1631250 - Redesign led to increase in misplaced support requests in the contributor forums

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(support.mozilla.org :: General, enhancement)

Description

[[:philipp]]

Attachment: 2020-04-19 14_32_59-Start.png

After the redesign of the site there has been a noticeable increase of misplaced support requests going into the contributor section at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/forums/contributors.

The Contributor Tools section in the header is shown to every user that's logged-in and apparently the discussions section there leads some users to post their question into the contributor forums, since it is more recognisable as a forum and it features a "post a new thread" button which makes it easier to post than going through the more opaque ask-a-question steps where it's less clear that you end up in a support forum after completing those.

there may be a few ways of addressing this:

• only display the "contributor tools" menu and/or the discussions section to users who are logged in AND who have signed up as volunteers (=part of the "Registered as contributor" user group).
• display the contributor tools to everyone but make the contributor forums section read-only for users who have not signed up as volunteers.
• add a way for moderators to move a misplaced support request from the contributors forum into a product section of the support forum.

Comment 1

[Kelimutu [:kiki]]

I noticed this too. I like the idea of moving the request from contributor forum to AAQ, but I'm not sure how complex the implementation will be (in addition that it'll become extra work for the moderators). Showing the menu only for those who are registered on the contributor group seems more doable at this point.

Comment 2

[Alice Wyman]

Attachment: SUMOheader-GetHelpLink.png

Another part of the problem:
When I hover over Get Help in the header, it opens a menu with an "Ask the Community" section that has problems (see bug 1630720). When I context-click on Get Help and open it in a new tab or window, it takes me to https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/ which is the Support Forum page for contributors who are answering questions (there is no link there to ask a support question). Get Help (a well as "Browse All Product Forums", which also opens the Support Forum page) should link to https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new instead.

Comment 3

[Alice Wyman]

Related github issues: https://github.com/mozilla/sumo-project/issues/379 and https://github.com/mozilla/sumo-project/issues/396

Comment 4

[Andrew Truong [:feer56] [:andrewtruong] [:atruong]]

(In reply to Alice Wyman from comment #2)

Created attachment 9141781 [details]
SUMOheader-GetHelpLink.png

Another part of the problem:
When I hover over Get Help in the header, it opens a menu with an "Ask the Community" section that has problems (see bug 1630720). When I context-click on Get Help and open it in a new tab or window, it takes me to https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/ which is the Support Forum page for contributors who are answering questions (there is no link there to ask a support question). Get Help (a well as "Browse All Product Forums", which also opens the Support Forum page) should link to https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new instead.

I agree. The majority of the misplaced requests are for Thunderbird as it is not listed in "Get Help" when users hover on it and if they choose "Browse all Product Forums" and select Thunderbird, they are taken to see all the questions for Thunderbird instead of the AAQ flow.

Comment 6

[Emil Ghitta, QA [:emilghitta]]

I believe that this issue is fixed with the new design.

The "Contributor Tools" and "Contributor discussions forums" are only available via the top-navbar for signed in volunteer users/contributors.