← All module guides

Help Requests

Public Q&A forum. The "duty librarian" model — anyone (member or visitor) posts a research question; volunteers answer when they can, out of comradery, not for a fee. The questions and answers stay searchable on your site, growing into a knowledge base over time.

This is the free path. The Research Services module is the optional paid escalation for cases that genuinely need many hours of focused work.

What you can do

  • Public submission — visitors fill out a form; a simple sum and an email check keep spam out.
  • Members and staff answer on the question's page; the time each answer took is added to the volunteer's hours.
  • Mark helpful answers with a star, so the best ones stand out.
  • The asker (or staff) accepts one answer, which closes the thread, or marks it resolved.
  • A public archive of open and resolved questions, with a search box that looks in titles, descriptions and tags.
  • Spam controls — the sum, email verification, and a limit of three questions per email address a day.
  • The asker is emailed when someone answers.

How to put a Q&A page on your site

The one page you need is a Research Help page. Research → Research Help offers to make it for you if you don't have one; to make it by hand, Website → Pages → Add New Page and set Page Type to Research Help Requests. It lists the questions, has an Ask a Question button, and is where each question's full thread opens and members answer.

You can also put the pieces on other pages:

  • Ask page — the Help Request Submission Form widget, or [sp_help_request_submit]. The form takes name, email, title, description and optional tags, and asks the sum.
  • Archive — the Help Requests Archive widget, or [sp_help_requests_archive]. It lists open questions first, then resolved ones, each with its tags, and has a search box. Clicking a question opens its thread on the Research Help page, so keep that page even if you use the widget elsewhere.

A homepage button reading "Got a research question? Ask the community" that links to the ask page works well.

How submissions actually flow

  1. A visitor fills in the form, answers the sum ("what is 5 + 7?"), and submits.
  2. SocietyPress emails them a link to confirm their address.
  3. They click it, and the question goes live in the archive.
  4. Signed-in members answer it on the question's page, and say how long it took (5, 15, 30 minutes, an hour, or their own figure). That time goes into their volunteer hours. The asker gets an email each time someone answers.
  5. The asker (or staff) accepts the answer that solved it, which closes the thread, or marks it resolved.

How to moderate

Research → Research Help is the admin list. Filter it by status, or search it.

Bulk actions: tick rows and choose Mark Resolved, Hide or Delete. A notice at the top shows how many questions are still waiting for the asker to confirm their email.

Help Tags, in the same area, lets you tidy the tags people have used.

How to control abuse

Each email address can submit three questions a day, and each internet address nine (three times as many, since a library or a household can share one). Neither number can be changed from the admin yet.

Email verification means a made-up or mistyped address can't post — the question never goes live until the link is clicked.

There's no setting yet to hold every question for a moderator before it goes live. To deal with something already posted, hide or delete it from the admin list.

How to use tags

Tags are free text on the form: someone types "sample county, marriage records, 1850s" and SocietyPress keeps them. They show on each question in the archive, and the archive's search box looks in them, so searching "marriage records" finds questions tagged that way.

If something looks wrong

The form says "Bad request — please refresh." The sum or the form's security token expired (each is good for 30 minutes). Refresh the page and try again.

The verification email doesn't arrive. Check your site can send email at all — "Lost your password?" on the sign-in page with your own address is the quickest test. If that never arrives, see Email Setup. Ask the visitor to look in their junk folder too.

Spam is getting through. Hide or delete the posts from the admin list. If it's a sustained attack from one place, block the source at your host's firewall.

  • Research Services — paid escalation when free help isn't enough
  • Members — non-members can ask, but members can endorse + accept answers