availability, is an infrastructure guarantee, or if it’s on the hardware. It’s possible that the SLA could cover all, or just some of those. But again, it’s important for you to know what type of SLA your host operates under, so you know what is and isn’t covered by the agreement.

Technology

Most often than not, your hosting provider is purchasing their technology (aka infrastructure) from someone else. In the case of purchasing hosting directly from Rackspace or Amazon Web Services, for example, you’re purchasing directly from the source. However, most managed hosting companies are just reselling infrastructure with their own tools and optimizations built on top of it. This is totally acceptable. That’s the trade-off when you go direct to the infrastructure; you don’t generally get as many tools or platform-specific (WordPress) support. But certain technologies provide certain features that will vary depending on the type of service you need.

Let’s say that you need highly scalable architecture, ensuring that the technology behind your host (aside from SLA, customer support, etc.) is able to sustain the amount of traffic and load that your site requires from their technology. Most hosts these days disclose who their technology provider is, but if they don’t, it doesn’t hurt to ask. From there, you can better identify what type of infrastructure will be powering your site.

Performance

This goes hand-in-hand with the technology but also includes the unique optimizations that your host might build on top of that tech infrastructure. For example, a lot of the hosts that we partner with have their own mix for performance and optimization, which is why they’ve become so successful as brands.

It’s no secret that SEO is important for your site to succeed, and the easier it is for someone to get to your site and get the information they need, whether it’s a human or a bot, is going to net you better rankings. Fast sites historically perform better. So if having a good user experience and ranking higher on Google is a concern for you, then looking into the performance of the host is going to be of major importance.

There are also statistics that prove that the longer it takes for your site to load, the more likely someone is going to abandon your site and get their information elsewhere. And with hundreds of thousands of sites sharing similar content, we’re conditioned to getting information as quickly as possible. If you want to keep readers and visitors on your site, looking for a highly performant host is critical.

Backup

Backups are pretty standard these days, but be mindful of how long those backups exist and how easy it is for you to access them. Just because your host is taking a backup doesn’t mean it will be helpful for you if you need to implement it, which plays into the support angle. When you need to retrieve a backup, it’s usually at a critical point. It’s one thing to know you have a backup, but another thing to actually restore a backup.

Backups come in handy for a number of cases—just keeping a running copy of your site if you have to revert for any reason, especially when WordPress and plugin updates are released. Some hosts even remind you to perform a backup before every update you make to your site. Imagine drafting a bunch of blog posts only to find that a WordPress update broke your site! If you hadn’t made a backup, you would have lost all of those draft blog posts. Backups are there to do just that: backup your site and act as a safety net. So finding a host whose backup policy works for you, or even just being more mindful of what type of backup support you need, can set you up for success.

Dev Tools

Depending on what type of site you’re operating, you may or may not care about developer tools. But if you have a team of devs, or even a singular developer, the tools that a hosting provider offers can make a difference.

Staging sites, analytic tools to help you understand how your site and content are performing, or even things like more complex things like GIT integration can affect development workflow. Some hosts can be pretty restrictive with code reviews or force you to use their workflow. We try to recommend hosts that we’ve had great experiences with ourselves, so we’re not throwing you into the deep end with anything unverified.

Control Panel

One of the most underrated but simplest things to keep in mind is the control panel. Again, its importance depends on how much time you plan to actually spend on your site, but the experience could be dramatically different if you have only one website versus managing 10. How easy is it to get support, to the resources that you need, to access the tools, or even have the visibility over the performance of your accounts?

Having a control panel is like having the best navigation system for your car. A basic one will get you from point A to point B, but a souped-up one is going to give you more insight, more knowledge, and more tools to do more with your site.

To reiterate, there are a lot of variables to consider, which means that no one host is a perfect for no one client. Thankfully, our team works with the best of the best to provide you a great recommendation based on your needs. Consider what we outlined, think about your unique site needs and whether or not your current hosting solution is supporting you in the way in which you prefer to be supported. If it isn’t, our team is always happy to help talk you through options and point you in the right direction. Contact us today.

The post Things to Consider When Searching for a Website Host appeared first on WebDevStudios.

