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It looks like you guys have stopped supporting WooCommernce tags, and Woo Support doesn't seem to want to help unless you're a paying customer - so where's a good place to ask WooCommerce centered questions now? Where do I take my WooCommerce inquires?

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    Not gone yet, but yes - heading that way. Good question, I would be happy to have destination to point to myself (which I currently don't).
    – Rarst
    Dec 8, 2013 at 22:04
  • I would probably just move onto large variety forums that have WordPress sections such as Sitepoint and such.
    – Howdy_McGee Mod
    Dec 9, 2013 at 17:59
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    As someone who periodically finds a few minutes to look at the odd question and actually provide an answer, it's now too hard to be bothered answering any for WooCommerce because I can't do a quick tag scan. Removing the tag is marginalising the users of WooCommerce. I feel sorry for the admins faced with so many poor-quality questions that need rejecting, but this solution won't help answer the few legitimate questions about WooCommerce integration; instead it will push those answer seekers away. Smells bad.
    – webaware
    Dec 13, 2013 at 4:16

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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So far we have not abandoned Woo* stuff. The problem remains and we're still trying to find a solution. But like you, we're at the very end of that problem. We can't solve a problem that

  1. wasn't generated by us
  2. isn't maintained by us
  3. is impossible to fix by us.

In short: You can fix that problem by asking Woo themselves - it's their customers, their problem, their take - or simply drop it in favor of some other (platform) plugin that has a different support culture (by the authors as well as by the users - like you). You could start with Jigoshop. At least it's the original plugin that was forked by Woo and then was renamed to WooCommerce.

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    disagree with the somewhat hateful tone towards woo. many open source projects make money by selling support and it is a legitimate business decision. The problem is people are too cheap to buy support even when they use it for stores in which the cost will be negligible compared to the store's revenue. moving to jigoshop will just generate the same type of problem there.
    – Mark Kaplun
    Dec 11, 2013 at 9:32
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    @MarkKaplun there's no hateful tone. Just a very annoyed one. Had you seen that they just linked to the main site for month and called this site their community forum? And honestly: Forking the most popular shop system that had a very well working eco system and then abandoning all of the people who use it for free, just destroyed the Jigoshop community and brought a problem to the table that didn't exist previously. And who should now fix it? We or Woo? Imo the one who built the problem.
    – kaiser
    Dec 11, 2013 at 14:55
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    @MarkKaplun woo doesn't owe anyone free support. However we don't owe woo good attitude and looking after their users, when they did exactly nothing to help and couple things to hurt on top.
    – Rarst
    Dec 12, 2013 at 12:08
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    @rarst, I agree that no one needs to look after woo clients instead of them (or clients just need to start and pay) , but they are not the only plugin for which you need to pay for support (WPML comes to mind) but they are being signaled out more then others. I just don't think it is constructive.
    – Mark Kaplun
    Dec 12, 2013 at 16:24
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    @MarkKaplun I think the reason Woo is being singled out more than others is because of the jump in Woo questions lately, it's a flavor of the month type thing. If we were swarmed with WPML questions it would be the same situation i'm sure. That being said, I feel if we allow Woo questions then the site opens itself up to "where do we draw the line" when it comes to plugins, which is currently clearly off topic. I guess I don't see why Woo can't open their support forums to the public...
    – Howdy_McGee Mod
    Dec 16, 2013 at 16:42
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    No hateful tone and really like the plugin personally but its hard to support a 3rd party plugin and thats why it gets marked as off topic so many times. You are right, people are too cheap to buy support which is why they come here. Woo need to think about offering free plugins without support rather than expect the WordPress community to find a solution. Woo get exposure and can then up-sell so its there responsibility to work out a solution.
    – Brad Dalton
    Feb 20, 2014 at 21:57
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Behold!

Apparently there is community.woocommerce.com site, which welcomes all the questions "related to the topic".

Perfect place to point all those WooCommerce questions from here.

And it’s dead since.

