Do you even look at how many posts are put here every day for basic things most could work out by reading the already written documentation? People sign up for Plex Pass thinking Plex is Netflix because they couldn’t be bothered to spend 5 minutes of their time researching what Plex is for gods sake. It’s not really surprising they can’t get to every single post. The best you can do is give a detailed description of the problem, steps to reproduce, server and client logs and hope a Ninja can help.
@wwwizzarrdry said:
If we wanted to be ignored, we’d post on Google’s feedback channels.
Then stop posting duplicate questions which have already been answered, or have answers available by simple searching. They have stated many times they don’t comment on timelines or announced features.
Plex employee’s jobs are to write code, not to answer the exact same question over and over and over again just so people get to feel all warm and fuzzy by having individual contract. If that the is experience you wan’t, go talk to your parents.
Interesting replies. They do get quite a few new user questions, but those are things a community can answer. I’m referring more to incomplete features that require updating and feedback.
You seem to forget, the whole point of Plex Pass was to get early access to new beta features. But what use is a paid beta program if there is no communication.
Remember, I’m posting in the Plex pass channel, not the new user General Discussion. Please channel your anger through another post.
@wwwizzarrdry said:
Interesting replies. They do get quite a few new user questions, but those are things a community can answer. I’m referring more to incomplete features that require updating and feedback.
You seem to forget, the whole point of Plex Pass was to get early access to new beta features. But what use is a paid beta program if there is no communication.
Remember, I’m posting in the Plex pass channel, not the new user General Discussion. Please channel your anger through another post.
I’m sorry what anger? My anger is usually directed at the people who pay for Plex Pass and don’t research what it is and expect this to be some sort of Netflix.
I don’t imagine the Sonos userbase for Plex, this being different from Sonos as a whole, is particularly large. Generally, the larger the userbase, the more love the development team give it. I don’t see this as unfair as it’s their product but often it is not communicated to us as much as we would like so I understand that kind of frustration.
@wwwizzarrdry said:
I know you’re big shots now, but that’s even more of a reason to frequent your forums and acknowledge all the channels.
Why are there so many unanswered posts dating back months and years? Sonos beta channel for example.
If we wanted to be ignored, we’d post on Google’s feedback channels.
You ask for Plex support of channels but Plex has repeatedly stated that the support for channels comes from the channel developer(s). That actually makes perfect sense and to get support for any channel you should post in the forums for the channels and, if there is one, the subforum for the particular channel you need help with. You should also direct all channel questions to the developer of the channel involved.
Plex often does exhibit a perPlexing silence or they answer with non-answers or evasive answers. But, in the case of channels, that is perfectly understandable.
But questions asked in the correct forum and in the correct format and with enough info for an answer to be possible are mostly answered by Plex or ninjas or knowledgeable users very quickly and very accurately. That is not where I believe Plex’s weakness lies.
For me Plex’s problems do not include a lack of channel support but that lack comes from the channel developing community and the developers themselves. With that we need to keep in mind that the channel developer is often just one person often with a life outside of Plex channel development and they are UNPAID for the work they do to develop channels. I have a few channel installed but I use them rarely and when they fail I just use something else as no channel I have present the only way to accomplish a task.
Plex is not, primarily, a channel support platform so they, Plex, should continue to allow the channels API access so they can run within the Plex environment as that is convenient but Plex should also continue a mostly hands off policy for channels as they do not need to get bogged down in developing for this fringe part of the overall Plex experience.
Lol, nice post, Elijah_Baley. But I was referring to Forum channels. Not plugins.
Example:
Forum > Plex Pass
Channel > Plex Web
Thread > Your Subject Here…
It’s pretty normal to expect (if not demand) a strong and frequent moderating presence from a forum host. In this case it’s Plex Inc. I think they need to hire a community manager to engage the forums daily. That’s what big boys do.
I agree with you. It’s frustrating to see free apps giving support to their users and here Plex send their paying clients to their forums, and most times they don’t even care to answer.
There are a lot of threads for us to get to. We try our best. Yes, our involvement in the Sonos section is a bit light. We’ll try ti improve. Sometimes it just takes a nudge.
That’s why a ticketing system would be preferable. I’ve had similar issues with other projects and was able to stem the flood by starting users off in the FAQ then the forums and then any thread that received X amount of upvotes automatically escalates to an official ticket that needs to be resolved.
Simple community management and engagement. Does Plex actually expect you guys to.monitor all of these channels manually? No wonder it’s such a mess.
@PanzerX said:
I agree with you. It’s frustrating to see free apps giving support to their users and here Plex send their paying clients to their forums, and most times they don’t even care to answer.
Can I take off my “Plex Volunteer” hat a minute?
It’s frustrating to me too. One thing I know, because I’m involved in it, is how hard these guys are working to pull the whole ‘support’ thing in line. Here’s the problem: Accounting folks always insist those things are setup right up front so that whole support/ issue system was in place before Plex Pass was even ‘born’. The forums existed long before that.
As I said, Billing/Accounting started out fresh. Here’s the challenge for the forum and, most importantly, support as I see it. PLEASE remember, this is Chuck speaking and NOT ChuckPa the vounteer
What to do with ALL the posts which are tagged as ‘Unanswered’, because somebody forgot to click the “Yes” button. Delete or archive if older than X?