My iPhone, laptop, even a new air purifier I recently purchased all had the option to buy some form of a maintenance plan. I’ve never regretted purchasing one because while I’d like to think of myself as responsible, I’m far from graceful. Working in the tech industry now as the Director of Client Strategy at WDS, I’m often asked whether or not an ongoing website maintenance and support plan for a website is necessary. My answer is always the same, “Absolutely.”

I understand being hesitant to engage in this extra expense. I’ll be the first to admit that YouTube tutorials, online classes, and documentation have me believing that I’m an expert developer at times; and while these tools are helpful, they don’t always account for the unexpected. There are many reasons why ongoing support is critical but let me just share a few.

Plugin, Theme, and WordPress Updates

All of the code that goes into making WordPress work is often referred to as the “core.” WordPress sends out updates a few times a year to ensure that the core is always in tip-top shape. Some releases are small, but some are important, containing things like critical security updates. Every update is worth taking seriously.

Plugins are created by this amazing open source community to extend the functionality of your website. Plugins can update more or less frequently depending on how engaged the developer is in improving the tool.

There’s also your website theme to think about. Whether you’re using a free or premium one, chances are that as WordPress releases new updates, so will your theme.

I hesitate to hit that “update” button sometimes. You don’t always know how your website will be affected. While most agencies develop websites to be as update-proof as possible, there are no guarantees. Having a professional on deck to handle these updates for you is critical in the ultimate performance and health of your website.

Security

Hacking: it’s a term we are all familiar with. A quick look at the news and there is a story of some website being hacked somewhere. There are numerous measures you can take to protect your website. Some are easy and could merely require a plugin, but others tend to be a bit more complex. With ongoing support, trusted professionals will ensure the health of your website. One thing you may want to consider is if your website is being monitored on a regular basis. Constant security scans alert the website owner if a file has been tampered with, if there are irregular logins, or even if there have been DNS changes. Regular monitoring can detect if these changes are out of the ordinary and quickly put things back to normal.

Backups

Here is a typical scenario—you hire someone new to work on your website. It could be a new developer or maybe someone just adding content. They are given more access than they need, and accidentally something happens, and your site is not looking like it should. If you have regular backups being performed on your website, restoring to the last one should be a painless process. Without backups, you are in for a ton of investigation and work. Having regularly scheduled backups is the insurance policy you need most.

Big and Small Changes

The real hero of a maintenance and support plan us simply having access to a team of experts available to help. That form you want to add to the website, those images that you just haven’t had a chance to upload, the new ads you want to put on the homepage; with a support team, it’s as simple as letting them know your plans and then allowing them to take it from there. Think of your support team as an extension of your business. They are here to support you. No task is too small or large.

This may seem like a lot, and it is. There is no need to tackle all of this yourself. That’s why WDS has Maintainn. At Maintainn, a brilliant team of support specialists is there to answer your questions, help plan for changes, secure your website, back it up regularly, and update it consistently. All of this is to ensure you have a high performant and rock-solid website. Not only does this bring you peace of mind but it also assures your visitors are enjoying their experience. Yeah, there may be some additional investment, but it can’t compare to the investment needed if these safeguards are not in place.

The post Ongoing Website Maintenance: Why the Transition from WDS to Maintainn Makes Sense appeared first on WebDevStudios.

Project Initiation

Once we have a signed proposal/contract, our Client Strategist is ready to start project initiation. In this phase, we schedule various project discovery sessions to get a detailed understanding of general project goals, design requirements, and website data details. The goal of the discovery sessions is to get as much information in order to outline a detailed project plan. The project plan specifies the project design and development requirements.

Design Phase

A majority of clients that we work with desire a refreshed design for their website. We work directly with the client to get an understanding of design requirements and turn those into Figma mock-ups. We typically go through two to three rounds in the design phase: initial, revised versions, and finalized mock-ups. Our design team ensures that we provide the latest web design elements, while considering responsiveness and accessibility.

