Response to "Developers looking for help..." by PayPal_Ashley

angelleye
Advisor
Advisor

I can't respond to that thread but I wanted to bring something to your attention.

 

The StackOverflow community does not like the way PayPal is using those forums and it's causing a lot of bad experiences for developers going there looking for help.  I see it almost every single day.

 

Users post perfectly legitimate questions at SO regarding general PayPal API questions, which product to use, etc.  The SO community, though, immediately down-votes their question and closes their question because it's "too broad" and isn't in the scope of what SO is meant for.

 

So the experience for the developer is that they can't find what they're looking for, so they go to the developer support section, which then sends them to SO, so they register and post their question, and then they're immediately given negative points in the SO system and their question is simply deleted without an answer (unless I happen to get to it in time.)

 

All too often this leads to "well, I guess I'll just use Stripe."  Ugh!

 

I've been stressing this for a long time now, but nothing has changed.  It's my opinion (based on years of providing developer support on the original developer.paypal.com, then x.com, and now SO as well as other sources) that this community would be much better for the developer support, but make a unique section here specific to developers.  

 

 

Angell EYE - www.angelleye.com
PayPal Partner and Certified Developer - Kudos are Greatly Appreciated!
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6 REPLIES 6

angelleye
Advisor
Advisor

Here's a perfect example from just a short while ago.  You can see the comment left is "This isn't a programming related question. Get in touch with PayPal directly in order to get this information."

 

So, PayPal sends the person to SO, and SO says they don't belong there and refers them back to PayPal.  That gets old very fast and people just quit.  

 

Here's another that is already down-voted.  When I answer questions like this I wind up getting slack from some other SO users, too.  

 

Again, I see this multiple times every single day.

Angell EYE - www.angelleye.com
PayPal Partner and Certified Developer - Kudos are Greatly Appreciated!
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PayPal_Frank
Administrator
Administrator

Hi angelleye,

 

Welcome to this community!  I remember you from the PayPal Developer Forums we had prior to using Stack Overflow. 🙂

 

Thanks for taking the time to provide this feedback.  I will reach out to our Developer teams to let them know and see if there is anything we can do to help remedy this problem.

 

As a long time PayPal developer, what would be your thoughts about creating a section in this community specifically for developers?  If there's interest, we can certainly explore that idea as another option for developers to get help.

 

Thanks,

Frank

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angelleye
Advisor
Advisor

Hi Frank!

 

I mentioned that in my post, actually.  I think it would be a much better idea to create a developer section within this community as opposed to redirecting people to StackOverflow.  I know that it would be a better experience for developers seeking help, and I'm pretty sure it could help the overall feel of this community, too.  At least in that section.  

 

Something that has been interesting as I've been browsing this community is that the general attitude of the posters is much different from the start.  It seems like this community attracts people who have some sort of a problem and they're already a little bit upset for one reason or another.  They come here mad and a little bit stubborn, quite frankly, so you're already sort of battling that when trying to help them.  

 

The developer forums aren't like that.  These are people who are happy with PayPal's products and who are trying to more tightly integrate PayPal products into their sites and applications.  It's not until they get passed around to a community like StackOverflow and are told to "kick rocks" more or less that they begin to develop that anger and stubborness.  

 

So the way it is now both communities end up full of frustrated people in the end.  

 

If a true developer section (just like x.com used to be) was available here, and PayPal led people here and supported it the way they're doing it with this community, not only would that eliminate the bad experience they're getting through SO, but it would also start to mix in some positive energy into this community.  

 

Just my two cents, and I may be reaching with my thoughts about how it could help this community, but I know for a fact the StackOverflow is causing a bad experience for developers so something definitely needs to be done there or PayPal will continue to lose developers to Stripe.  A single developer could bring numerous merchants on board, too, so it's not a small thing we're talking about here.

Angell EYE - www.angelleye.com
PayPal Partner and Certified Developer - Kudos are Greatly Appreciated!
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PayPal_Frank
Administrator
Administrator

Thanks for your feedback, @angelleye !  Sorry about missing that last part in your first post.

 

I personally agree with you about how combining communities would be an overall benefit for this community too.  Developers tend to have the most PayPal product knowledge which makes them great problem solvers for regular PayPal account issues.  They also tend to be good problem solvers in general. 🙂

 

Also it makes sense to avoid fragmentation of PayPal customer segments (Consumers, Merchants and Developers) in a community as their could be quite a bit of cross pollenation there.  Just as long as we make it easy to navigate and find answers/content specific to those customer groups.

 

I'll let you know when I hear back from our Developer team about this.

 

Thanks,

Frank

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angelleye
Advisor
Advisor

When you talk to them have them jump into the PayPal section of SO and just take a quick look for all the negative point questions.  Here's yet another example from today.  The guy asks a perfectly legitimate question and is immediately awarded with 2 negative point votes and 1 vote to close the question (which will soon be followed up with close votes and then it will indeed be fully closed before long.)

Angell EYE - www.angelleye.com
PayPal Partner and Certified Developer - Kudos are Greatly Appreciated!
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angelleye
Advisor
Advisor

That last example I just provided is getting even better now because now I'm getting slack for answer the question and then linking to my site for a quote request if they want more help.

 

Of course they're arguing that it's spam and now I'm getting down-voted because of it, while at the same time they tell the poster to find another source for that sort of question...when that's exactly what I'm trying to provide...another source for that type of question.

 

Eventually I'm probably going to get kicked off SO and then hardly anybody will be in there answering all these PayPal questions.  

Angell EYE - www.angelleye.com
PayPal Partner and Certified Developer - Kudos are Greatly Appreciated!
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