What Goes Where

A rough guide to categories for support on Dreamwidth, brought to you by zarhooie, domtheknight and chemicallace.

There are two types of categories: public and private. Public categories can be seen by anyone visiting the site, and any logged-in user is able to post a screened answer to the questions. Private categories are restricted to certain users with the applicable privs; only very specific people can see the requests at all, since they often contain sensitive information which might not be suitable for the public.

Confused about some of the Support jargon? See Common Jargon. For more on Support, including the lifecycle of a request, see the Support process page.

Public categories
In general, you should pick the cat which best fits the majority of the request, if there's more than one issue. If necessary, it's fine to switch cats midway through interacting with the user; maybe an answer you give for the Importer will bring up more questions which are really Entries related. There are people with privs in just one or two cats so moving requests does have an effect on who can approve answers or see discussion.

Requests in public categories tagged [mrsj] require input from staff before answering, but once the input has been obtained, they may be answered by any volunteer.

General/Unknown (g/unk)
catch-all for stuff which just doesn't fit anywhere else. You'd want to use this if it's something which doesn't fit any of the more specialized options.


 * anything feed-related
 * creating an account help
 * OpenID issues
 * things of which you are unsure of their proper location
 * If you are not sure if something is a bug or suggestion, put in in G/unk for more in-depth investigation and sorting.
 * If you do know something is a bug, you can also dump it here for filing by Support members.

Communities (comms)
things specific to community use


 * moderation queue
 * managing members
 * Can overlap with styles and entries; try to determine if the issue is caused by a community or if it's a more general issue which just happens to apply to the community in this case. Example: if someone can't post an entry to a community but can post personal entries, that's a community issue.  However, if the problem is more with html in the entry, which would happen in any entry, then it's an entries problem and not a comms problem.

Entries (entries)
entries-related problems


 * html encoding problems
 * the RTE
 * posting privately or to filters (although the basic creation of the filters is more G/unk).

Styles (styles)
styles-related problems


 * anything to do with selecting a new style
 * modifying that style
 * using custom CSS.

In-depth help may be redirected to style_system for ease of communication.

Site Interface (web)
things for site display. If you are able to change the summary of a request that falls in this cat, mark it [docs].


 * problems with the site scheme
 * site copy and FAQ updates

Importer (import)
importer-related problems, issues and questions.


 * Some importer questions do require knowledge of the function of other sites to be answered.

Crossposting (crossposting)
crossposter-related problems, issues and questions.

Private categories
Requests in private categories either contain information personal enough that it should not be on the publicly viewable support board, or require an answer from a member of a specific high-level team, or both.

For all the private cats, it's not necessary to tell the user anything before you move it; just move it and let the specialized staff investigate and answer.

Peterstein (private support)
support@dreamwidth.org to open a new request

This category is answered by staff or a Support lead.


 * anything which involves personal information but does not fall under the purview of any of the other private categories.
 * Password issues can go here if needed.
 * Dead people (reports of the death of a Dreamwidth user)

Feedback (feedback)
feedback@dreamwidth.org to open a new request

This category is answered by staff.


 * Feedback!
 * Things Dreamwidth is doing right
 * Things Dreamwidth is doing wrong
 * Requests for changes that would not benefit from public discussion

Terms of Service (abuse, ToS)
abuse@dreamwidth.org to open a new request

This category is answered by staff or a Terms of Service team member.


 * anything which will require Terms of Service Team investigation should get moved here
 * reports of a user who is possibly in danger (suicide or similar). Also get in touch with a staff member in IRC as soon as possible.
 * reports of violations of the Terms of Service
 * user-to-user interaction
 * people registering complaints about each other
 * any request that explicitly names another user in a negative light
 * complaint about spam that names another user as the spammer

Account Payments (accounts)
accounts@dreamwidth.org to open a new request

This category is answered by staff.


 * anything about payments goes here
 * requests for invite codes of any size, from large numbers of invite codes for things like moving an RP to Dreamwidth to "can I have a few more invites for my friends".
 * Non-spam business propositions. ("Would you like to buy some V1@gr@?" is spam; "Are you in the market for new hosting? If so, would you like to use our fine establishment?" is probably not.)
 * Typos in usernames.
 * Anything needing the specific attention of Denise.

Webmaster (webmaster)
webmaster@dreamwidth.org to open a new request

Items in this category typically need no answer.


 * for spam that has been sent to the support board (a request of "would you like to buy V1@gr@?" is spam that has been sent to the support board. "This user is spamming me!" is not spam.)
 * to handle spam, dequeue and place in Webmaster
 * Non-spam items are moved out and into their appropriate category.

dw-suggestions

 * Requests for a new feature
 * If the feature exists, G/unk
 * If the feature does not exist, but a bug exists, G/unk and tell the user we're working on it.
 * If the feature does not exist, but a suggestion exists, point to suggestion.
 * If the feature does not exist, and neither a bug or a suggestions exists, suggestions time.
 * Requests for site changes that would benefit from public discussion

dw_codesharing
Users who would like additional codes, people who would like larger amounts of codes to move a group, or someone opening a request, send to Accounts.
 * Non-users wanting small amounts of codes in comments elsewhere on the site
 * Non-users wanting small amounts of codes offsite

style_system

 * Detailed advanced customization things.