Data Migration

If you are migrating from another content management system, or want a fresh WordPress install, your website will require data migration. The data migration phase typically starts by providing WDS access to your database, or your database files. With access to your database, our development team pulls together a data mapping document, writes a data migration script, and starts the import process. Once we complete the initial import into our development environment, we do a quality assurance review against the data mapping document to ensure all content imported correctly. Our development team will be working with your actual data during the development process to ensure the launch process goes seamless.

Active Development

Once we have the final approved designs and project plan, our development team is ready to start programming your website. In this phase, we will create all page templates using the coding standards that we have put in place here at WDS. Our team will code custom features and functionality based on your project requirements using custom code and plugins. Additionally, throughout the development phase, our lead developers perform code reviews on all features to ensure proper sanitization, caching, and security are in place.

Quality Assurance (QA) / User Acceptance Testing (UAT) Review

Once all development tasks are complete, our development team performs cross browser and device testing to ensure responsiveness and accessibility is in place. We run your new custom theme through our WDS theme check plugin. Our development team also runs a query monitor and report to ensure that the site is performant prior to launch.

Launch

Each new website/project that we work on has a unique launch plan. Typically, the following steps are taken during this phase to move the site from our development environment to your staging and production environment.

• Our development lead will set up staging and production environments on your host and set up deployments.
• We will then request a content freeze in order to start the final data migration process.
• Once the site has been moved over to your environment and a quality assurance test has been completed, you will be ready to switch the domain DNS/cpanel.
• And… your new WordPress website is now live for your company and users!

Support

WDS likes to guarantee our development work by providing a 30-day support phase post project completion. We use this time to squash any minor bugs or issues that came up during launch and make certain that your company is happy with your new website. We also offer extended or ongoing support and maintenance options for our clients.

Overall, WDS has set the standard for projects and project life cycles. We ensure that we provide quality WordPress websites based on our clients’ goals and requirements.

The post Project Life Cycle of a New WordPress Website appeared first on WebDevStudios.

What I’m talking about, though, is when you actually get to work developing and designing sites. At times, it may be easy to get lost in the work that you’re doing. You know you need a plugin for a specific function and, lucky day, someone actually made one! You click download, you pop that puppy into your /plugins/ directory and everything is right as rain.

Many times, that’s where it ends. You get this fabulous plugin or theme and then it just exists. You see notifications when updates are available, so you get those updates and move on with your day. On your end, as a user or a developer, it’s pretty automated after you install and setup a plugin. Updates come and you apply them and then test test test. Do things still work properly and look cool? Awesome! Then let’s move on to the next task.

Before you know it, this kind of becomes your life. For the times when you don’t need to write a custom piece of functionality, there are plugins available to help, and it’s so easy to just snatch up that gravy and be on with your day. But what about the people behind those plugins?

Remembering the little people

As important as it is to know that you can find an awesome plugin to do an awesome thing, it’s also important to know that the people producing these plugins are putting their time, energy, and love of all things open source into their work which is nothing to sneeze at especially when said plugin is available as a free download. That was a long sentence with a lot of “P” words in it. Sorry if I took you on a bit of an unexpected journey there.

This mindfulness of “Hey, there’s a person behind that plugin!” didn’t really occur to me until it affected me personally, as I think is the case with a lot of things in life. When it did affect me, though, I was caught completely offguard. I received a harshly negative review from a user (who shall remain nameless), as well as a 1-star review on a plugin I (and a few others) have worked hard on. Not only that, but the claims in the review were completely unfounded because the items about which they were complaining were absent from my plugin were, in fact, not absent! What the frak!

YOOOOUUUUUUUU gotta stay positive!

Now, I’m typically a pretty positive guy. What’s that thing they say about being like a duck? Let things roll away like water off of a duck’s back? I’m usually very much like a duck. I also like bread and yelling, so maybe I’m realizing some personal information here that will better saved for a later blog post.

Nonetheless, I do try to stay positive and stress-free as much as possible in my work-life and my life-life. This, though…this situation had me riled. RILED I TELLS YA. How could someone so blindly leave such a terrible review? Hadn’t they taken a moment to actually look at the settings of the plugin, wherein the “missing” details about which they complained sat very clearly labeled? Hadn’t they considered what a 1-star rating could do to a plugin?

