@harryfear If @lukeseager logs into your site, they will promptly lose access to these forums and possibly have their plugins removed from this site. It really is that serious.
There is not any scenario either on the forums or via email, Twitter, DM, smoke signals, etc. where that will be permitted for any forum user.
@lukeseager Lose those credentials now. Seriously, that’s to protect you as well as users and no one wants to ask themselves “Hey, do we have any liability insurance?”
While I know you have the best of intentions, it’s forum policy that you not ask users for admin or server access. Users on the forums aren’t your customers, they’re your open source collaborators, and requesting that kind of access can put you and them at high risk.
If they are paying customers (such as people who bought a premium service/product from you) then by all means, direct them to your official customer support system. But in all other cases, you need to help them here on the forums.
Thankfully are other ways to get information you need:
You get the idea.
We know volunteer support is not easy, and this guideline can feel needlessly restrictive. It’s actually there to protect you as much as end users. Should their site be hacked or have any issues after you accessed it, you could be held legally liable for damages. In addition, it’s difficult for end users to know the difference between helpful developers and people with malicious intentions. Because of that, we rely on plugin developers and long-standing volunteers (like you) to help us and uphold this particular guideline.
When you help users here and in public, you also help the next person with the same problem. They’ll be able to read the debugging and solution and educate themselves. That’s how we get the next generation of developers.
