1342154 - Top contributor leaderboard on KB causes unsolicited PMs

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(support.mozilla.org - Lithium :: User Experience & Design, defect)

Description

[Joni Chan]

Top contributors are getting support questions via private messaging because the leaderboard is prominent on the page.

We need to remove the leaderboard from the article list and possibly turn off private messaging by unregistered users.

This bug is to track this issue.

Comment 1

[Alice Wyman]

Copied from IRC #sumo
http://logs.glob.uno/?c=mozilla%23sumo&s=23+Feb+2017&e=23+Feb+2017

18:10	Tonnes	received an 8th PM that will be the last one since I'll turn PMs off in a minute (assumming that will disable all of them, serious contact attempts can be done by email)
18:10	Tonnes	and I have no intention to reply to them
18:10	Tonnes	Subject: How do I send a request for help?
18:10	Tonnes	From: wrangler53
18:10	Tonnes	Date: 23-02-2017 09:34 AM
18:10	Tonnes	I cannot find any place to submit a request for help. I've tried Help, Trouble shooting, Contact us, etc. but all I get is a list of topics. I have submitted requests in the past.

One cause of unsolicited PMs asking for support could be that it's hard to find links to ask a question.  When I use the in-product "Firefox Help" link from the Firefox menu, it takes me to https://support.mozilla.org/t5/Firefox/ct-p/Firefox where there are links to Firefox KB topics but no ask a question link.  On the old SUMO site there were plenty of "ask a question" links.  On the new site, I only see an "Ask the Community" link on the https://support.mozilla.org home page.  

Additionally, on the old SUMO site the Product pages had "Get Community Support" links to this page: https://support.mozilla.org/t5/Contributor-Knowledge-Base/Get-community-support/ta-p/26357
I've updated that article, for those who manage to find it, and moved it from the Documents Archive (if I remember right) to the Contributor KB.

I was going to file a bug for getting more "ask a question" links, at least on the product landing pages, but I'll leave that to someone else to file.

Comment 2

[John Hesling [:John99] (NeedInfo me)]

(In reply to Joni Savage ("need info" me) from comment #0)
> Top contributors are getting support questions via private messaging because
> the leaderboard is prominent on the page.

Is it not a feature of Lithium that it has gamification, and we seemed to think that is good.
The leaderboard is probably the main type of gamification we are currently using.
Might a better solution be to just not link to the leaders pm and profile. Show just the name and avatar, thus retaining the gamification but not the immediate easy access to a PM link. That may be enough to reduce the problem. (Yes I realise it is still possible from thread links but that is still the case if you remove the leaderboard.)
> 
> We need to remove the leaderboard from the article list and possibly turn
> off private messaging by unregistered users.
> 
Both removing the leaderboard and turning off private messaging may be excessive.
As far as I am aware unregistered users are not able to PM.  Try yourself whilst signed out.
Turning off PMs for none contributors has disadvantages. Moderation procedures may well employ sending PMs to non contributors, so we should preferably leave that as a possibility, and it would probably be best if the unregistered contributor could then reply to a PM. At the very least maybe we should ensure two way PMs between Mods and non contributors remains as a possibility. 
 
> This bug is to track this issue.
So I take it it is ok to collect comments and ideas here then, and one or more separate bugs will be filed for any action.

(In reply to Alice Wyman from comment #1)
> ...
> One cause of unsolicited PMs asking for support could be that it's hard to
> find links to ask a question.  When I use the in-product "Firefox Help" link
> from the Firefox menu, it takes me to
> https://support.mozilla.org/t5/Firefox/ct-p/Firefox where there are links to
> Firefox KB topics but no ask a question link.  On the old SUMO site there
> were plenty of "ask a question" links.  ...
> 
> I was going to file a bug for getting more "ask a question" links, at least
> on the product landing pages, but I'll leave that to someone else to file.

Anecdotally there seem to be less questions now than on Kitsune, I have not tried to obtain metrics but that sounds a plausible reason for both any reduction in questions and the increase in nuisance PMs

Additionally support questions can obviously and intentionally  be found from external searches.
In Lithium that includes unsolved open questions. Such pages have a link for becoming a contributor (see also bug1340917 there are such links on many pages) but not for asking a question. That is likely to result in inappropriate actions from non contributors
* joining as a contributor when they only need to ask a question as a user (or whatever the politically correct term)
* Hijacking of threads, where someone asks a secondary question
* Private Messaging - those threads still have contributors links 

I have filed a bug to add additional ask a question links Bug 1342576

Comment 3

[Alice Wyman]

Related discussion on excessive PMs in the Moderators forum at
https://support.mozilla.org/t5/Moderator-Discussions/Random-PMs-This-one-needs-reply/td-p/1363954/

Comment 4

[Alice Wyman]

Marking INVALID. We aren't moving back to Lithium - see https://blog.mozilla.org/sumo/2017/06/28/important-platform-update/