After doing some research, it was very clear that yes, this user had certainly thought about all of these things. This became obvious because the user in question was on a 1-star-rating, negative review-leaving rampage. It was evident from their initial reviews and the plugin author’s responses that they had clearly not understood some aspect of the plugin and that their complaint was totally unfounded. They were just leaving negative bombs all over plugins because, I guess, they hate good people doing good things.

Finding all of this out was like eating a bunch of uncooked rice and then having my stomach explode due to the expansion of said rice in my stomach (reminder: I am a duck in this scenario). Except instead of my stomach exploding, my brain was exploding and sending signals down to my fingers.

Oh I tell ya what, I clicked reply and I really let this user have it – with a fully reasonable and friendly response letting them know where exactly they could find the information for which they were asking as well as offering to help with with any additional inquiries they may have. I felt good. Great, even! With such a carefully worded and friendly reply, they’d be sure to realize the error of their ways and apologize, acknowledge their mistake, and maybe even change their rating from 1-star to whatever star they feel the plugin actually deserves.

I was so wrong. What followed was yet another antagonistic and unhelpful quip. Then things got interesting.

The part where “community” comes into play

My very good buddy, fellow Team Scream lead and all-around great guy Justin Sternberg, stepped in to offer some third-party advice on how to cool the situation. Maybe a third party is just what the situation needed? Not the case. According to the user, this was an A and B conversation and Justin should C his way out of it.

After yet another terrible response from the user, people I had never interacted with before began to leave comments in my defense. Whoa! I didn’t expect that at all. Here I thought I was fighting a losing battle against a serial negative reviewer, forgetting for a moment that there was an entire community of people on my side–people for whom this may be an all too familiar experience.

It was only a couple of people, but I was really taken aback by this show of support. So much that it really opened my eyes and led me to writing this blog post–a post for which I had no solid topic when I woke up this morning. I had stopped keeping all of this in perspective: the community of WordPress and how it reaches far beyond conversations on Twitter, presentations at WordCamps, or the books sitting on our shelves.

There is a heartbeat here. Something unable to be retweeted or shared on Facebook. Something we can not download and install. It’s something intangible that may be easy to miss or even forget when your day-to-day is looking at client requests and problems and then finding the solutions to those requests and problems. It’s something that is always there but may require taking a minute or two out of your day to fully realize.

Keeping community in perspective

So, take this as a lesson. Maybe you’re also so engrossed in what you’re doing that you haven’t taken a second or two to remember that we’re all people and we’re all in this thing together. Negativity is completely unnecessary here, but when it does crop up it’s nice to know that there are others in the community (some of whom you’ve never even met) who will come to your aid.

Remember that behind every plugin or theme you love (or don’t love) is a person or group of people putting in the effort to produce a product to fit some kind of need or desire within the community and that leaving terrible feedback and ratings on their products could potentially do more harm than you could fathom. This isn’t just a silly bit of fun we’re having on these websites; for most of us, this is a part of our careers and livelihood. And even if WordPress doesn’t play a major part in your life and you’re just making plugins and themes as a hobby, there’s still no excuse for being a jerk to a stranger even if it’s easy to do so from the comfort of your keyboard.

While I will not mention the name of the user who inspired this post, I will thank a few folks who jumped in to help here:

• Justin Sternberg for stepping in and trying to set the discussion on the right path early on
• Eric Holmes who I don’t know personally, but also jumped in to lend his support
• Nick Haskins who, again, I don’t know personally but also jumped in to help and has an incredible beard
• Mika Epstein for lending some behind-the-scenes support very, very quickly with this whole silly situation

The post Remembering Community in the Face of Negativity (AKA When .Org Users Attack!) appeared first on WebDevStudios.

Maintainn is a professional WordPress support and services shop founded by Shayne Sanderson in 2012 and they provide professional WordPress support and maintenance services including 24/7 security monitoring, daily off-site backups, weekly updates to WordPress core, themes and plugins, a dedicated WordPress support desk and custom development.

