The status of your support issue is indicated on the "Current Status" line in the issue summary on the support tab. Here's an explanation of the terms you might see there:
- Available
- This means an issue has been created through our secure support system, but has not yet been picked up by or assigned to a specific individual yet. "Please hold for the next available representative."
- Received
- Since we can't provide membership-private information in response to email requests, issues that are created from emails sent to support@NearlyFreeSpeech.NET are marked as "Received" instead of "Available." Issues like this will usually have to be resubmitted or confirmed by logging in to your membership (provided you are eligible for email support), but we'll read them first to make sure they don't say, "Help, I can't log in to my membership!"
- In Queue
- Once a specific person has reviewed and claimed your issue, it moves to the "In Queue" status. Issues in this status are typically worked on in the order in which they are received or updated, subject to the issue's requested priority level and our best judgment.
- Pending Auto-Close
- Once we have responded to an issue, we will usually consider it resolved unless you reply back within 24 hours with more information. During those 24 hours, the issue will be flagged as "Pending Auto-Close" in our system.
- No Subscription
- This an issue that would qualify for individual support under a subscription membership, but the person who submitted it has a baseline membership that does not include individual support, so we cannot proceed with it. If you obtain a subscription within 24 hours, the issue will be automatically reactivated. Otherwise, it will time out and our system will close it. (You can also retrieve the text of an issue in this status using the View Support History action from the Support tab, for example to repost it to our forum.)
- In Progress
- It's relatively rare to see an issue in this state, because most issues are resolved quickly and move straight from "In Queue" to "Pending Auto-Close." However, if an issue requires an unusually large amount of work to complete, we try to move it into the "In Progress" status while we work on it to let you know that. This most frequently happens with things like installation of software into our CGI environment.
- Awaiting Response
- Sometimes we can't allow an issue to be closed until we hear back from you. Usually that happens when we open the issue instead of you. In such cases, the issue moves to "Awaiting Response" until we hear from you.
- Pending Verify
- After we've established that a "Received" issue doesn't involve logging in, we'll send you a message telling you to log in and confirm it. Once that's done, your issue moves to this state. If you don't confirm it within 24 hours, it'll close and you'll have to start over.
- Waiting
- This issue was received or updated outside our normal hours. Once our standard support hours arrive, it will automatically change to some other more appropriate status. (During the day, our system only checks its watch once per minute, so a new or updated issue might linger as "waiting" for up to a minute before jumping over to a more active status.)
- Blocked
- Blocked issues are awaiting response or information from a third party (i.e. not you and not us).
- Sleeping
- Sometimes we need to defer an issue for a specific amount of time. For example, we may say "we'll check this tomorrow afternoon to make sure it is still working." In such cases, the issue is marked as "Sleeping" until the appointed time arrives. Sleeping issues provide their own built-in alarm clocks.
- Completed
- When happy issues reach the end of their life with us, they go away to live at the "Completed" farm where they are free to run and frolic all day long.
- Killed
- People (usually non-members) occasionally send email to support or abuse like "Please take down the so-and-so site! It offends me." The resulting issues do not get to go live on a farm upstate.