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  • Nearly fell out of my chair just now.
    – bosco
    Feb 18, 2014 at 20:08
  • This answer needs an update... sadly.
    – kaiser
    May 31, 2014 at 0:43
  • It's not really a very considered environment - the community there is as large and vibrent as all the zeros on the comments and answers. This isn't feeling like its really an option at all.
    – orionrush
    Jun 8, 2014 at 16:35
  • @orionrush sorry, I don't quite follow what you mean?
    – Rarst
    Jun 8, 2014 at 16:46
  • community.woocommerce.com seems a bit of a wasteland, though perhaps Im being harsh, it may be too early to tell. But this morning for example, you have to dig three pages down (30 question per) before you discover any dialogue, and those questions were two to three days old. Maybe those questions were all very poor, but zero conversation? That says to me that expertise and community dosent seem to be present. Yes its an option, just not a very promising one. Perhaps this will change.
    – orionrush
    Jun 9, 2014 at 0:18
  • @orionrush not that they still hadn't actually launched it publicly. But frankly (if a little burnt out on the situation) — their product, their problem. :)
    – Rarst
    Jun 9, 2014 at 9:21
  • FYI - this link now appears to lead to a random Korean language site :(
    – Tim Malone
    Aug 6, 2016 at 7:37
  • Indeed. Edited the answer and pinged them about it.
    – Rarst
    Aug 6, 2016 at 8:13
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WooCommerce support questions have always been off-topic for WPSE, as defined in our scope: questions not specific to WordPress are off-topic, even if they happen in the context of WordPress (such as in a WordPress Plugin).

We're simply making an effort to make that more clear.

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    Valid point, but not an answer to a question where to ask those questions now. Not that we can do much on that point about world outside... :(
    – Rarst
    Dec 18, 2013 at 23:18
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I had made a recent question here related to WooCommerce and it is "on hold" and the moderator sent me a link to a Woo forum and pointed that the question should be asked there. Well, they didn't answered. And you know why? Because they have their own "premium" forum where users pay for their support.

One question I made displayed another related question where the answer was something similitar to "yes, we have that product and you can buy it from us". Well, for me that is not the perfect answer. I want my problem solved AND I want to learn from it. I'm not able to pay for something I could do with a little of research.

My point of view is that WooCommerce is a third-party plugin but it is still WordPress. It uses the modularity of WP to create their things so anyone who knows well WP and have some knowledge of WooCommerce could easily answer a Woo question. And at least, wasn't this forum a place to help and be helped? Or some guys here just want to be the "Masters of WordPress but not related plugins"?

You guys are making "orphans" here. Sad to see brilliant minds making bad choices. If you think a question shouldn't be answered, just don't. Removing the tag and closing related questions is a type of segregation.

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  • It would take a significant amount of time to get familiar with such a large plugin like WooCommerce (this really goes for any plugin on WP) that the experts in the certain plugin are so slim on this forum that most Woo questions would probably go unanswered either way. That being said, I agree - Woo Community does seem bias when answering questions to point to their products that they wante you to purchase. That's happened to me a few times on there. That doesn't mean there aren't people on there that are helpful and will code out an answer, it's that they're few and far inbetween.
    – Howdy_McGee Mod
    Apr 4, 2014 at 21:08
  • Unfortunately the choice isn't between "closed as off topic" and "perfectly answered question". The reality is that WooCommerce questions are not getting answered most of the time and they are annoying people who are here for actual topic of the stack — WordPress. WooCommerce is clearly giant product in general WordPress ecosystem. However it is not WordPress and proven itself to be failing topic here.
    – Rarst
    Apr 5, 2014 at 18:32
  • Understood. Nothing more to say, wish you guys best of luck "cleaning the house".
    – Rico Letterman
    Apr 5, 2014 at 20:42
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    "Well, for me that is not the perfect answer. I want my problem solved AND I want to learn from it. I'm not able to pay for something I could do with a little of research." - yes, and I'd like to be paid $250 an hour for answering support questions, but as WPSE is a volunteer site, that's not going to happen. :) - WooThemes, including WooCommerce, is a commercial endeavor. They have a right to charge for their support. We don't have to agree to subsidize it for those who don't want to pay.
    – Chip Bennett
    Apr 6, 2014 at 20:57
  • Sorry @Chip Bennett, I think I didn't used the right words. Sure that nobody have any obligation to answer questions here and they have the right to charge for their services. I just think that most of the questions here aren't way complex that a person with good WordPress knowledge couldn't answer. I don't want to create another discussion about it.
    – Rico Letterman
    Apr 7, 2014 at 4:09

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