At Maintainn, Shayne has assembled a dynamic team of active members of the WordPress community providing both back end and front end support for their WordPress clients.  This is a natural fit with our team and offerings at WebDevStudios.  So much so, that in early 2014, we contracted with Shayne’s team at Maintainn to help support our growing need for ongoing maintenance and support of our existing client base.  In working with Maintainn over the past several months, it became crystal clear to us that we could go far together in meeting those goals of both sets of clients (ours and Maintainn’s) and just a little over a month ago, we reached out to Shayne with an offer that we felt made a lot of sense for both parties.

What does this mean for Maintainn’s existing client base?  As our in-house support team, Maintainn immediately gains the benefit of WebDev’s existing development and design bench strength, which enables us to increase Maintainn’s offerings of support and maintenance with the confidence that comes with a large team of experienced and talented developers who excel at what they do.  All of the services and packages you already know and love from Maintainn will remain available with the peace of mind and confidence of knowing that Maintainn now has the support and backbone of WebDevStudios experience and skill.

By acquiring Maintainn, WebDevStudios gains an existing infrastructure of WordPress support services that our existing client base will immediately benefit from.  Maintainn instantly becomes our in-house team of dedicated, experienced and skilled support and maintenance that enables us to continue to provide our clients (old and new) with confident, skilled support that starts immediately following the launch of their latest web site.

In the distant past, Shayne Sanderson was once an employee of WebDevStudios and held the role of Project Manager – a role that he excelled in.  He left WebDevStudios in October 2013 to focus his efforts on growing and improving Maintainn, and always remained a close friend and valued partner to us.

Maintainn becomes our 1-stop support and maintenance entity. It will support all of our client retainers as well as any incoming clients looking for maintenance and support specifically.  Shayne will continue to head the effort with his team as Director of Support at WDS, and we’re excited about Maintainn’s future!

We are thrilled to have Shayne back at WebDevStudios!  Shayne has built a truly amazing platform at Maintainn.  It is both our honor and our privledge to bring Maintainn into the WebDevStudios family with the intention of supporting the growth and success of our WordPress support and maintenance offerings now, and in the future.

About WebDevStudios:

WebDevStudios is a website development company that focuses on custom WordPress website and plugin development, providing custom solutions for clients like Microsoft, WEtv, Discovery Channel, Wharton University, University of Pennsylvania, Kaspersky Antivirus and more.

The WebDevStudios team prides itself on the contributions it makes to the WordPress community (5 core contributors) and love to create new and innovative features that change the way websites are designed and developed. WebDev’s team is passionate about the work they do and work extremely hard to ensure that our clients are happy.

WebDev is a 100% distributed company, with headquarters in Philadelphia, PA, New Jersey, and Milwaukee, WI – owned by Brad Williams (CEO), Brian Messenlehner (CTO) and Lisa Sabin-Wilson (COO).

About Maintainn:

Founded in 2012, by Shayne Sanderson, Maintainn provides professional WordPress support and maintenance services including 24/7 security monitoring, daily off-site backups, weekly updates to WordPress core, themes and plugins, a dedicated WordPress support desk and custom development.

Maintainn’s knowledgeable team are active members in the WordPress community who have multiple plugins listed in the WordPress repository, have contributed to WordPress core and organize/speak at many WordCamp conferences worldwide. Maintainn knows WordPress!

Read more about this acquisition on Maintainn’s website:  Maintainn Joins WebDevStudios!

The post WebDevStudios Acquires Maintainn to bring WordPress Support and Maintenance Services In-House appeared first on WebDevStudios.

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Stop worrying about your website. Stay protected with updates, backups, and a support staff that truly understands WordPress and WordPress MU. Get signed up for a maintenance package today!

The post New WordPress Maintenance Packages! appeared first on WebDevStudios.

We love helping enthusiastic bloggers make the switch to the best blogging platform out there, WordPress. Michelle was tired of being restrained by TypePad and wanted to start using WordPress to have ultimate flexibility over her website.

We were happy to help in the transition. We imported her entire blog (including comments, categories, and tags) into WordPress, updated her permalink structure so all existing links were maintained inside WordPress, configured advanced SEO techniques to increase her search visibility, and helped style Thesis with a very clean approach that she wanted.

If you are interested in learning how you can migrate your TypePad website, or any other site, to WordPress please contact us today!

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