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As the title suggests.

Prompted by this question: Create a Widget Area in the Navigation Bar for the Genesis Theme Framework?

In my opinion framework specific questions or questions specific to a certain theme are better handled by the forum for that framework/theme, ie questions about Genesis should be answered on the Studiopress forums and not here.

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  • Could you further explain your reasoning? What exactly do you mean by the reason you gave ("framework specific questions or questions specific to a certain theme are better handled by the forum for that framework/theme")? – Travis Northcutt Oct 7 '10 at 3:30
  • Generally premium themes and plugins have a robust support environment already in place that the purchaser has paid for. Additionally questions pertaining to specific frameworks may have nothing whatsoever to do with WordPress aside from the fact they were written for WordPress as many of these frameworks rely on a lot of custom functions (Thesis and Genesis for example). Maybe I should have specified premium themes and plugins or specified frameworks rather than blanket stating themes? – Ashley G Oct 7 '10 at 7:35
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I'm strongly in favor of having questions and answers related to 3rd party products (commercial or otherwise) here on WordPress Answers. After all, any theme or plugin is by definition also WordPress, and my experience with 3rd parties is they don't have nearly the quality mechanism for surfacing great answers as does StackExchange. Further I see the use of tags being a great way to segment said questions. I've love to come here when I have a problem with a StudioPress theme, for example, and just browse the "studiopress" tag.

What's more if we don't punish people who ask questions about 3rd party products here then we'll get more of those questions and there'll be a better change we'll engage the support people who are answering the questions (which in many cases is the company president) to spend more time contributing here.

In summary I can only see having questions about 3rd party products here to be a net gain.

JMTCW.

-Mike

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  • Fair Points. Makes a lot of sense. I hadn't looked at things in quite that way. Thanks :) – Ashley G Oct 7 '10 at 12:21
  • @Ash G: Cool! – MikeSchinkel Oct 7 '10 at 17:47
  • +1. Definitely agree. I think we should create tags for the major frameworks (genesis, headway, etc) if not already there. – Chris Dec 1 '12 at 20:19
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I think we should not place too many limits on the scope. If the question is related to WordPress, I welcome it. I use the same reasoning as in the WordPress.com vs .org discussion: if we are too strict, other sites will pick up these questions, and start answering real .org questions too.

Yes, these premium themes and plugins usually have support areas of their own, but WordPress.org also has a support forum, and that's not a reason to close this site, or is it?

Of course, the probability that someone can answer a question about code that is not freely available is lower, but not equal to zero. Stack Overflow also has lots of questions about proprietary technologies that get answers.

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  • Fair points all, but I am still concerned that we may end up with loads of framework specific questions. Noise to signal ratio and all that. Right now I can visit this site and 100% of the questions are relevant to me because they are relevant to WordPress, if not for immediate need certainly in the near future. I can't tell you how many hours I have spent on this site just reading and learning. Loads of framework specific questions will swiftly turn this into a needle and haystack search for relevance.. of course as Denis Miller says, thats just my opinion and I could be wrong ;) – Ashley G Oct 7 '10 at 8:03
  • Regarding WordPress.com vs WordPress.org, both are WordPress. The main difference between them is in restrictions placed on what you can do with .com But when dealing with frameworks you are talking about new functions specific to that framework that have nothing to do with WordPress except in how they wrap or interact with a WordPress function. These questions are IMO better suited to a general PHP or webmaster forum or the frameworks official support forum. – Ashley G Oct 7 '10 at 8:07
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    @Ash: Indeed, currently everything is relevant and interesting, but that is also because we are small. Stack Overflow is huge, but I can still browse around and learn things, by focusing on some tags or highest voted questions, or just following the questions in the "Linked" sidebar. I hope this site grows so big it will be impossible for one person to see all questions or know most users, because that will be a sign of success. – Jan Fabry Oct 7 '10 at 8:21
  • OK, You guys (Jan, Mike) are making a lot of sense. Let's grow this puppy. – Ashley G Oct 7 '10 at 12:20

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