How to sort and prioritize those which remain to get the most out of the efforts of the staff and the volunteers in dealing with them.
Can a ticket system be dropped in? Yes. How do you take this forum from it’s current “Official & User Community” role into a purely “User Community forum” role and split off those unanswered questions into a “Ticket Support & Tracking” system?
I will share this as well. I’m not looking for ANY response in ANY way regarding this. I simply state fact. I get some 200+ Plex-related emails a day for just the areas of the forum I can help with. Most from user forums which I work with (~150+) which I reply to and usually resolve the problem outright and others from Ninjas, other Plex staff (support and devs) about issues relating to those user issues and what needs to be done. I’m a volunteer and still put in a LOT of hours.
If I may make a request, When you help someone or you yourselves have something solved? Please mark the box it’s solved? When somebody else has the same problem answered, They’ll see it was answered in that thread and worth the time to go read and see if it applies. It has the side benefit of helping maintain the forum itself.
For now, we’re stuck with this but they ARE pushing HARD to make it better. Can we all pitch in and do our part? I am.
@wwwizzarrdry said:
That’s why a ticketing system would be preferable. I’ve had similar issues with other projects and was able to stem the flood by starting users off in the FAQ then the forums and then any thread that received X amount of upvotes automatically escalates to an official ticket that needs to be resolved.
Simple community management and engagement. Does Plex actually expect you guys to.monitor all of these channels manually? No wonder it’s such a mess.
A little less Lemon and lot more Apple and Strawberries please…
@MovieFan.Plex said:
We are looking at ways to improve our coverage and support.
A simple way is to have a ticketing support. For example, a plex pass member should be permitted to ask up to 5 questions at year on system configuration or bugs. I think thst the limit is useful in order to avoid to have a lot of noise frkm the forum.
The problem with tickets is that the support becomes one on one. If there is a common problem, we may get 10 tickets with the same issue that we then have to answer 10 times. With the forums, it can be kept in 1 thread and only need 1 response. It’s already heard enough keeping up with the number if individual threads. Trying to keep up with individual tickets would be even more time consuming and I would think there would be even less coverage in the forums, which would then lead to more tickets, and things would just snowball.
What I think we need is a better way to organize questions and answers. This could reduce the number of repeat questions or allow users to better find an answer so they don’t need to post a question in the first place. What we need is better efficiency. How to accomplish that, I don’t know, but the team is looking into ideas.
It might help to reverse the Plex pass forums and the “general” ones. A lot of repetitive nonsense ends up in this board just because people have bought a Plex pass.
If the general forums were at the top, people who have a Plex pass and a more “serious” problem would take the trouble to browse for a category where their issues are more likely to be seen. The ones who just want to mouth off in the first board they come across (as someone said above, the type of people who buy a Plex pass thinking they bought a Netflix subscription) will use the general forums by default. And these Plexpass sections remain cleaner as a result.
At least that way people can feel just a little bit “special” because they plunked money into this - and in matters like these, all little bits help
@MovieFan.Plex said:
The problem with tickets is that the support becomes one on one. If there is a common problem, we may get 10 tickets with the same issue that we then have to answer 10 times. With the forums, it can be kept in 1 thread and only need 1 response. It’s already heard enough keeping up with the number if individual threads. Trying to keep up with individual tickets would be even more time consuming and I would think there would be even less coverage in the forums, which would then lead to more tickets, and things would just snowball.
What I think we need is a better way to organize questions and answers. This could reduce the number of repeat questions or allow users to better find an answer so they don’t need to post a question in the first place. What we need is better efficiency. How to accomplish that, I don’t know, but the team is looking into ideas.
You are right. For this reason I suggest to give a upper limit and use front end tool that permits to search before to post an issue (a sort of bugzilla). The plex pass users (that payed for a support) are asking to have a feedback.
For example, I had issues with DTS that is not working in the last LG client (but I suppose that the functionality is broken on all clients). I asked on the forum but I haven’t received an official statement. BTW, I’m not asking for a step-by-step solution but a statement like “We already know the bug and we are working on it” or “We decided to remove the feature because…”. If I have 5 bug report ticket (not a infinite) I will have a chance to have a official statement. Users are asking for a feedback not for the solution
Another idea is to select some beta-users for each available platform. These power-uses should have access to the ticketing system in order to post the discovered users.
Who is a power-user? Is a user that is able to describe an issue in an understandable way. A user that is able to follow suggestion by team in order to replicate the issue. Plex already has the Beta forums, someone in plex should give a look to these forums in order to select some true beta-tester.
@MovieFan.Plex said:
The problem with tickets is that the support becomes one on one. If there is a common problem, we may get 10 tickets with the same issue that we then have to answer 10 times. With the forums, it can be kept in 1 thread and only need 1 response.
While I do see your point, the forums generally result in 10 threads with the same issue instead And many projects use open bug trackers where anyone can see what bugs are reported and continue commenting on these bugs.
I think one problem with the current system is that the list of known issues was written September 12th and last updated in early October. If this list was up to date with brief descriptions of important issues, and links to a canonical thread for each issue, the discussions might become more focused. There might also be fewer threads that keep bringing up the same issue simply because it is clear that Plex is aware of the issues. “Important” might mean issues that the Plex team feels are important, or issues that several users bring up, regardless of what the Plex team feels. Of course some of this (when it comes to features) might be against the apparent policy of never revealing anything about the future.