Recently, there has been an increase in the number of experts who try to take their answers offline. Rather than answering on our sites, they simply say “Please contact me”. Whatever happens then, happens away from the public eye.
We have received many complaints about this, both via email and on this blog (see the comments on this post, for instance), and also on Twitter.
Taking conversations offline hurts the community, and departs from the vision of what role these sites are suppose to serve. A degree of openness was assumed when we first discussed the idea of these sites a year ago. More so, offline answers frustrate the other people who may wish to answer, and therefore drive away the experts whom the sites need if they are to thrive. For instance, in the comments on this blog, Lew Ayotte wrote:
It frustrates me greatly to see the “Please contact me” answers. Usually to the point that I completely ignore the questions because I assume that the Asker has already contacted the Expert and given them extra information needed to answer the question.
Darren Hoyt and I discussed the issue today and decided we are going to move to forbid this kind of thing. For now, this ban will be informally enforced. When you see an expert post “Please contact me offline” write to us and let us know. We will contact that expert and talk to them. If they do it repeatedly, despite warnings, we will delete their account.
I realize there will, at times, be extraordinary circumstances where offline contact is altogether justified (for instance, a $600 project can not easily be handled on the site). And that is why we prefer to keep this informal for now. In general, however, questions should be answered on the site. As much as possible, the information should be public. We are dealing with open source software, and the whole community gains from openness.
And, just to be clear, this applies to all of our sites. Most of the discussions so far have been about WP Questions, because that is our most active site, but these rules apply to all of our sites.
I enjoy following WPQuestions on Twitter. There’s a lot of good information to be found there, but I was about to stop following it because of this exact reason. I’m very glad to hear that steps are being taken to keep the information online and public.
Gary, I’m glad you enjoy all the information on WP Questions. If you see any more of the “Please contact me” non-answers, please write to us and let us know.
@Lawrence: Well you know I’m all in favor of this, but how will you notify the experts on the sites themselves? Maybe one of the FAQs on the about page?
darrinb, yes, in 2 ways:
1.) We will add to the FAQ.
2.) I will be writing to the experts individually, when I see them breaking the rules.
If you see someone breaking the rules, feel free to send them the URL of this post, or tell me and I’ll write to them.
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